Somewhere along the way, many of us began to believe that staying in the right lane would keep us safe.

Make good choices. Do the right thing. Avoid unnecessary risks.

If we are faithful, careful, and responsible, things will remain steady. Maybe not perfect, but safe enough to trust that we are on the right path.

But faithfulness has never been that predictable.

And lately, a question I’ve seen resurfacing on my newsfeed is,

What does it look like for us to move outside the safe lane?

My response, all these years after moving outside of my own safe lane, is to say, “Go home as quickly as you can, close the doors, and make your world small.”

Because that’s the human response.

But once you see, you cannot unsee. And once you begin to understand God’s call on your life, you cannot simply say no.

Jesus said, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:24)

And so we cannot run home and close the doors. We have to step outside the lanes and into the unknown.

My husband and I experienced this throughout our foster care journey. For nearly ten years, we opened our home, following the call God laid on our hearts.

During that time, we fostered nearly sixty children. When we became licensed, we were a family of four. By the time we closed our license, we were a family of seven.

Many details from that season of our lives now feel almost unreal, as if I remember them from the outside. And yet the emotions remain vivid. The pain. The exhaustion. The weight of it all.

We were warned about the risks involved.

The fear of the what-ifs that would eventually become our reality.

The grief in the loss of childhoods.

The sleepless nights.

The calls for new placements.

The tear-filled goodbyes.

Moments when you find yourself broken, on your knees on the floor, praying for the pain to stop and the risks to go away.

When you have lived through the unsafe moments, carefully feeling for the guardrails in the dark of night, you learn something important: the only way forward is through.

And the only way through is with your Lord and Savior.

Because He brought you here. Into this place. To lose your life for Him, outside the safe lane.