We want women who have aged out of foster care to not just survive, but to thrive. However, we each have different ideas of what thriving looks like and need to not put those expectations on other people, or minimize what it means to survive.

The Expectation of What Thriving Should Look Like

My family has been rewatching all the Marvel movies in timeline order, so the idea of superheroes and having superpowers is an idea at the forefront of my thinking. There is actually a lot to learn about ourselves and humanity in these movies. An idea that I share regularly with my kids (and our staff and participants) is that we all have superpowers. The challenge is learning how to control them so that we don’t unintentionally cause harm.

Our superpowers come from our ability to survive, aka “coping mechanisms”. We shouldn’t have to have developed these coping mechanisms, but alas, we were raised by flawed humans. Some of whom were simply doing the best they knew how, some who were imprisoned by their coping mechanisms with addiction, anger, and greed, and some who were completely consumed with evil. This coping mechanism becomes a superpower when we let the Lord redeem it, and use it for good and not evil.

My superpower is seeing potential in people and situations. This becomes harmful, however, when I put the expectation and pressure on someone to become something they do not want or are not ready for. It is easy for me to get frustrated with people. I want them to see themselves as great as I see them. I do admit, what I see for people may not be what they want, or what the Lord wants for them.

What Thriving Really Looks Like

Unfortunately, this occurs with the women we work with as well. I adore these women, I want amazing things for them, and I know the Lord wants them to thrive and flourish as well. But if my idea of thriving is living a comfortable middle class life, then I am failing them.

Each generation has the goal of making it better for the next. This is true in my life, I am benefitting from the love and sacrifice of my parents who were determined to do better than their parents who were determined to do the same. All the way back to my ancestor who came to America as an indentured servant.

Thriving is living with the determination to keep moving forward in spite of the obstacles and hardships. Thriving does not mean being comfortable.

Surviving is Worth Celebrating

For some of the women we are working with, they are not yet thriving. They are merely surviving, but praise the Lord for that. Let us not diminish the victory in surviving some of the situations they have lived through. After surviving those encounters, it is understandable to feel stuck, and this may look like complacency.

It is said that you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped, and that is true. But what if they do want help, yet they just don’t know if they can trust it or not. The work we do is slow work. It’s building that trust so they will allow us to walk through the mess with them.

We say that mentoring is not fixing their problems, but walking with them as they find solutions. But sometimes, because of the trauma, they are frozen.

Thriving by Fighting with Prayer

A few weeks ago our program director and I were crying because of situations a few of our participants were in. It was dire, and we couldn’t see the solution, so we took our tears to the Lord. We prayed, acknowledging that the Lord loves these women more than we do, and we know He is fully aware of their situation. We knew He would rescue them, but could He just speed it up a little??!!??

Within a week, every situation had turned around. One situation, we realized was already in the process of being solved but we just couldn’t see it yet. Another turned around because of Rene’s willingness to serve and the generosity of people’s time. And the third turned around because she is refusing to give up.

There are times in our lives we come to a point where we don’t have the energy to fight for ourselves and we need people to fight for us, whether with action or prayer. We just have to know when it is the right time to hand the sword back to the person we are fighting for so they can thrive and in turn help others survive.

Items seen in photos: Refined Earrings, Hope Shirt, Live Extra Shirt, Shine Shirt, Hope Earrings, Rise Earrings