Humans of Foster Care Series- Post #1

This post was shared on the popular page "Humans of Foster Care" about 12 hours ago.  Since then, it has been liked, shared, and commented on over 8,000 times and viewed over a quarter of a million times.  There aren't words for the gratitude I feel.  Thank you for reading.

"I never saw her in her home with her “real” mom, but the quick story from the social worker engrained a permanent picture in my head: She sits in a play pen because the rest of the house is covered in hundreds of soiled diapers, maggots, third-world type filth. Old enough to walk, but she can barely crawl. Old enough to talk, but she cries without a sound. Old enough to eat and feed herself, but she chokes on anything but the bottle of milk stuck in her mouth to stifle her whining. Old enough to understand, but she is ignored by her mom, taken by a stranger, and brought to live with me."

"I shook with nervous excitement as I opened the door to this little stranger who would now be my maybe-temporary, maybe-forever daughter. She sat in the middle of my living room, looking too scared to even move. She stared at us with tear-filled eyes and a tight-lipped “I’m trying to be brave” smile, looking too scared to even cry. Like God wired her to do, she immediately identified me as “mom” and clung to me like her life depended on it, like some stranger would come and take her away from me, too. My head and back hurt every night from the burden of carrying her weight and the tension of trying to 'figure out' this child I didn’t even know."

"But that was in August. It is not like that anymore. Now she is just one of my kids. I change her diapers and feed her, kiss her and cuddle her, worry about her and pray for her, get impatient with her and sin against her. Functionally, she is my daughter in every sense of the word. Biologically? Legally? She’s not my daughter at all. Chances are one day the same worker who brought this broken little girl to my home will pick her up, just a little more whole, and take her away from me forever. It will be the single greatest sacrifice of my life."

"But, oh, my God knows about giving up a child. My God knows about sacrificial love, and so it is His sacrificial love that ultimately compels me." -J, from Foster the Family

‪#‎HumansofFosterCare‬ (photo courtesy of Hannah Marie Photography)