When ordinary families step into foster care, they rarely do so because they feel fully prepared. Most do not have ministry backgrounds or long histories of working in child welfare. They are not experts stepping confidently into a calling they have always known. More often, they are people who have walked through their own unexpected hardship and discovered that obedience matters more than certainty.

Episode 6 of Running Toward tells Ashlie’s story — one shaped by infertility, late-blooming faith, career ambition, loss, and ultimately, surrender. Her path into foster care did not begin with a lifelong church upbringing or a carefully constructed plan. Instead, it unfolded slowly through grief, questions, and a quiet promise from God that her family would look different than she once imagined.

From Self-Reliance to Surrender

Ashlie did not grow up in a Christian home, and faith was not a defining feature of her early life. She was raised to work hard, rely on herself, and push through difficulty with grit and determination. Marriage was not part of her original blueprint, and motherhood certainly was not the dream she built her life around. Instead, she focused on building a successful career and carving out independence.

But infertility has a way of dismantling even the most carefully constructed identities.

After multiple miscarriages and growing strain within her marriage, Ashlie found herself navigating grief she did not know how to process. Her instinct was to do what she had always done when life became painful: dive deeper into work, achieve more, stay busy enough to avoid slowing down. For a while, that strategy masked the ache. Eventually, though, it collapsed under the weight of unprocessed loss.

It was at that breaking point that faith entered her story. A friend shared words with her that felt impossibly specific at a moment when Ashlie had privately challenged God to prove Himself real. That encounter did not immediately resolve her questions, but it marked the beginning of a different way of living — one that slowly shifted from self-reliance to trust.

Wrestling with God in the Middle of Infertility

Ashlie’s relationship with God did not begin with ease or quiet confidence. It began with hard questions.

Why would God withhold something so deeply desired? Why allow repeated loss? Why say no without explanation?

Those questions were not hypothetical; they were deeply personal. Yet instead of abandoning faith when answers did not come quickly, Ashlie found herself bringing her frustration directly to God. She discovered that honest wrestling did not push Him away. In fact, it deepened her dependence on Him.

Through that process, she began to understand something that would later shape her approach to foster care: anger and trust can coexist. Grief does not disqualify faith. And unanswered questions do not mean God is absent.

That foundation would matter when the next step appeared.

When Ordinary Families Step Into Foster Care

Foster care was not Ashlie’s original plan. Even as the idea surfaced repeatedly through friends and circumstances, she resisted it. She knew the system was complex. She had heard difficult stories. She understood the emotional risk.

Still, the nudge persisted.

Licensing during COVID stretched over two years, and without an established foster community around them, Ashlie and her husband moved forward largely on their own. They did not have a clear roadmap. They did not know all the right questions to ask. They simply kept taking the next step.

When their first placement arrived, the transition was overwhelming. The gap between theoretical understanding and daily parenting was wider than they anticipated. Yet love formed quickly, and with it came hope that this child might remain in their home permanently.

Instead, after nearly a year, reunification became the outcome.

Ashlie describes that goodbye as a kind of death. Unlike miscarriage, this loss was tangible. She had held him, fed him, celebrated milestones with him. She had built a future in her mind that would no longer exist.

For the first time, she fully understood foster care grief — the specific ache of loving deeply without guarantees.

Choosing to Lean In Instead of Pull Away

What distinguishes Ashlie’s story is not that she experienced grief, but that she chose to process it differently than before.

Rather than retreating into distraction or resentment, she and her husband created space to mourn together. They took time away, revisited places meaningful to their marriage, and allowed themselves to bring their confusion honestly before God. In that season, grief did not drive her away from faith. It drew her closer.

And slowly, another invitation surfaced.

Six weeks after their foster son reunified, Ashlie sensed that their story was not finished. The idea of reopening their home felt almost impossible at first, but the peace that accompanied it would not leave. Seven days after saying yes again, they received a call about the child who would later become their forever son.

Obedience did not erase the previous loss, but it positioned them for what came next.

Letting Go of Control and Redefining Identity

As Ashlie continued stepping deeper into foster care, another layer of surrender emerged. Her career had long been a source of identity and stability, and walking away from a 13-year professional path to become a stay-at-home mom required a different kind of trust.

The transition was not easy. It involved wrestling, prayer, and moments of doubt. Yet with each small act of obedience, she noticed something consistent: when she loosened her grip, doors opened. When she took a step forward, God met her there.

Soon after leaving her job, they were matched with a legally free child who had spent her entire life in the system. The timing felt unmistakably intentional. What once would have seemed unlikely now felt like confirmation that God was writing a story far beyond her original plans.

Seeing Biological Families Differently

Before entering foster care, Ashlie’s understanding of biological families was shaped largely by affidavits and case summaries — documents that capture families on their worst days. It was easy to form conclusions from a distance.

Proximity changed that perspective.

Through visits, conversations, and watching service plans unfold, she began to see not villains but wounded people, many of whom had once been children in the system themselves. The savior mentality she initially carried began to dissolve. In its place grew compassion and a clearer understanding that foster care is not about superiority but stewardship.

Her family adopted a phrase that now defines their posture: “We will break our hearts to help make theirs whole.”

That sentence captures both the cost and the calling.

Living Without the Full Blueprint

After adopting two children, Ashlie assumed they were finished with fostering. Years of caseworkers, court dates, and emotional intensity had taken their toll. Yet as adoption day approached, she sensed that something was incomplete.

There was no grand vision for the future, only a steady peace that they were not done.

When ordinary families step into foster care, the story rarely unfolds according to a neat timeline. It stretches, surprises, and reshapes expectations. Ashlie, who once insisted on controlling every detail of her trajectory, now lives with a far more open posture. She no longer demands a five-year plan. She asks only for the next faithful step.

For the Woman in the Middle of the Hard

At the end of the episode, Ashlie reflects on the version of herself who once resisted marriage, who endured miscarriage after miscarriage, and who believed her life would follow a different path.

To that woman — and to any woman standing in uncertainty — she offers this reminder: there is more to your story than you can see right now. The hard is not wasted. Obedience, even when it feels small, can open doors you never imagined.

Her life is not a tidy success narrative. It is a testimony to transformation — not because circumstances became easy, but because surrender changed her.

And sometimes, when ordinary families step into foster care, they discover that the story God is writing is far larger, deeper, and more redemptive than the one they would have chosen for themselves.

If you would like to watch the full conversation with Ashlie, visit:
https://alliance4orphans.org/running-toward/

Because the next step may not require a complete plan. It may simply require saying yes.