Three months after my husband and I married, we decided to become a host family for children in need. We opened our home, and since then, we have had ten precious children stay with us. It has been beautiful, exhausting, heartbreaking, and everything in between. Some have stayed for only a day, while others have remained for weeks.
We felt called to open our home because we had an extra bedroom and a heart to help kids. I still remember the first few arrivals. We had no idea what we were doing. Here we were with three kids, all under the age of six, and no prior parenting experience or plan.
My husband and I were young and inexperienced, but we knew God had called us to be a safe place for these children. And God equipped us daily. Looking back, if I had known all the experiences we would go through, I would have been overwhelmed. We have faced intense heartache, joy, love, and struggles. But we trusted God one step at a time, relying daily on Him to give us strength.
Taking a step of faith is essential. Perhaps it’s not opening our homes to children, but maybe it’s saying yes to serving the homeless or inviting a single mom over for dinner. Maybe it’s saying yes to going back to school or moving across the country. Whatever God calls us to do, we need to take the first step of faith and say yes.
We don’t have to have everything figured out to step out in faith. God will give us all we need as the time comes. The future is in His hands. God can do big things in us, more than we could ever imagine.
If someone had told me that my husband and I would have an eleven-year-old call us his family, I would have laughed. It seemed impossible. We thought opening our home would bring babies and young children, not a preteen boy who has changed our world.
But God is bigger than our plans. Trust Him today. Lean into His voice. Allow God to do His work within your life and in your family. It will not be easy. Sometimes, it will not make sense, but God can be trusted. Allow Him to transform your life one simple step at a time.
Danielle Ignace is passionate about advocating for children and has spent several years in social services. She has worked as a CPS worker and a case manager for a nonprofit, and has also run a children's emergency shelter, before having her daughter, Gracelynn. Danielle and her husband reside in Tennessee. Danielle wrote her first children’s book in 2022. Her book’s mission is to help children in foster care feel less alone, as well as to educate others about the foster care system.