I'm not sure if I can explain this well, but I want to try. We recently went to a family reunion with pretty distant relatives. I had an interesting conversation with a distant cousin's wife. She doesn't know our story, but immediately started talking to me about her daughter's difficulty having children and their thoughts about trying to adopt. (This is what happens when you have a multiracial family)
Anyway, I did not offer up my children's stories. Maybe someone had told her we were foster parents, I don't know. She kept saying that her daughter just couldn't do foster care because she just couldn't take it "if they came and took the baby". It was a unique variation on the, "I could never do that, I'd get too attached" comment.
I want to write what it feels like to me at this stage of foster parenting when someone says they could never do that because they would get too attached.
1. I passed too attached a long time ago, and it scares the snot out of me (thanks for bringing it up)
2. So if I have willingly signed up to live this life, then I must be heartless because I will one day give them back (this is what foster parents hear when you say this to us).
3. I agree not everyone should be foster parents (particularly those still struggling through infertility. Our life has had stages, we would have made terrible foster parents a decade ago.)
4. What if it were you? What if your life was falling apart, you made some stupid decisions and as a result you temporarily lost custody of your children? (don't get on your high horse, there but for the Grace of God go all of us). Wouldn't you hope for a second chance? Wouldn't you hope your kids were treated well, loved , supported, encouraged to love you during that time? This life is bigger than my comfort and needs.
5. Not giving them back is called kidnapping.
6. We signed up for this willingly. We were trained, and are continually trained in caring for kids that are not our own from tough places. No one lied to us, we knew what we were getting into.
7. The pain of giving them back is a result of great joy of living with them. If there wasn't a whole lot of good in living life with our kiddos it wouldn't hurt.
8. If it doesn't hurt, I did it wrong. We are talking about standing in for parents to kids. In our current situation young kids. Sometimes for a large percentage of the child's life. They only get one childhood. They deserve to have a parent that adores them even if it's for a little bit. Even if that parent is a foster parent . Grief is a sign of a job well done.
9. I (&you if you are called to it) can do all things(including letting go of a child I love) through Christ who gives me strength.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Walking through it
Sometime in the next few months, our family will go through one of the things that scares people away from foster care. We will have cared for a child for years and that child will leave our home. When people list reasons that they feel they couldn't be foster parents, this one usually makes the top three. "What if we have a child in our home for a year or even years and they still leave?"
So today, I'm writing from that place of knowing that we will soon face this reality. I should preface this by saying that I have known of this reality for a little bit. The place I am in right now does not reflect my immediate reaction to this news. The place I am in now comes from much prayer and stepping back to remember why we started the process to become foster parents. I have drawn close to God, and in some ways asked Him "why?"
I'm not a stranger to really painful circumstances related to children and my desire to have a family. At 24 years old I stood alone with a surgeon and received heart breaking news about our ability to have children. Several years later I received more heart breaking news about our attempts to adopt our now son from Guatemala. Several years after that we were looked over and turned down many times over in an attempt to adopt domestically. And all of those moments led us to and prepared us for foster care. I know that. If you have talked to me in the last three years about our decision to become foster parents you have heard parts of the circumstances I just listed. They are the life events that step by step led us to where we are today. God used the hard to bring us to His best. A life I would have never planned on my own. I would have said, "how can I love and care for a child for years and then let them go? It will kill me. Especially after living through infertility, that's just crazy talk.. "
But I was wrong. It wasn't crazy. It was our path that taught us to trust God, to trust His promises, His timing, His correction, His guidance, and His love for us. Oh how I have questioned all of those things. I have been sure that if God loved me He would allow me to get pregnant again, or bring my son home on my timetable, or have a surprise pregnancy against all odds, or not have a child stay in our home so long and still leave. But the reality is His love for me is not based on my current circumstances. That was settled a long time ago. When he chose to send His son for a pitiful sinner like me. When he chose not to spare His son the hurt and humiliation of the cross in order to reconcile me to himself. God is good. God loves me. These things are not influenced by whether life is going my way at the moment. They are truth.
I'm not going to lie about this. I have had a hard time adjusting back to my initial thoughts about foster care. When a child lives with you for an extended period of time, case workers do ask a about adoption. It has been an adjustment to get used to the way case workers talk in long cases. Often the direction of things changes multiple times in a short amount of time. I let myself dream when I probably shouldn't have. We didn't become foster parents to adopt again (though my foster mom friends like to tell me that if you stay in this long enough someone is going to stay). Somewhere around the 12-15 month mark I lost my foster mom hat. Recently I have found it again. That doesn't mean I won't grieve. It will be similar to a death for us. Our family will change forever again. But, I believe that God created my family for this life. I believe that when this little one moves on from us He will place someone else here because it will be their time of need. He holds our future just as He always has.
So today, I'm writing from that place of knowing that we will soon face this reality. I should preface this by saying that I have known of this reality for a little bit. The place I am in right now does not reflect my immediate reaction to this news. The place I am in now comes from much prayer and stepping back to remember why we started the process to become foster parents. I have drawn close to God, and in some ways asked Him "why?"
I'm not a stranger to really painful circumstances related to children and my desire to have a family. At 24 years old I stood alone with a surgeon and received heart breaking news about our ability to have children. Several years later I received more heart breaking news about our attempts to adopt our now son from Guatemala. Several years after that we were looked over and turned down many times over in an attempt to adopt domestically. And all of those moments led us to and prepared us for foster care. I know that. If you have talked to me in the last three years about our decision to become foster parents you have heard parts of the circumstances I just listed. They are the life events that step by step led us to where we are today. God used the hard to bring us to His best. A life I would have never planned on my own. I would have said, "how can I love and care for a child for years and then let them go? It will kill me. Especially after living through infertility, that's just crazy talk.. "
But I was wrong. It wasn't crazy. It was our path that taught us to trust God, to trust His promises, His timing, His correction, His guidance, and His love for us. Oh how I have questioned all of those things. I have been sure that if God loved me He would allow me to get pregnant again, or bring my son home on my timetable, or have a surprise pregnancy against all odds, or not have a child stay in our home so long and still leave. But the reality is His love for me is not based on my current circumstances. That was settled a long time ago. When he chose to send His son for a pitiful sinner like me. When he chose not to spare His son the hurt and humiliation of the cross in order to reconcile me to himself. God is good. God loves me. These things are not influenced by whether life is going my way at the moment. They are truth.
I'm not going to lie about this. I have had a hard time adjusting back to my initial thoughts about foster care. When a child lives with you for an extended period of time, case workers do ask a about adoption. It has been an adjustment to get used to the way case workers talk in long cases. Often the direction of things changes multiple times in a short amount of time. I let myself dream when I probably shouldn't have. We didn't become foster parents to adopt again (though my foster mom friends like to tell me that if you stay in this long enough someone is going to stay). Somewhere around the 12-15 month mark I lost my foster mom hat. Recently I have found it again. That doesn't mean I won't grieve. It will be similar to a death for us. Our family will change forever again. But, I believe that God created my family for this life. I believe that when this little one moves on from us He will place someone else here because it will be their time of need. He holds our future just as He always has.
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