In January 2016, my husband and I embarked on an uphill journey through the Foster Care System. Through this time, we have welcomed the late-night phone calls asking us to consider a teenager, opening our home to a few very active toddler boys, and receiving a call asking us to pick up a newborn at the hospital within the hour.
In the midst of feeling “paper pregnant” as we sort through the hundreds of pages of paperwork, the countless interviews, numerous phone calls and home visits, CPR certifications, house inspections, background checks, and hours upon hours of licensing classes – there was always the same question: What is the goal and vision for Foster Care within your family?
Staggering Statistics and The Foster Care System
Foster care is a system run by the government where minors are put into the custody of the state and placed with foster parents to care for their daily needs. Staggeringly, there are nearly 438,000 children in foster care right now, each staying in foster care an average of two years. Nearly 115,000 of those children are waiting to be adopted, while only 44% of children in the foster care system have reunification with their birth families as their case goal.
If you care for older children or teenagers, foster care involves ministering to children who have been abused or abandoned. Sexually. Physically. Emotionally. Some older children come to foster care due to neglect, others due to homelessness. Some struggle to form healthy relationships. If caring for younger children, most experience developmental delays that will play a significant role in the child’s life. Some have parents who have given up and don’t want to take care of them anymore. Some deal with speech delays, outburst of anger, and frustration. If you care for newborns, you encounter things like meth and cocaine addiction or fetal alcohol syndrome. As foster parents, you welcome these children into your homes and hearts, unloading all of their baggage with them.
Not only are the children at times difficult to navigate and pour into. Foster care means playing by the government’s rules, which requires a lot of flexibility. Are you ready to be told you can’t discuss the sexuality of a teenager in your care or force the child to come to church with you? Are you ready to work with government agencies and workers who are burnt out? Are you ready for visitations with birth parents who cannot be counted on to show up?
Sovereign Heavenly Father
So, back to that loaded question that we were asked over fifty times in the interview process: What is thegoal and vision for Foster Care within our family? As Christians, my husband and I could not answer this question without sharing the gospel and His love for us.
If there was one thing that my husband and I wanted to do well during our time as foster parents, it was rearing the children that came in and out of our home to know God’s voice and to follow His commandments. From the second that child walked or crawled through our front door, our goal was to point them to Jesus.
This was a lot harder than we originally thought it would be. At times when we felt like we were making progress, it was time for an extended visit with their biological parents. They would leave our home and we knew that all we could do was pray that their visit was God-honoring and uplifting for the child. Only for them to come back into our home discouraged and/or angry and closed off. However, with each child, we learned to acknowledge our weakness before a grace-giving, power-filling God. Whether you are a foster/adoptive parent, biological parent, or spiritual parent – through daily dependence on God’s Spirit and grace, He takes our lack of wisdom and allows us to be a major cultivator in the hearts of our children.
Through this process, we have received countless questions and concern with how we protect our hearts and guard ourselves from hurt after pouring into a child, only to see them reunified with their biological parents and family. Our answer to these questions and more is always the Gospel. Is it hard to get attached to a child only to have them removed a few months later? Absolutely. But, the same Christ who gave His life for others also empowers us to do the same. On my own, I lack the strength to be a foster parent, and often it’s more than I can bear. “Perfect” foster parents simply do not exist. However, the Lord’s grace is sufficient for each day. He takes unqualified, imperfect people and uses them for his glory. Despite the outcome or specific situation, our responsibility is to fully love him or her while we have them and accept the costs we may incur as worth it for the gain they may receive. This is nothing more than what Jesus has done for us. He joyfully laid down the infinite value of His own life so that we might know the immeasurable worth of being fully and unconditionally loved in Him.
So, what is Foster Care, really?
Foster care is a beautiful expression of the gospel. It demands a selfless, costly and potentially painful love, for the sake of a child gaining much as you willingly give all. As we labor to love these children with the love we ourselves have received from Jesus, we do so in a cloud of uncertainties and unknowns, but with the confidence of one guarantee - God's sovereignty in their life is for their good now, and always. We parent each day with this certain hope.
Foster Care is a fruit of the gospel. When the gospel changes a person’s heart, that person now looks not to their own needs, but to the needs of others. We begin to see the needs of those around us and we are burdened by them. James 1:27 says it like this: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction…” Fostering and adopting are one of the many avenues we have to care for orphans.
Foster care provides a platform to share the gospel with others. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked us why we are doing this work, and how many times I have been able to share the gospel in reply. It is a natural entryway, as we live in a culture that still thinks caring for abused children outside of the womb is a good thing. We are doing something both the secularist and the religious respect, and as such we can share the gospel with both.
Foster care can be a part of dying daily. When we think of denying ourselves and taking up our cross (Matthew 16:24-26), many of us do not think that mundane life is what Jesus had in mind. That passage is typically preached in relation to missions. But, Jesus says daily. Surely, He knew that included changing diapers with gloves to avoid infections, lying awake all night with a fussy meth-addicted baby, signing up your children for fewer activities because of countless visitations and therapy appointments, and the many inconveniences (and blessings!) that fostering brings.