Article

See with His Eyes

Do you know that feeling you get when the Lord is telling you to do something, but you aren’t one hundred percent sure yet what it exactly is that He wants you to do?

Well, that’s how foster care started for me. I was fresh out of graduate school and searching for a job when God basically placed foster care in my lap. Although I had been exposed to much of the world’s heartache as I was growing up, I was blown away with the level of hurt, need, and brokenness right under my nose—and not just brokenness for the children in care, but for their families, for the system trying to serve them, and for the other staff around me. God used that time of service to bring me face-to-face with the people that He loves so dearly and to remind me that He has an even greater passion for them than I could dream of having.

A precious coworker and mentor at this first job taught me a great life lesson that I have carried with me since that time.

Her motto for all of her work was “but by the grace of God go I”. She taught me a great deal about seeing others with the Lord’s eyes, about loving people where they are, and loving them for the strengths that God has given them. God used this and my experiences there to weave foster care so deeply into my heart that even after transitioning from my first job to other positions, He continued to gently nudge me back in that direction. So, when I moved back to Alabama and found Lifeline, I felt God’s persistent tugging to go where social work started for me. And, oh, what a blessing it has been! To be able to play a part in equipping families to care for vulnerable people and to walk with these families as they live and love so deeply has been a beautiful and overwhelming chance to see God in action. And, what a blessing to be reminded, on an almost daily basis, that God is moving in foster care.

He is here. He is love. And I am beyond blessed to get to see Him use foster care for His glory.

Jennifer Travis, Alabama Domestic Services Supervisor

For more on Lifeline’s Foster Care Ministry, watch this video HERE.