Fostering in so many ways has been a continuation of what I learned and lived while I was on mission with Con-solatio. Melanie asked me to give a version of this talk to the orientees and focus it around the aspect of chastity based on my fostering experience, which may sound strange. But as I thought about it, it makes a lot of sense. Chastity is about being in right relationship with the people in your life based on what that relationship is. It’s about making promises to the relationships that are truthful and honest. Being chaste in Con-solatio helps you to be in right relationship with everyone- your community, your friends in the neighborhood and even the children because it helps you to remain open, it helps you to hope for a deeper, eternal hope, and it helps you to remember you’re not the savior. Those 3 points are the points that I’ve really had to learn and re-learn in our fostering journey.
We all know that friendship is the main relationship within Con-solatio. Friendship is such a beautiful relationship. I think it gets minimized a lot, sometimes it’s the lesser relationship. It’s the “dispensable” relationship. I know I always heard a lot during chastity talks how marriage is fruitful. Often, marriage is literally fruitful, in creating children. I didn’t always hear that chastity in all relationships creates fruitfulness. There is an openness in Christian relationships/Christian friendships and that leads to fruitfulness. Here is a picture of our neighborhood kids in Honduras visiting the nursing home with us. When I was on mission this is something that happened naturally, again and again. Friends would see us visiting someone and be inspired to also visit someone. It spreads. This “yes” to your calling is what allows this grace in. We got our first foster baby from the hospital at 10 days old. I worried some about what fostering might do to my kids. Fostering is a lot of emotions for adults to handle, let alone, kids. However, seeing my kids learn to love our foster baby, seeing their hearts grow has been incredible. It’s all related to this grace of fruitfulness and openness. However, I want to pause and say what this openness does NOT mean. It does not mean we are robots who love everyone equally and we are open to all people in the exact same way. I had gotten into this frame of mind before my mission, but also during my mission. As a teacher and working with kids before, I was always super careful not to have any favorites or give any special attention. So, when I joined Con-solatio and took on the mission to love everyone and be open to every person I meet, I took it too far. Someone, finally, in my community brought up that Jesus had a beloved friend. John was Jesus’ beloved. Jesus also had Martha and Mary. He had friends who were more dear to him than others because He was human. That was such a weight off my shoulders! To be ok that, of course, there are kids who become more dear to me, of course, there will be seasons where we spend more time with a particular family, or now with fostering a particular child. That’s what friendship is!
Not only did I see fruitfulness in my kid’s hearts, but also the people around us who grew in community and support around us. We have a lot of elderly at our church and they are always bringing new baby clothes or a baby blanket for our foster babies. Friends, who have their own lives and their own busy schedules, make time to love and support us in a myriad of ways, because they too want to love on these vulnerable foster babies. When our first foster baby went to a wonderful, loving relative, we threw her a baby shower. This day was such a memorable, beautiful day. And for me, it’s a reminder of the fruitfulness that happens when our hearts are open to saying “yes” to God’s calling. God multiplies that “yes” a hundred fold.
Learning to hope for a deeper hope. This lesson that I first learned in Honduras, has very much shaped me for fostering. Before Honduras I had worked with kids in a lot of different settings. I had had some powerful experiences working with really tough at-risk kids. But the thing was, was we were always working towards some kind of goal. We were trying to get this kid on a “path to success” whether that was finding them a scholarship for some program, helping them pass some test, get into athletics, find a mentor, there was always some thing, some project. I had also had the powerful experience of mentoring kids myself and seeing how much their poor, aggressive behavior could change through a trusting, safe relationship. That’s not a bad thing. However, when I got to Honduras I struggled with my relationships with the kids. It was a double struggle because I had thought kids were my gift, that’s what I was good at. After a few months I realized that a big part of my problem was that I didn’t know what to hope for, for these kids. There was no “path to success” available to them. Many of these kids would never leave this neighborhood. There was no scholarship or grant to find. What was hardest for me to accept was that we were way too unorganized for me to have the consistent teaching and behavior modification that I had experienced so powerfully before. We weren’t an after school program, we weren’t a program at all. I’m embarrassed to admit, but I probably spent the first half of my mission trying to make it different than it was, or at least wishing it was different than it was. Little by little, as I grew to love these kids, as certain ones did become very dear to me and as I prayed for them, I realized my hope for my kids before had been superficial in a lot of ways. There, in Honduras, my hope for these kids became a hope for their relationship with God, a hope that they would follow the calling God gave to them, a hope that they would always know how loved by God they are. Before, I had usually imposed my own plans and my own projects onto the kids I served. This is not what people who are recognizing their call to chastity do. If I am respecting each person’s freedom and dignity, then I need to allow God’s plans and God’s “projects” to be worked out in the person. And His plans are always much deeper and more important than mine anyway. This lesson that I learned the hard way has been particularly true, and difficult, to recognize within fostering. My husband and I would be very happy to end up adopting through foster care. So far, that has not happened. The hardest part of foster care has been giving up my dreams for this child and trusting that God’s dreams are bigger than mine. Particularly with our last foster baby. We took her home at 4 months old and she was a tiny little 9lb baby. We had her for a year before she returned to her mom. Her mom loves her so much and she did so much work to become stable and overcome the trauma in her own life. However, my worry and concern for our sweet girl was still intense. But again and again as I prayed and I wouldn’t know what to pray for- I couldn’t pray that she doesn’t return to her mom- that would be praying