When Paul and I became Christians and got married, we felt God nudging us to serve Him together somehow in our married life. We had a sense that God wanted to use everything we had experienced in our lives so far, good and not so good, to serve Him and others.

Paul and I both grew up in stable and loving environments, but we’d both experienced some really difficult seasons in our adult lives. We’d both been married before and both had children. Sadly, my first husband was killed in a car accident, so I had to navigate the loss of someone I loved dearly, whilst helping my children navigate the loss of their dad. For Paul, his marriage ended, and he had to figure out a new way of being ‘family’, loving and caring for his children whilst living separately from them.

Family has always been deeply important to both of us. As we prayed into how God might use the challenges and difficult things we’d experienced for good, we felt that what we’d each been through could help us understand and care for children who themselves have encountered some hard things in their family – trauma, loss, grief, complicated relationships.

We didn’t equate that with fostering right away. But a little while later, I was flicking through a newspaper and came across an advert from a fostering agency. It really jumped out at me from the page. Little did I know, Paul was, at that same moment, sitting in a waiting room reading a magazine, and the same advert struck him. We both rushed home, anxious to talk to the other. Turns out we wanted to say the same thing, “Maybe we should consider fostering?”

We decided to apply and be assessed by our local authority. The process was long, but we threw ourselves into it. There were moments that were hard, but as we undertook training and spoke with social workers about our lives, we felt really affirmed that a lot of our experiences and skills would be a great benefit to a child we may look after.

At the time, we had my two children from my first marriage at home, who were both older teenagers, as well as our daughter together, Natalie, who was ten. She was really on board with the idea of us becoming foster carers – it’s important that any children already in your home are, because it’s their family too and they have to learn to ‘share’ their Mum and Dad, which can take some getting used to.

Our fostering left a big impression on Natalie, a positive one. Over the years, we had some children with us for longer periods of time, as well some who were with us more short term, and each time, she involved herself with the children in such a loving and caring way. God grew in her such a heart for children in care and a great empathy for what they had been through and insight into therapeutic styles of caring. When she was around 21, and was living on her own, she was assessed and approved to foster herself, and became one of the country’s youngest foster carers at that time.

Natalie was providing short-term foster care, and one of the children she welcomed into her home was a little boy who was in primary school. It was decided that long-term foster care would provide him with the stability he needed, whilst still allowing for contact with birth family and access to particular support. When that decision was made, Paul and I immediately put ourselves forward to care for him. We knew him already; he was part of our family. He visited us often with Natalie and was familiar and comfortable in our home. It felt like the most natural progression that he would move in with us, because it allowed him to keep a healthy relationship with Natalie and know that she was still around and still cared for him. It offered him such a great sense of stability and belonging as part of our family.

God has used our experiences to shape us, enabling us to understand to some degree what children and young people are going through and offer them support. He continues to use our family and experiences, working through both Paul and me and our daughter Natalie to provide stability and care to children and young people who need it.

I think it’s very easy to write yourself off from fostering because of who you are or what you’ve been through; “We’ve experienced loss in our family, so we couldn’t,” “My previous marriage ended, they wouldn’t want me,” “We have birth children at home so we can’t,” “I’m too young.” Our family is testament to the fact that all kinds of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, can be great foster carers. God can, and will, use you – as you are, where you are, and with the people around you – for good.