The Answers to All of Your Foster Parenting Questions
There was a time in my parenting career that I thought I had all the answers.
It was about nine years ago, and I had one child. She was six months old and right in the sweet spot where she was eating and sleeping but not yet moving. This whole parenting thing was easy. I read the books, I applied the methods, and everything worked as it was supposed to. I had this mom thing down.
Enter crawling and tantruming and more children, and I was knocked right off my self-created-and-occupied pedestal. Enter foster care, and the fact that there was ever a pedestal to begin with is laughable.
Now I spend the majority of my days confused. Where’s the “how to” for saying good-bye to one of your children? What’s the method for when your toddler has a panic attack? Where’s that manual about answering your adopted child’s questions about her past?
And the deeper questions of my heart.
What ever happened to that child, the little boy who was in my home, who I loved and who left?
Did I do enough to support reunification? Did I do everything I could to encourage and help mom? Or did I love her daughter so much that I was blinded to what she needed?
Why would God bring that little girl into our home, the one we said “yes” to, the one we were willing to adopt, only for her to be moved and bounced from home to home to home for years?
You see, I don’t just struggle through the “how” questions, I struggle through the “why” questions, the “what if” ones. I don’t just question myself, I question God.
But I should know better than to question God...I know that He is sovereign...I know that He is good...I know that He is in control...How could I be so faithless as to question him?
But my questions aren’t accusations. They’re the cry of a daughter to her Father. They’re the faith-filled pleas of, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” And they’re an acknowledgement that, one day, I will be with Him, and I will ask Him my questions, and I will finally understand.
For now, I remind myself that “now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.” And I cry out my questions, remembering that one day, I’ll know the answers. And I will worship Him for them.
Mark 9:23-25: And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” • 1 Corinthians 13:12: For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
