How Many Times Shall I Forgive?

“Oh, loving the kids is the easy part,” a foster-mom friend proclaims to a group of moms nodding in agreement. “It’s everyone else who makes foster care hard. But loving the kids? That’s easy.”

I nod along, like someone who isn’t on the inside of the inside joke but is too embarrassed to admit it. Yeah, loving the kids is so easy. EASY. Not hard at all, just easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Last night I left my child alone in their room because I couldn’t protect myself from their violent blows. “I hate you!” I heard, as I closed the door behind me. When I didn’t respond, they opened the door, slamming it into the previously formed door-handle-shaped hole in the wall. Once, twice, three times, four times, intentionally widening the previously patched cavity. I pulled the door closed and heard a whispered, “I’m making the hole bigger.” And I heard chunks of drywall cracking from the wall as dust spread under the door.

This is easy. Loving the kids is the easy part.
Easy peasy.

My kids need my forgiveness.
I need God’s forgiveness more.
•
•
Excerpt from Filled: 60 Devotions for the Foster Parent’s Heart • Read Colossians 3:13 & Matthew 18:21-35 for more

(Note: I understand my children’s behavior is shaped by trauma & mental illness. It is also fueled by sin. My children—and I—need both healing *and* forgiveness.)