Your Impact is Immeasurable

I’ve had placements that have lasted two days and placements that lasted have two years. I’ve had times where I think “I changed that child’s life” and times where I wonder “What was even the point?”

If it feels like you’re not making a difference, feels like your time was cut short, feels like you didn’t do enough, I want to remind you: Every moment that you’ve spent teaching and cuddling and smiling at and rocking and playing with and hugging and reading to and answering and feeding and correcting and nurturing your foster child has impacted their brain and body and heart forever.

To your older children, you’ve presented an example of what family can and should be, of what the future can look like. To your babies, you’ve inputted security and attachment into their little brains. To any child, you’ve played a part in their healing, you’ve taught them things that their minds or hearts or bodies will carry within them.

Your impact is immeasurable. Which means, at once, that it can feel like nothing—you can’t even measure it—and also be everything—you can’t even measure it.