The foster care system is not the enemy.
As foster parents, it’s easy to become so discouraged and jaded by all of the red tape and court hearings and personnel changeovers (and the list goes on!). The System looms over our families and starts to feel like a personal enemy.
But let’s make sure we keep the real enemy the enemy. Our enemy is actually the devil, the thief who comes to “steal [families], kill [with trauma], and destroy [hope]” (John 10:10, my own words added in brackets). Let’s have rightly placed, righteous anger against the enemy of our souls, the family wrecker, and the bringer of broken. The world is currently his domain and the foster care system is simply trying to operate in that broken world, trying to stand in the gap and fix something that was never meant to be broken.
Yes, the system is beyond messed up. Yes, often I could scream with frustration from the ineffectiveness and dropped balls and negligence (we’ve experienced a good bit in a decade!). But still there are good people doing good work with good intent. And families are being helped.
I think in order to keep serving foster children with love and interacting graciously with workers, we need to keep showing up with hope. Keep our eyes trained on Him who triumphs in the end and reigns sovereign despite the frustrations.
There is an enemy.
But it isn’t the system.
