Our foster care journey started in 2015.

After many stops and starts, expectations and disappointments, and mounds of paperwork, my husband and I officially became foster parents in August of 2016 when our (first) two foster sons moved into our home.  We weren’t even technically licensed yet, but here they were. 

They were 8 and 10 years old with a long list of behaviors, traumas, and family baggage that moved in with them.  You can imagine the comments we received.  After all, we had basically no parenting experience when we started raising two rambunctious school-age boys who had already been in the foster care system for 2+ years:

“Two boys? You have your work cut out for you!”

“Foster kids have soooo many issues!

“Don’t you want a baby?”

Over the past two and a half years of this journey, however, one of the most common statements I hear from (well-intentioned) people is this:  “You’re a saint.” 

I am here to tell you, no, I am not.

Surely I am not a saint to the birth parents who don’t understand why they still have not achieved reunification with their kids.

Surely I am not a saint when I secretly hope visitation with a birth parent gets cancelled so we have a night off from all of the chaos that visits cause.

Surely I am not a saint when I lash out in anger at trauma-induced bad behavior instead of listening and empathizing.

Surely I am not a saint to the foster child that screams at me, “I hate you!”. 

I was not a saint when I made the initial choice to walk this unpaved, rocky road of foster care.  The truth is, most days I am just worn-out, over-scheduled, and mildly crabby, like most other parents I know.  I have a short fuse and too high expectations.  If I am this highly-esteemed being that people state I am, my halo is crooked and my pedestal is most certainly cracked. 

Foster care is a calling that captures the hearts of ordinary people who have no special capabilities or superhuman powers.  Foster parents are just normal people who choose to love a child where they are at in the broken life they didn’t ask for. 

Foster parents are people who, quite simply, say, “Yes”.

Yes to brokenness.

Yes to heartache.

Yes to inconvenience.

Yes to courage.

Yes to small victories.

Yes to healing.

Yes to redemption.

Our first venture into foster care did not have the ending we thought it would.  When the boys moved into our home, we were told TPR (termination of parental rights) was imminent, and if we were willing, we would be the boys’ adoptive parents.  Since we were open to adoption, the prospect of adopting our first set of foster children was exciting…and terrifying.  But as most foster parents know, foster care takes many twists and turns, dumping you out in a place you least expect.  Almost three years later and those boys went back home to live with their family, and we now find ourselves, yet again, with our second set of school-age boys.

There is one certainty in foster care, and that is uncertainty itself.  It can be crippling and paralyzing.  Uncertainty, a fear of the unknown, has a way of doing that to people.  Foster parents aren’t exceptional people and they aren’t saints. But we are some of the most passionate people you will ever meet, and we will continue to say YES to the kids who need a resounding YES the most.