Living Our Faith as Foster Parents
A few years ago, I asked a group of foster parents at a conference why they became foster parents. The answers I received did not surprise me, as so many of them echoed my own reason. The majority I spoke to on that afternoon told me that they felt called by God to look after His children. For them, and like so many others, foster parenting was simply answering God’s call, and to live a life of faith that demonstrated God’s love for all.
God calls His people to display their faith in Him on a daily basis, and in all that we do. This means to demonstrate His love in our actions. One way we can reveal our faith is by living out James 1:27, which tells us:
To look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
While not orphans, children in foster care surely do fit this scripture, and many faith based foster care organizations use this verse as their mission. God has placed within us a call to ease the suffering of children who are in need, and to ease their suffering. Certainly, as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we must stand up for children, these helpless and defenseless children, as Jesus would do for us. Think of it as an expression of our love for God, and living the faith of Christianity in our actions. At the purest essence, God is love, and for us to live for God, we need to live for love. To be sure, one way to live for love is to live out our love, show this love in our actions, our beliefs, our thoughts, and our words. Bear in mind the words of 1 John 4:8.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
One way we can show live out a life of faith is to love others, even if they might not be able to return that love to us. If we are to obey the two greatest commandments as instructed to us in Matthew 22:37–40, then we are to love God and to love our neighbor. Is this easy? Well, for me, it is often not. I am quite flawed, and I sin several times each day, both in thought and deed. There are those days when I become frustrated with the foster care system, and those in it. There are days when I become judgmental towards the birth parents of my foster children, even growing angry at some of them for the pain, suffering, and even torture that some of these parents have given their children. I have had so many children in foster care come to live in my home who have been victims of rape, sexual abuse, neglect, and other horrors at the hands of those who were supposed to love and protect them the most; their birth parents and biological family members. I admit to you that there are moments when I harbor anger and resentment towards these family members. I realize, though, that these feelings of mine are wrong, as I have sinned just as much, just in different ways. We know from Scripture and from God’s word that no sin is greater than another, and none is larger than mine own.
Yet, I am also reminded in these times that God has forgiven me for my sins, and that He has taught me some amazing examples of forgiveness, grace, and mercy in my own life. Just as God has forgiven me, I need to forgive others. Just as God loves me, unconditionally, and will all my warts and faults, I am called to do the same towards those who neglect or abuse their own children. Certainly, I am not to look at these people as fiends, but as children of God, just as I am; children who also need both my love and His love. By showing our love for others, we can show God’s love for others. Indeed, this allows us to show that God loves us, for when we love others, even those who are incapable of returning love, we are acting as a witness to how God loves each of us. To be sure, God commands us to look after these children. His words are quite clear in Psalm 82:3–4:
Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Rescue the weak and the needy, and deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Do these words ring true to you? Do these words speak about foster children? They certainly do to me. Children in foster care are weak. Children in foster care are needy. Most importantly, children in foster care are in crisis. This is what foster parents do; we rescue them by providing a safe and stable home for them. We clothe and feed them. We provide clean beds and a safe environment for them. But, perhaps most importantly, we are to love them. We are to love them as God would have us do so for his “weak and needy.”
For more, read The Church and Foster Care: God’s Call to a Growing Epidemic
Dr. John DeGarmo is an international expert in parenting and foster care and is a TEDx Talk presenter. Dr. John is the founder and director of The Foster Care Institute. He has been a foster parent for 17 years, and he and his wife have had over 60 children come through their home. He is an international consultant to schools, legal firms, and foster care agencies, as well as an empowerment and transformational speaker and trainer for schools, child welfare, businesses, and non profit organizations. He is the author of several books, including The Church and Foster Care: God’s Call to a Growing Epidemic, and writes for several publications. Dr. John has appeared on CNN HLN, Good Morning, America, and NBC, FOX, CBS, and PBS stations across the nation. He and his wife have received many awards, including the Good Morning America Ultimate Hero Award. He can be contacted at drjohndegarmo@gmail, through his Facebook page, Dr. John DeGarmo, or at The Foster Care Institute.
