We loved Baby K from February 27 to May 7. We attached to him just as hard as we could, for his sake. As Bryce said, “Yes, we need to attach to him/him to us. It’s vital for his development and good for our soul’s sanctification.” Would there be eventual “damage” to our hearts? Highly likely. But it was WORTH IT. Worth it to give Baby K the gift of attachment.
For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. So then, death is at work in us, but life in you.
2 Cor. 4:11-12
Foster care: dying to ourselves so that Life may be at work in the lives of these precious children.
Toward the end of April, we knew that Baby K was on the brink of going to live with his father. It was so very good; it was so very hard. It’s been a long time since my heart connected like that with a placement. So many midnight feedings. Snuggle sessions. Sweet smiles he finally gave us.
I told a friend I was 100% sad for him to leave. Bake K had a visit with dad one weekend, and there were tears from me. I just missed his sweet face. And I worried about him—I worried when he wasn’t with me. But at the same time I was 90% glad (almost all the way glad . . . but not quite). So glad for a father and son to be reunited—this is right and good. So glad for a successful reunification. So glad for a safe home.
How can I feel 190% all at once? Oh, the heart of a foster mom. Carrying grief and joy together. God is faithful and to Him we cling. This is our privilege and posture in foster care goodbyes.
Our little K went home with his dad, in an odd bit of irony, on Mother’s Day weekend. I lost a child, but a father gained a son. Foster care is action in response to the deep heart desire to see families reconciled. To step in as a safe place for the interim—even if it hurts horribly when the children leave—in order to give God space to perhaps save a family.
When I cried as I folded K’s clothes and packed up his formula, I kept thinking that what if this was my husband Bryce and he was going to pick up our son JD. Bryce would be anxious and ready and excited and just waiting for the state to give the green light for him to bring his son home. What if. What if the situation was us.
Is loving in this foster care space hard? Does it sometimes feel hopeless? Are the mountains of trauma and dysfunction and wounds just really big sometimes? All yes. But our God is bigger still.
And He just might use a foster family to reunify and reconcile a family.
