I have the opposite of a bucket list. I call it a “never to do list.” It’s a catalog of things that I never want to do. But no matter how badly I don’t want to do some of these things, somehow I still find myself smack dab in the middle of doing them just the same. Two things have surprised me with their power to steer me to places I never thought I’d go: Jesus, and parenting.

Until recently, one thing on my never list was going to one of those all-inclusive resort vacations where you sit around and let people bring you drinks on the beach. In my mind I would never have considered spending my time off work lounging—sounded boring. But this year I didn’t feel like I had any bandwidth left for experiencing anything else—good or bad. That’s because I checked off another never on my list a few years ago when we adopted a child. This year in particular her difficult early childhood caught up with her in a bad way and sent us all to dark places we also never thought we’d visit. So we headed to touristville. And it was great. No one judged us for simply moving from pool to beach and back to pool again. And that was all we could manage.

The overwhelming experience our adopted child has brought us is probably the reason I perk up my ears and ask questions when other people tell me that adopting kids is on their bucket list. It was on my never list. So was foster parenting—but I can check that off the never to do list too.

The fact that we fell into fostering backwards probably seems as odd to other foster parents as they seem to me diving head first into other people’s kids. We fostered our kid for a few years, and when her biological parents’ rights could be terminated, we filed to adopt. We felt that it was what Jesus and parenting put in front of us to do. It was the next step in following him and in loving our child. And these clear directives are much better than any list for me (never or bucket). Because what I want to do, or even what I don’t want to do—my desires—they’re seriously flawed. I’m like Janis Joplin asking: “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?”

I remember once hearing someone talk about Psalm 37:4: “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.” Does that mean that if you follow Jesus you’ll get everything you’ve always wanted? Or does it mean that if you follow the Lord the desires of your heart will change? I think both probably. And that’s a great shift—a spiritual movement really. God has a way of changing hearts like that. He changed mine. Somehow even though I never thought I’d be a foster parent or adopt a kid, when God set a little girl on my doorstep, my heart’s desire was to love her. And if I ever look up to find myself lounging by a pool again I know I won’t be bored at all—just grateful with a full heart. I guess I’m delighted in the Lord. It’s a little embarrassing how bad Jesus has my heart. A few months ago I started doing something else I said I’d never do—homeschool. Ugh. I’m powerless. All Jesus has to do is crook his finger at me and I come runnin’ to do the next thing on my never list.