The Foster Child Whose Name Was Already on the Door

When Marcus arrived at his fourth foster home in two years, he didn't bother unpacking his trash bag of clothes. He'd learned not to settle in. But when the caseworker walked him down the hallway, he stopped cold. There on the bedroom door hung a wooden plaque with his name — not a generic "Welcome" sign, but "Marcus" — hand-painted in blue, his favorite color.

Inside, the shelves held books about astronomy, his quiet obsession that none of his previous placements had noticed. A telescope sat by the window. On the desk, a note read: "We've been waiting for you."

His foster mother, Denise Coleman of Raleigh, North Carolina, later told him she'd spent weeks learning everything she could about who he really was — not his case file, not his behavioral reports, but him. She'd called his third-grade teacher, his old basketball coach, his grandmother. She wanted to know the boy beneath the labels.

"How do you know me?" Marcus whispered that first night, echoing the very words Nathanael spoke to Jesus on the road from Galilee.

Nathanael came dragging his skepticism — can anything good come from Nazareth? But Jesus didn't need an introduction. "I saw you under the fig tree," He said, revealing a knowledge that no stranger should possess. The Almighty doesn't read our case files. He knows the person beneath every label, every doubt, every bag we refuse to unpack. And He has already written our name on the door.