Making the Best Use of the Time
Amsterdam, Ears, and Persevering in Foster Care
I was furious. The kind of furious where I couldn’t sit still, pacing back and forth, hands shaking and tears stinging my eyes. I get hotheaded when I am angry, which surprises some people and doesn’t even a little bit surprise others. Circa 2016, I nearly instigated a verbal bar fight in Amsterdam with an ironically short Dutch woman. The situation arose over a series of Go Kart injustices that definitely warranted my response (I hadn’t been drinking, the Go Karting really was that intense). Mercifully, my coolheaded husband can extract me from imminent self-created danger with skills akin to Seal Team Six. I hate that about myself, and I thank God that He continues to soften that particularly unruly sin of mine. There have been no near-miss bar fights in recent years, even of the rhetorical persuasion.
My fury on this occasion (not the Amsterdam Incident—fast forward the better part of a decade) was once again surrounding the cursed “system” in which we serve as foster parents. I will resolutely die on my grateful mount, proclaiming the blessings and ever-so-worth-it-ness of being home to kids in need. And, some days it is hard to declare any redemptive qualities in this system, with the emphatic exception of my beloved children. Praising any other aspect of the system feels like riding down rapids on a pool noodle and reminding myself to smile along the way.
On that day, the tasks at hand seemed too great, too illogical, and just too downright painful to soldier on through. As I paced back and forth, I painted an analogy that went something like this:
“Being a foster parent is like standing outside a torture chamber. You know that when you walk inside, there will be some unimaginable horror waiting for you, you just don’t know what it will be. There are endless possibilities for what kind of pain you might face—it might be so severe that it kills you. And, like an idiot, you keep walking willfully into that torture chamber. Who would do that? Why are we doing this?!”
My husband, with his aforementioned cool head, responded with wisdom that sits in my chest and swirls around my head and captures my heart whenever I ask the same questions again.
He said, “We walk into the torture chamber because the kids are already in there. Whether we go in or not, they still have to go through it, and it’s worse for them. We go in because we’re the adults and they need us. They don’t have a choice, and we do.”
My almost two-year-old has been enjoying a recent pastime of repeatedly covering his eyes with both squishy hands. He then invariably declares with undiluted surprise, “Dark!” Yes buddy, it is dark when you cover your eyes.
Like my toddler, we are so often surprised when we shield ourselves from the needs around us, only to find that we don’t notice them. We cover our eyes, and find that our resources and love aren’t really needed.
The thing about caring for hurting kids is that their need is there regardless of whether we choose to uncover our eyes. That’s really the case for all the needs in this broken world—poverty, homelessness, loneliness, neglected kids needing a home—they are just out there happening, with utter disregard for our conveniently free Thursday afternoon where we would like to plug in some ministry for good measure.
It’s too much for any individual one of us to combat all the needs out there, to take up our swords and fight against evil in all its forms. I suspect we all get a little overwhelmed sometimes by all the brokenness, so we wriggle our heads ten inches into the sand and ignore it all. We quietly decide that it’s not really happening, or we couldn’t really make a difference, or next year will be a better time to start helping. We’re not bad people, and we would help if someone asked, but we just don’t really see the needs all that often. If a toddler was left on your doorstep on a random Tuesday morning, of course you would help her, you wouldn’t slam the door shut in her face. But, leaving your cozy home and traipsing through the cold streets in search of the needy seems a little extreme.
We keep coming back to foster care, gluttons for punishment, not because of a savior complex or feelings of altruistic fulfillment, but because this is the mission field the Lord has called us to in this season of our lives. Being quite honest, the tribulations and trials that go along with the role would knock any worldly motivations asunder and leave us fleeing our post.
We stay because this world is not our hope. No amount of heartbreaking goodbyes, shouldering of others’ burdens, or worrying about what tomorrow will bring for our children could compare to “the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). We stay, also, because this is our practical way of “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16).
And finally, we stay because the kids are already in there.
In the grand scheme of things, we won’t ever have a big impact on the system. We have loved a handful of kids, and given some of them our surname and lifelong pledges of parentage, but the need is still so great. The reason any of us keeps trekking along our appointed missional path isn’t because of the outcome, it’s because of the One calling us.
Obedience to God in service looks as dissimilar for different people as an ear from a foot. That’s the beauty of the Church being a body—we all serve different functions. We are not all called to serve God as foster parents. If we all served in the same way we would be a lopsided body, lilting to the side with most of our senses lame and altogether ineffective as a system.
So, as we all collectively seek to obey God in various ways, let us remember that we are not wanting. We are not deprived of good things, only of idols, and praise God for that. Earthly comforts and quiet mornings and uncomplicated homes may be good gifts we enjoy in different seasons, but these are never our treasure. Our treasure is so immeasurably greater than anything this world could offer. Our treasure bore our very trespasses, hung on a tree, and rose again that we may have life everlasting.
The needs are out there, and I pray each one of us finds the courage to uncover our eyes and roll up our sleeves.
I love this Meagan!