Fostering Truth: Because What Foster Moms Need Most Is the Gospel

Sep 26

My eight-year-old and six-year-old are hurriedly stowing away their most prized belongings, fully aware that in a few short hours, two of their former foster siblings will be running through our front door. They’ve learned from experience that it only takes about fourteen seconds flat for their LEGO towers to be leveled or their Elsa Barbie to be hijacked. While they decide which toys are toddler-proof, I stretch out freshly laundered, buffalo-print sheets over the crib mattress. I am wearing my “Get Too Attached #FosterCare” T-shirt, a sentiment I feel passionately about.

But throughout the past six years of working with high-risk kiddos and their families, I know that no inspirational Etsy logo is enough to get me through the heart-wrenching commitment we call foster care.

When the infant we raised for six months goes to live with a relative, we need more than a catchy motto. When we haven’t slept for weeks straight without the interruption of a toddler’s cries for “Mommy," an entertaining podcast isn’t going to carry us through. And even a miraculous coffee delivery from a friend, mid-morning, can only go so far when the caseworker calls to say there has been a relapse. Or plans for reunification. Or even eleven broken bones.

Foster parents need more (though not less!) than pats on the back and a community around them. We need the good news.

The word “foster” means to nurture, encourage, and to promote growth. While some argue that the word “foster” may have picked up too many negative stigmas along the way, I find it a fitting title for the calling of a foster parent. After all, when these children are removed from an unsafe home, where abuse or neglect was present, they are desperately in need of someone’s safe arms and comforting words.

But if we’re going to take up this calling to lay our lives down for the vulnerable, we need a lasting fuel. If we want God to use us to reach broken families, then we must cultivate and foster gospel truth in our hearts.

Sometimes, it’s hard to see God’s plan and God’s character in these dark situations. Which makes it all the more important to step back and realize how the gospel applies to foster care.

God Makes.

God created families to reflect and embody his image.[1] Children’s understanding of attachment is inextricably linked to how they are loved in their homes. This was God’s design: that a family’s continual training and care would point them to the perfect Father.[2]

Sin Breaks.

From the time Adam and Eve decided to do things their way, family became a fractured entity.[3] Now divorce, death, addiction, mental illness, poverty, abuse, and neglect affect families around the globe—and in our neighborhoods. As a result, many children struggle to know and trust God’s love.

God Saves.

But God sees.[4] He knows each deed done in the dark and each tear that falls on a pillow. Because he loves these families and because he hates the sin plaguing them, Christ entered into our pain-filled world and showed us what his Father is really like.[5] Jesus offered his own life to absorb the wrath for the sins of any who would turn to him. Then he defeated death, and in doing so, defeated Satan’s power to destroy families forever.[6]

God Sends.

Jesus promised not to leave us as orphans, and as he returned to the right hand of the Father, he sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in us and lead us in kingdom work.[7] Now we are sent into this world to make disciples, which means, yes, it’s going to hurt. But in following him, we also receive “many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:30). Foster care is a privilege—to enter into the brokenness and bring light to dark places.

God Reigns.

There is so much beauty in the redemptive work of foster care. But no matter how much we toil, it just isn’t how it should be. Foster care leads us to ache for that day when Christ will return and the earth will be made new. On that joyous day, an inadequate judicial system will be replaced by a righteous, just King.[8] The family of God will forever live in oneness and worship, in all that we say and do.[9]

Of course, these truths merely scratch the surface of the countless ways the gospel pertains to loving families in the child welfare system. The point is, there is no meltdown, no phone call, and no hour of the night in which God's eternal plan cannot meet us and minister to us.

So, yes, I have a lot to do before a car-full of precious littles fill my home. There are “stuffies” to be placed next to pillows and scissors to be relocated to top shelves. But I know the greatest need I have, today and every day, is a greater awareness of the One who saves.[10]

Many of us first considered fostering because we saw a five-minute adoption video on YouTube or because we heard some startling statistics. We feel for these kids. And that’s good. God gave us the emotions of compassion and empathy, and he uses them. But if that’s the foundation that we build our service on, we’re not going to stay in those trenches when feeling gives way to flailing. We must foster truth in our hearts so that we can foster hearts in our homes.

So as we make up extra beds for these children—and I pray that we would!—may we also ready ourselves with the gospel.

[1] Gen. 1:27-28

[2] Deut. 11:19; Eph. 6:4

[3] Gen. 3

[4] Gen. 16:13

[5] Heb. 1:2-3

[6] Acts 2:23-24

[7] John 14

[8] Rev. 16:5

[9] Rev. 7:9; Rev. 21:4

[10] Acts 4:12