Most things are slightly more complicated. Some things are significantly more. Frankly, life would be so much easier if we just didn’t do hard things. But, here we are. Going to the grocery store, choosing the restaurant we’ll eat at, where we will vacation, getting dressed for school or deciding what to eat for an afternoon snack - mundane tasks that require a deep amount of respect for the power they hold over us - to either go well or to leave you wishing things could just be easier. A simple outing you hoped would be quick and painless results in an episode of trauma that derails the entire day and leaves you feeling emotionally spent and utterly exhausted…
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. Among the countless things to be aware of and opportunities to get involved, here’s ten things to consider as you work to bring your awareness to bear through action. 1. The data: 400,000+ children in foster care. 100,000+ children waiting for their forever families. And this pandemic isn't helping anything. 2. We’re not merely talking about numbers and data and stats - but instead real kids, real moms and dads, real humans just like you and me. 3. The fact that data rarely changes hearts and that we are predisposed to find reasons why the data is not our problem.
Foster Dads, Thank you for doing what you're doing. You are loving in some of the hardest and deepest and most complicated places. Places most men go to great lengths to avoid. Yet you, with arms open and hearts broken, have courageously stepped towards them for the sake of others. That is so counterintuitive, remarkable and beautiful. So, thank you.
There’s no “just” or “only” in what you are doing. You haven’t “just” fostered a few or “only” adopted one. Rather, you have significantly altered the trajectory of a life forever. Generations to come will never be the same - not just in the life of the child you are loving but in your life as well, your kids', their kids' and their kids', and even in the lives of those at your church or in the grocery store…
It's virtually impossible to fully prepare someone to become a foster parent. It's too nuanced and complex of an issue to prescribe a certain formula to it. This doesn't mean parents shouldn't be properly trained and prepared; it just means that while certain things are universally true and can be anticipated, most things are not when it comes to the messy and hard and raw of real peoples lives. You simply can't script it; you can only live it - discover it - piece by piece, a little bit at a time.
It probably comes as no surprise to anyone reading this post that foster care is hard. No one ever said become foster parents, it's super convenient and easy. Rather, the call to foster care is one which embraces the inherent inconveniences and inevitable difficulties as worth it for the sake of redeeming that which is broken and offering light into that which can be very, very dark.
