We Grieve With Hope

“How do you grieve the loss of your foster children?” I’m asked it every single day.

And the answer is in the question. You grieve.

You cry and you lay in bed, you eat too much or not enough, you pray and dig hard into truth, you reach out to friends and you pull away. You grieve the way you would grieve any other loss, suffer through it like any other pain.

It’s a strange sadness to grieve someone who’s still alive, but it’s much like grieving anyone else we’ve loved and lost. We do “not grieve as others do who have no hope.” We grieve as those whose grief has purpose. Those whose grief has affected souls and lives and changed histories. We grieve with the joy of relationship and calling and gain. We grieve with hope.