This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 59, “Foster Care and Adoption–In Her Shoes”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/foster-care-and-adoption-in-her-shoes
“Pack him up. We are coming to get him.”
In the matter of a few hours, we went from thinking we had six months with Safe Families to it being a long-term foster placement to only forty more minutes. The emotional upheaval was too much. I find myself, a couple days later, still close to tears, my heart racing as I remember those forty minutes. Helplessness, fear, anger, and grief were some of the emotions that flooded my body. There was a little baby in my arms that I had been caring for as my own and yet I had no say in what was about to happen to him. At that moment, my child was being taken from me.
This is the first time that I have experienced such a sudden ending to a placement. I have heard stories from other foster mamas. I know it happens, and I know that the emotional struggle is the same.
As I have been wrestling with my emotions and seeking the Lord’s help in bringing them to submission and trust in his sovereignty, there is a different situation that has been pushing its way to the surface.
I remember the moment when the text came through. I was in the bedroom putting something away. Three toddlers were playing in the living room. Jonathan was working in the office. I picked up my phone and saw a picture of a little girl we had cared for a year prior. She was so cute in her jean jumper with a big smile on her face. Her mom informed me that she had a court hearing in thirty minutes and they would be deciding if her daughter could stay with her or would be entering foster care. She asked if we would care for her if the court ruled against her. We said yes immediately and then we waited. And waited. And waited. After a couple of hours I messaged her to ask for an update. “They are coming to get her” was the response.
She was crying when she answered my phone call. “They are coming to get her,” she said again, heartbreak evident in every word she said. This mama who loved her girl so much was powerless to stop her child from being taken away from her.
Now I know that there are often very good reasons, including in this situation, that a child is removed from their home and their parent’s arms. For a moment, though, can we put aside all of those reasons and put ourselves in her shoes?
Imagine you are suddenly informed that your children will no longer be staying with you. You will no longer greet them in the morning with a hug, or tuck them in bed at night. You will no longer watch them work hard at something and see the smile of pride filling their face when they succeed. You will no longer be present when they reach milestones like rolling over, taking their first steps, starting school, or making it on to the school basketball team. The laughter, and the tears, that once filled your home will vanish, leaving a terrible silence behind.
Or, perhaps the parent made the choice to place their child in someone else’s arms and home. The grief and the loss is still there. The absence of what was or what could have been in every minute of the day and night.
One of my children’s birth parents said that the hardest day of her life was driving away after she buckled him into our car.
If you need to pause and grab a tissue, or a box, and have a good cry right now, go ahead. I just did. As soon as I wrote that story, sobs shook my whole body, for her, for us, for the pain and loss that is experienced daily in the foster and adoption sphere.
Only a sin-filled world would have children separated from their parents.
As I have shared with friends, family, and even social media about the ending of our placement, I have been so blessed by the outpouring of love, compassion and encouragement. I thank God for the community that I have around me that helps me to carry on doing what he has called me to do.
I wonder, though, if we are as quick to pour out love, compassion and encouragement on the birth families? Or are we more apt to judge, condemn or criticize? We do not have to condone the actions that prompted the removal of the child for us to have a heart of love for the parent. We can be thankful for the safe place that the child has found themselves in even while we mourn the loss that the parent is experiencing. We can celebrate the growing of one family while grieving the separation of the other.
I will be the first to admit that this is not always easy. The moment a child is placed in my home, my mama bear heart takes over and I want to lash out or protect against anyone who has or ever will hurt that child. It can be a difficult thing to advocate for a child’s safety while also praying for and supporting the healing of their birth family.
Jamie Finn, an advocate in the foster and adoption world, shared a reel on instagram recently that said: “Research shows that foster families’ beliefs directly correlates to the likelihood of reunification.” She added, “even the way we think about reunification, our kids’ parents, the sanctity of the family and the hope of change matters.”
It is difficult to be hopeful for the bio families if we cannot put ourselves in their shoes. If we never see their hearts but only see the wrong actions they took. If we never acknowledge their grief but only focus on ours. If we forget God’s plan for the family and only live in the broken reality of sin.
The Lord is using the grief from losing this precious little boy to renew a heart of compassion and love in me for each birth parent that we have or will encounter. It is resulting in more tears than I have cried in a long time. There is an aching in me that I wish would go away, but I know it is serving a purpose.
I want to invite you into this ache with me. To feel for a moment a taste of the grief that biological parents in the foster and adoption sphere live in. Look at your children, squeeze them close, and thank God that they are still in your arms and your home. Let thankfulness move you to compassion for those who can no longer say the same. Let compassion turn into prayer. Let prayer guide you as you foster or adopt, or as you come alongside those who are. It is helpful when our community seeks to understand the “and” that we are holding of caring for the child and loving the birth families. It is loving when we are held accountable for our own negative thoughts and attitudes that might be putting a wedge between us and them. It is honoring to the children in our care when you show respect for and interest in the families that they come from. It is grace-giving to the bio families when we acknowledge their experience and show love instead of condemnation.
You see, the day that I lost my sweet baby boy, another mama lost him as well. She was the one who carried him in her womb and cared for him to the best of her ability in the deeply broken situation that she was in. She is the one who ultimately had her child stripped from her for an indefinite period of time. She is the one who was supposed to raise him, to watch him hit his milestones, to celebrate his successes and to comfort him in his troubles. She is the one who has much work ahead of her to hopefully one day reunite with her son. It is her family who lies in the hands and decision making power of the courts, at the mercy of the very broken foster care system. I grieve, but so does she. Both of us have said in one way or another, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There must be a better way.”
This cry reminds me again of Jesus on his knees in the Garden of Gethseman before his father, as we spoke of a couple of weeks ago. Jesus agrees, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He died and rose again so that one day it will not be. For now, he is with us in the brokenness, repairing, restoring, comforting and correcting.
Thank you, Jesus, for your presence. How desperately we need you.
Lyssa Stoyko 