If you would have asked me my favorite thing about being a foster parent a few months ago, I might have laughed in your face. The months leading up to M’s return home were incredibly hard… for a multitude of reasons. You see the stats, you hear “the system is broken,” but there’s something that happens when you’re in it–when you’re walking daily in the reality of the brokenness and carrying the weight of that burden with your one year old foster son. It can be overwhelming. Defeating.
But here’s the thing, as I think about foster care, it’s right there in the hardest things that I see my favorite thing. Because even in the darkest moments, when things didn’t make sense, and there didn’t seem to be any way forward — God was there. And he was moving. And he was making things new.
Foster parenting is bearing witness to the redeeming, healing, restoring work of God. It’s meeting a child, a family, on their very worst day, through many of their worst days, and saying “you are not alone. I am for you, and I am with you.” It’s looking around and only seeing ashes, but knowing God is not finished yet. Even here, there is light. There is beauty ahead.
And even in the hardest of times, there has always been beauty:
In the baby who’s a stranger now finding rest and comfort in your arms.
In the unconditional love and acceptance of brothers who don’t share blood, but have never needed to.
In a new found family formed of the most unlikely people in the most unlikely of ways.
In witnessing first steps, and hearing the sacred word “mama.”
In being a safe place for tears and for tantrums.
In watching a father consistently show up and fight for his sons.
In seeing a family restored.
My favorite thing about being a foster parent is the front row seat it’s given me to see God and be seen by Him. To see him heal and be healed by him. To love like him, and be loved by him.