She Could’ve Been My Daughter

I’m a foster parent because I love foster children. My heart is never broken by the world’s heartbreaking things like it is over the loss and pain of a foster child.

Yet being a foster parent has a way of hardening you to the realities of foster care. It begins to make the brokenness of it all seem just a little less broken, to make the abnormality of a child needing a family feel just a little more normal. It’s become common to me that a mother would choose an abusive man over her child or that siblings would grow up in different homes. I’ve come to talk about “placements” and “capacity” and “permanency” like I’m discussing commodities rather than children.

I’ve forgotten how heartbreaking it all is. Last night I remembered.

I’m grateful for a night of weeping. I’m grateful for the broken heart. I’m grateful for the reminder of how devastating foster care is.

And today, when I got another call for another child who was another “easy” no, it wasn’t easy. I felt the weight of what this phone call meant. I cried for him and his mother and their loss. I prayed for this child and pleaded with God for a family for him. I let my heart be broken.

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This article originally appeared at Foster the Family.