FACT

FACT Foster and Adoption Care Team of Grace Church Plano

09/04/2026

I believe foster care brings spiritual warfare into your home.

And no, I am not saying every meltdown or hard behavior is spiritual warfare. Trauma is real. Mental health is real. Therapy matters. Sometimes kids have hard days simply because they are kids, and sometimes a house full of children is just LOUD and exhausting.

But I also believe there is a spiritual side to this that we don’t talk about enough.

You cannot open your home to children who have lived through generations of addiction, abuse, neglect, rejection and brokenness, start praying and fighting for those cycles to END, and expect the enemy to just sit quietly and watch.

I have felt the heaviness in my own home.

There have been seasons when it seems like everybody is struggling at once. Nobody is sleeping. Emotions are high. One thing happens, then another, and before you know it you’re standing in the kitchen completely exhausted wondering, “God, did I hear You wrong? Because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

I’ve been there more times than I would probably like to admit.

And I’ve had to remind myself that hard does not always mean wrong.

Sometimes the fight is hard because what is happening inside these walls matters.

We aren’t just giving children a bedroom and a place to eat. We are standing in the middle of things that may have been happening for generations and saying, “It can stop here.”

Addiction doesn’t automatically get another generation. Abuse doesn’t automatically get another generation. Neglect, abandonment and rejection do not get to follow a child through the rest of their life simply because those things existed before we ever knew their name.

THAT is where I believe the spiritual battle gets real.

I’m going to take that child to therapy AND I’m going to pray over them. I’m going to learn everything I can about trauma AND I’m going to cover my home in prayer. I’m going to call the doctor when something isn’t right, advocate at school, show up at every appointment and do every practical thing I know to do.

And then I’m going to stand beside that child’s bed after they fall asleep and ask Jesus to heal the places none of those people, including me, can reach.

Those things don’t compete with each other.

I believe God uses doctors. I believe He uses therapists. I believe He gives people wisdom and puts the right people in our children’s lives.

And I also believe some battles are fought on our knees.

So yes, I pray over bedrooms. I pray over little heads while they sleep. I pray in the car after hard days. I pray while folding clothes, making dinner and sometimes while hiding in the bathroom because Mama needs five minutes before she loses her mind. 😂

This isn’t some perfectly peaceful Christian home where worship music plays all day and everyone gets along.

Please.

This house can be CRAZY.

But Jesus is here.

And there have been days when I have walked through this house and reminded the enemy that he picked the WRONG address if he thought the same brokenness was going to quietly keep moving through another generation.

Not here.

These babies have already been through enough.

Their trauma does not get to become their identity. What happened TO them does not get to decide who they become. The things adults did before they had any say in their own lives do not get to own their future.

I will fight for these children in courtrooms. I will fight for them at school. I will fight for services, therapies, medical care and whatever else they need.

And then I will come home and fight for them on my knees too.

Because foster care has taught me there are things I can fix, things professionals can help heal and things completely outside of my control.

Those are the places where I have learned to pray, “Jesus, You know. Go where I cannot go. Heal what I cannot heal. Break what I cannot break.”

I am not these children’s Savior.

Thank God I don’t have to be.

But I know who is.

And as long as God keeps trusting me to love children inside these walls, I’m going to keep doing everything I know to do in the natural while praying like crazy in the spiritual.

Because whatever happened before they came through my door does not get automatic access to their future.

The enemy doesn’t get the final word here.

Jesus does.

Every single time.

09/02/2026

Every kid in foster care has a track record of adults who said they'd be back. Testing you isn't defiance — it's data collection.

Somebody said they'd be back. Somebody said this placement was permanent. Somebody said things would be different this time. And then the car pulled up again.

So when a new adult says "I'm not going anywhere," the kid does the math on the evidence available and concludes, reasonably, that you're the next one. Testing you isn't defiance. It's a hypothesis he's running because he's been burned enough to need data.

The only way through it is boring: show up, do what you said, repeat, for longer than feels necessary. You're not arguing with him. You're outlasting his evidence.

Save this if you're in the testing phase right now.

09/02/2026

So… what exactly IS Black Tie Bingo? 🎉 Picture it: your best formal wear, bingo cards, a silent auction and live auction full of things you actually want to bid on, and a whole room of people who care about kids in foster care. It is our biggest night of the year — and every dollar raised goes right back into equipping the families who say yes to these kiddos.

