Both "Carson" and "Maggie" reunified with their parents in the past two weeks. This was not a surprise, in fact you could say that we have been expecting it since before we even met them. But the feelings of grief and loss are real, and we are still in the midst of recovering from them. Here's a few things that we have been talking about during the past week.
The world is broken, so grief and loss are always going to be a part of our lives. God did not originally create us to suffer the pain of losing relationships that we care about, but sin has made this a common occurrence. I usually try to live in a way that manages grief the best I can, hoping that I will be able to minimize the pain that comes with it. Yet this is neither possible nor what we think God wants us to do.
We are experiencing what most people fear when it comes to foster parenting, the loss of children we have loved like our own. I have seen that this is the most common reason people give for why they could never be foster parents.
So why did we do it?
I would say it's not because the pain we feel is less than what others may feel. We did this because we believe that the pain we feel is worth the love and security we were able to give these kids. If pain will always be a part of life, then we want to make our pain count for something, and we think kids in the foster system count a lot.
We have also realized that the pain we feel right now really isn't that unique to foster parenting. All parents must deal with the loss that comes with being a parent. Carson and Maggie have left our home and no longer rely on us for survival, nurturing, or guidance. We cannot control their environment or the decisions that they make. I think this could also be a pretty good description of how parents feel when their children go away to college, or even just become teenagers. There are obviously some major differences in this comparison, but we've found it helpful to spend some time looking at our situation from this perspective.
While we feel the lives of our foster children are "riskier" than the lives of our biological children would be, this really isn't true. I had someone tell me that he spent a lot more time praying for Carson than he did for the other children he knew because he felt like Carson needed the extra prayer since he did not have nice Christian parents and a nice Christian family. I find this true in my life too. I worry a lot more about Carson and Maggie now that they are not with us.
The irony, and what this person pointed out, was that we are all completely dependent on the sovereignty and grace of God. I need just as much grace and prayer as Carson does. My nieces and nephews and their wonderful Christian families need to experience God's grace just as much as my foster children and their biological families. There are certainly physical and emotional factors at play with our foster children that are unique and more dangerous, but when it comes to their basic need to know that God loves them and is showering His grace on them, we are all the same.
The above thought gives us a good perspective about our foster kids, and ourselves, but it doesn't really make me worry any less about Carson and Maggie. As I try and deal with the feelings of fear and anxiety about the future of our foster kids, I've been looking for some truths to hold on to.
When I worry about these kids and what their lives will look like in the future, when I worry that they may just continue their family's cycle of brokenness and end up with messed up lives and their own children in the foster system twenty years from now, what can I count on? I'm not looking for a hope that I wish could happen, but a hope that I can count on happening no matter what (I suppose that this is another similarity between our position and the position of any biological parent concerned about his adult children).
I believe that God has created Carson and Maggie, that He loves them, and that He has a plan for them. However, I also must believe the same things about their parents, the ones who have the issues and problems that broke their families. I desperately want Carson and Maggie to break this cycle in their families, but I have no guarantees, and statistically speaking, this may even be unlikely.
So what can I really be confident about?
As I'm still struggling through this, I have come to think that what I can always be sure of is that Carson and Maggie are always one moment away from a life-changing experience of God's grace.
I heard this in the lyrics of a song, "Every breath is a second chance." Like every parent, foster, biological, or adoptive, I have no guarantees about my child's relationship with God, but I do know that God will always be working in them, His grace will always be surrounding them, and they are always one moment away from experiencing that grace in a way that will change their lives.
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