Foster Care has felt like it’s been my calling for a very long time. I feel it in my soul on a daily basis. Even on the hard days, I push past the storm and see the rainbow of promise, and know that tomorrow will be a new day.
Being able to be a voice for a child who doesn’t get a say in what has happened to them is a huge responsibility, it’s remembering that you are advocating for their best Interest know matter what it looks like it should be. Their stories are sometimes hard and it’s easy to get wrapped up into the heart of it, your heart of it!!! We love so hard that we forget sometimes, that before us and before all the mess, someone else loved them and still is loving them as hard as you are, they are just doing it in the best way they know how, the way they were taught to love, the way they may have been loved.
When we know better we do better and everyone deserve a chance to know better. Even when it means our hearts might break a little bit.
The chance to see a family heal is rewarding on all levels, and when this happens children get the chance to grow where they should. Family bond and connection is so important to who we are and who we will become, when that connection is broken and that trauma has happened it’s hard to connect to anything in the way that we should. We need to foster the family, not just the children who come Into our homes.
It never gets easier to say goodbye, but hopefully there won’t be goodbyes, hopefully there will be playdates, holidays, birthdays, special occasions shared between new family made. Support and Grace for when it’s needed. An ear to listen and a shoulder to cry in for when it feels hard. Parents will struggle when children go home just as much as the children do. This will be new to them all. Things will be different then they were. Because when we know better we do better. And that might feel weird.
So, after many years and 28 children, I can’t see not doing this still.
We are in the process of 2 adoptions. This next chapter will still be a lot of work. A lot of healing will still have to happen. A lot of patience and understanding. And although it feels like it should be a time for celebration for us, it is also a time of loss for our children. We will work hard to keep relationships open, when safe to do so, and our children will always know their story, age appropriately. And they will always know that they were loved before they came into our home.
Fostering.... The Life 