Saturday, October 3rd. Come get fancy with us. 💛

Sign up at: https://givebutter.com/c/black-tie-bingo-2026-xbu0z3

09/02/2026

Just announced: Hearing on foster care and CPS at the Texas Legislature on September 9th.

08/23/2026

Since it’s Sunday, I want to talk theology for a moment.

For those of you who don’t appreciate the God-talk here, no worries, feel free to scroll on by. But for those who are interested in engaging this subject through a theological lens, read on.

This is, after all, one of my areas of study and expertise, and there’s something I believe is important to clarify.

Christians sometimes say things to adoptees like:

“God planned your adoption.”

“God knew exactly what family you needed.”

“God meant for you to be adopted.”

“Everything happened exactly the way God intended.”

These statements are usually offered with good intentions.

But good intentions do not automatically make something good theology.

Christian theology gives us much richer categories for understanding what happens in a broken world...divine sovereignty, providence, free will/human agency, sin, suffering, injustice, lament and redemption, to name a few. We should not collapse all of those categories into the simplistic declaration of, “God planned it.”

There are significant theological differences between what God causes, permits, and redeems. Providence and direct causation are not synonymous.

To affirm that God is sovereign over an adoptee’s life does not require us to conclude that God directly caused every circumstance within that life. And that distinction matters tremendously when we talk about adoption. Because before an adoption can occur, something else has already occurred. A child has become separated from their family of origin. The circumstances surrounding that separation vary enormously.

There may have been poverty, addiction, abuse, death, family dysfunction, social stigmas, lack of resources, coercion, institutional decisions, human choices, injustice, or circumstances we may never know.

So when we confidently tell an adoptee, “God planned your adoption,” we need to stop and consider everything we may inadvertently be attributing directly to the will of God.

But think carefully about what that would mean. Are we really prepared to say that God desired the circumstances that led to the separation in the first place....that every human choice along the way was divinely orchestrated, and even the failures, injustices, or brokenness surrounding a child’s relinquishment somehow reflected His intention?

Those are significant theological claims.

Divine sovereignty does not require us to attribute every human decision, loss, injustice, or tragedy directly to God's causative will.

Christians should be capable of holding something more nuanced.

We can believe God was present, remained sovereign and may have worked providentially within circumstances He did not necessarily initiate. We can believe God brought people, relationships, healing, purpose, and goodness into an adoptee's life. And we can absolutely believe in redemption.

But here's the distinction I wish we understood better. Redemption is not retroactive endorsement. The fact that God can redeem something does not mean we must declare everything that preceded that redemption good. Or even everything that proceeded after that adoption good, either.

Keep in mind that the very concept of redemption assumes there is something in need of redeeming. Christians believe God specializes in entering broken places and bringing something beautiful of it. But we don't normally conclude that because God redeemed a painful situation, He must therefore have desired every painful event that produced it.

For instance, suppose a husband is unfaithful to his wife and ultimately leaves the marriage. Years later, she meets a wonderful man, falls in love, and builds a beautiful life with him. We might wholeheartedly believe that God brought healing, redemption, and unexpected goodness into her life...but would we therefore conclude that her first husband’s betrayal was God’s will? Certainly not. We understand that God’s ability to redeem what happened does not mean He desired or ordained the wrongdoing that preceded it. So why would we abandon that same theological distinction when we talk about adoption?

“God worked through it” and “God wanted it to happen exactly this way” are two different theological claims. We need to stop treating them as interchangeable.

And I want to add something else because this frequently happens in Christian conversations about adoption...infant adoption and our spiritual adoption through Christ are not the same thing. AT ALL. Scripture's theological language of adoption speaks to our relationship with God and our inclusion in His family through Christ.

Infant adoption is a human experience involving an actual child, an original family, separation, legal processes, human decisions, and the formation of another family.

Using spiritual adoption to romanticize the complexities of infant adoption does neither theology nor adoptees any favors. We can affirm the biblical doctrine of spiritual adoption (salvation) wholeheartedly without requiring an adoptee to interpret their own relinquishment as a divine object lesson.

So perhaps instead of telling an adoptee what God intended, we could become comfortable saying:

“I don't know why every part of your story happened. But I believe God can redeem what has been painful.”

That doesn't diminish God's sovereignty.

At all.

I believe it takes God's sovereignty seriously enough that we don't have to oversimplify it.

If you grew up in Christian spaces, what theological explanations were you given for your adoption? Did those explanations help you, or did you eventually have to rethink them?

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Plano, TX
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