When God Clears Space in a Caregiving Season

Some seasons arrive gently, and others enter like a storm, tearing through the plans we thought were ours yet clearing space for something we didn’t know we needed.

In July 2025, a different kind of caregiving season came to our family. After almost ten years of being licensed foster parents in Illinois, caring for seven children, and embracing two adoptions, we officially closed our foster care license. It happened partly by choice, partly by design, but mostly by God’s quiet orchestration.

If you’d like to jump ahead, you can use the Table of Contents below to explore different parts of this caregiving season we find ourselves in.

Table of Contents

• A Sudden Shift
• A New Kind of Care
• The Gift in the Pivot
• Finding God in the Spaces
• Anchored by Faith
• Space for Hope

When our family moved from Illinois to South Carolina, I thought I knew what this next chapter would look like. Maybe rest or slower rhythms. Maybe time to simply be still after a decade of emotional, spiritual, and logistical pouring out. What I couldn’t see, what God surely did, was that He was already preparing a different kind of caregiving season.

A Sudden Shift

Only two weeks after our move, life changed in a way that still feels like a whisper of shock when I think back. My dad, seventy-one years old, had been living independently despite Parkinson’s disease for more than twelve years. He was resilient, proud, and steady, the kind of man who faced each day with quiet determination.

Then came the phone call that changed everything.

He fell by his driveway and struck his head on a rock. A neighbor saw him struggling, not knowing how long he had been there, and called 911. That call became the pivot point for all that would follow: months of hospital care, rehabilitation, medical decisions, and soul-deep reflection.

He survived by sheer grace and determination. But the impact reshaped his life completely.

A New Kind of Care

When doctors recommended that he transition to assisted living, my dad made another courageous choice. He moved to South Carolina to start over near us. On October 21, 2025, he arrived.

Since that day, our rhythm has changed again. My daughters, now seven and four, run down the halls of assisted living like little beams of light, their laughter echoing against the walls. “Papa!” they shout when they see him, always expecting him to scoop them up as he once did with strong, easy arms. But now, that part of him is different, slower and more fragile, touched by the tremor of Parkinson’s and the weariness of recovery.

The days are tender. Full of milestones and medicines, of physical progress mixed with emotional ache. But also full of joy, shared smiles, the surprise of familiar stories told again, and the steady rhythm of presence.

And in all of it, I keep hearing the words that first came to me quietly last summer: make space for what God has next in this caregiving season.

The Gift in the Pivot

I never saw this pivot coming. For so long, my energy was spent caring for children, not just my own but those God placed in our lives through foster care. My schedule overflowed with visits, appointments, caseworker calls, and all the beautiful chaos that comes with opening your home and your heart to others.

Now, all of that space, the emotional and spiritual bandwidth once full of those responsibilities, has been redirected toward my dad. Toward the man who once carried me, who filled my childhood with memories and strength, and who now needs me to carry him through the harder parts of this caregiving season.

At first, I fought against the change. It felt like an end rather than a beginning. But slowly, grace began to rewrite the story in me.

Where Illinois had been a series of endings tucked into ordinary days, South Carolina has become something gentler, a tapestry of connection stitched together by small moments. Sitting at my dad’s bedside. Watching my girls hold his hand and my oldest praying over him.

It turns out, presence matters far more than plans.

Finding God in the Spaces

Through every twist and turn, I’ve learned that God doesn’t just fill space. He creates it and clears paths we wouldn’t have cleared ourselves. He removes distractions, redirects our calling, and prepares room for new types of service.

That’s exactly what He did for me in this caregiving season.

There’s something sacred about slowing down when you’ve lived so long in the rhythm of hustle. In this quiet space, I find God’s voice again, steady and gentle, reminding me that love takes different forms in different seasons. The ministry of foster parenting has simply become the ministry of daughterhood.

One day, that ministry may shift again. But for now, I feel His presence most clearly in the quiet of assisted living rooms, in my dad’s movements that are not like they used to be, and in the laughter of my little girls who don’t realize they’re weaving legacy each time they giggle next to Papa.

Anchored by Faith

When doubt rises, as it often does, I come back to the words that have anchored me through every storm: “I can’t do this alone, but through Him I can.”

That prayer has become my daily compass. It’s how I meet each day when strength feels insufficient, how I find patience when emotions run thin, and how I remember grace when life feels anything but graceful.

Since May 2025, our world has roared with change. Selling a house we have lived in for 24 years. Moving states. Fostering ending. Second adoption. New schools, new landscapes, new challenges. My dad’s health crisis. And yet, through it all, one constant remains. God has been here. He’s been here in the uncertainties, in the transitions, and in the small victories tucked into seemingly ordinary days.

That reminder is enough.

Space for Hope

As this year unfolds, I carry that truth forward with quiet gratitude: God clears space not to take away, but to prepare room for something deeper. For healing, presence and for love lived differently.

If this caregiving season has taught me anything, it’s that open hands create open hearts. When we release what was, we make room for what’s next: for the unexpected beauty, the quiet companionship, and the faith that continues to sustain us.

Wherever you are in your own journey, whether fostering, caregiving, grieving, or simply trusting, know that it’s okay when God clears space. His plans are still good, even when they look nothing like ours.

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