I was chatting with a lovely lady after church last week, and she asked (what I thought was) a typical question of foster parents: “How do you feel when you have to send the children back home?” Usually people ask this from the perspective of attachment: “How can you let them go home after you get attached? Isn’t it so hard?” I gave her my usual honest answer: sometimes I’m ready for them to go home, and it’s not actually that hard! On the other hand, sometimes we do get a little attached. It just depends on the circumstance. But especially for Safe Families for Children placements, I’m aware of and ready for their time with us to be shorter, more transient. We pray for the precious children and send them back home; sometimes I miss them, so I pray some more.
But then the lady threw me for a loop when she clarified her question to actually mean: “But what if you don’t feel right about the situation that they’re going back to? What if it doesn’t seem safe?” Oh wait. That’s a different spin on the question! And one I don’t think I’ve been asked before. After our last Safe Families placement, I actually thought more deeply about this very question.
In mid-December we welcomed a little 3-month-old for just shy of a week. Oh my goodness—such a sweetheart. And such an easy baby: ate well, slept well, smiled a lot, so squishy and snuggly. We haven’t been able to take a Safe Families placement for four years because of our long foster journey (we don’t overlap placements between the two organizations), so we were thrilled to take Safe Families children again after our adoption finalized. But what I didn’t take into account was how much I’ve grown and learned over the last four years. I’m not quite the naive host mom that I was when we first started taking placements almost seven years ago. Now we know more about the potential situations these kids come from and what they might be going home to.
Our little fella didn’t come from a safe situation—thus the reason for his placement with us—and I just wanted to keep him all snuggled up safe in our house. When the caseworker came to pick him up to take him back home to his mama, it was a little sad for me. And our kids cried when he drove away! But I was reminded of two things: first, he goes with God and I trust God to keep him safe. And second, he has a loving mama who is desperately missing him—and even though the situation isn’t maybe what I would prefer (the key here is my preference and not a true safety concern—see note below), she is his mom and back to her he goes. We help in the interim, but we are not the savior.
Is the situation perfect? Do we perfectly approve of what the children go back to? Do we feel okay about all of it? Do we hurt a bit because our hearts get attached? Do we think our home is safer and better? These are honest questions. But I think I’m realizing that sometimes my worries for these children have more to do with me and how I am feeling than about the actual situation or about the work God asks me to do. And I forget to take into account the work He is already doing in these resilient biological/placing families, in His own way and in His own time. My worries seem genuine and heartfelt but they actually can be disguised secret-pride: my situation is better and I know what is best and safest. Or they can come from a place of self-preservation: this is all too hard on me and I don’t feel good about what I’m sending you back to.
This is what my husband, Bryce, said when I asked for his thoughts: “Here’s the reality, none of those fears matter. What matters is that we’re saying yes and doing what we can to help those who are in need. When a child needs a place to stay, am I going to say yes? No matter how hard it is. No matter if I get attached. No matter if there’s some risk to me or to my family. No matter what it costs. Am I going to say yes? Am I going to lay aside my feelings, my comforts, my fears, my resources, my dreams, etc. for the sake of a child who needs a safe, quiet bed to sleep on? All the ‘what if’ questions can take a hike. There are kids who need help.”
And that’s it. We help. We love. We cannot save or rescue or fix. And we cannot dictate to God how He should be saving or rescuing according to our feelings about the matter. We lay ourselves aside and just serve.
Jason Johnson wrote this in an article titled, “Seven Things Foster and Adoptive Parents Need to be Reminded Of”:
The gospel frees us from the burden to carry the weight of redemption that only Jesus intended for Himself to be crushed under. It reminds us only He can save and restore. Be free from the pressure to be or do anything for these kids or families that only Jesus expected Himself to be or do. Your job is not to save them; it’s simply to love them as your Savior has loved you—fully, freely and faithfully—and to trust Him with the rest.
If I could go back to last Sunday and answer that woman’s question again, I would tell her: yes, sometimes it doesn’t feel good when I send them home or seem like a perfect situation from my perspective. But, really, it doesn’t matter how I feel about it at all. We love anyway. We welcome children in obedient love; and then we send them off with prayers and in faith. We trust God and we serve the least of these, whether that be for a week, a couple of months or a lifetime. That is all God expects us to do.
Please note: if there is a valid and substantiated safety concern about the child going back to their parents, then the host/foster family should notify the appropriate authorities. It is important to follow through with the necessary people who can protect the children if there is indeed an actual concern for safety.