for her mom to fail. Just like I learned in Honduras, I had to learn to pray for and hope for a deeper hope than my own plans. I am not their mother, I am their foster mother. I have to stay in the right relationship. Until the day comes when we are to adopt, I have to remain in the right relationship, which is foster mother. St. Joseph has been a helper in this. And we know St. Joseph had a very unique chastity calling. And for me, it makes now so much sense why St. Joseph had the unique chastity vocation that he did. He had to remain aware that he was not Jesus’ father, he was Jesus’ foster father, to have acted differently would have been completely inappropriate for everyone’s vocation, it would have violated boundaries of the relationship. There is a surrender required in fostering that does not come easily to me. It’s obviously a grace, because it is so beyond my own power to surrender my plans the way I’m required in fostering. At the beginning of my mission in Honduras, it was always in the back of my mind that I’d be leaving in a year. There was a hesitancy in me, especially at first, to know what the right relationship was- I both wanted to protect my own heart, but also theirs, but I also have always wanted relationships to be forever. I’m very bad at goodbyes. Knowing that I would have to say a very sharp goodbye in a year, at times, kept me from wanting to be in relationship. I don’t actually enjoy soccer or coloring with kids, but usually I do them because those are the things that lead to relationship, and if this relationship wasn’t going to be deep and profound in the way I was used to-that is thinking it will be forever, well, I was hesitant. It was hard for me to stay in the present moment. But that’s what God asks of us all the time. We can’t promise forever, only God can promise forever. Fostering has, again, been an even more intense reality of not being able to promise forever. Very often, when I’m praying for my foster babies, I don’t know what to pray for. There is no scenario that doesn’t cause harm in some way- if they aren’t to go back to their parents that causes harm, if they are to go back to their parents I don’t know if those parents are stable enough to not cause further harm. Because I just don’t know what is best for the child, I have to trust God knows what is best. I have to go back to those prayers and hopes I learned to hope for with my Honduras kids- that they would know God’s love, that they would find their unique vocation, because I just can’t be sure my prayers for a specific action would be the right thing and I don’t have control over their future anyway.
Part of my desire to promise forever to so many of these relationships is this desire I have to always be able to be there for them. In Honduras, I didn’t know who would come after me, maybe they wouldn’t love this child in the same way I had. In fostering, it’s the same thing only more intense, will their mother be able to attend to their needs. How can I trust? I wanted to promise I would always be there for my special kids in Honduras. I want now to promise I will always be there for my foster babies, but it’s not a promise I can make. And there’s actually a great freedom and definitely a relief in not being the savior. In just giving God the little we can give him of our present moment and asking Him to be the savior. This last year in foster care was dramatic, every couple of months a significant change happened to her family that sent me wondering what that meant for her future, but every time I would take it to prayer, I heard very clearly God say, “just say yes to now.” I don’t always hear God this clearly, so it was a grace for sure, and it was really a year long lesson in trusting in His providence and remaining humble about my role. Our instinct to rescue is a good, God-given instinct. But the temptation to become the ultimate rescuer or the only rescuer can be intense, at least for me. In June I had the experience of foster care called me because law enforcement was removing 4 month old twins from a house. My rescue instinct was on high speed. I wanted so badly to rush in and grab those babies from the situation I was imagining. However, my reality that week was 1. My husband had been out of town for 2 weeks and was gone and this is a decision I obviously shouldn’t make without my husband. 2. I had just picked up my daughter from school because she had a fever, probably shouldn’t bring these probably medically fragile babies in contact with my sick kid. 3. My limits of time were very constrained last week and this week and I just knew taking in 2 babies wouldn’t be a good situation for anyone. So, I prayed, looked at my current reality and I went against my rescue instinct and said, “no” to those twin girls. I have to trust that there is someone else out there who will take them. I have to trust God has a plan for those sweet girls. I have to remember that I’m not the only one who can be a rescuer and that Jesus is the actual savior.
We all have read The Little Prince, I’m sure. I had a moving experience remembering the chapter where the little prince tames the fox. We had recently said yes to receiving our second foster baby. It seemed pretty likely from the beginning she was not going to end up being adopted by us, but it also seemed pretty likely that we were only going to have her for a few months. At the beginning I had an urgent feeling that the months we were going to spend with her in our care were wasting our time until we got to the child that we would end up adopting. Around this time I was reading a book that had a subsection detailing the chilling statistics of child abuse in our country and the long-reaching consequences. The statistics made me numb and overwhelmed. It also altered my feelings a bit towards our foster daughter. We didn’t think she would be very long term, so it added to the helpless feeling. What difference is it going to make if she’s just going to leave us soon? What’s the point? In the midst of these feelings someone’s sponsor letter, maybe one of yours, tells me to re-read chapter 21. The little prince asks what he means by ‘taming’ him. The fox answers:
“To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.”
The fox later goes on to explain how he is rather bored and the world is all the same to him,
“But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat.”
Through a series of simple gestures the Little Prince does tame the fox. The story continues,
“So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near–
“Ah,” said the fox, “I shall cry.”
“It is your own fault,” said the little prince. “I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . .”
“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.
“But now you are going to cry!” said the little prince.
“Yes, that is so,” said the fox.
“Then it has done you no good at all!”
“It has done me good,” said the fox, “because of the color of the wheat fields.”
The fox’ world had been forever changed by being tamed.
When I read the statistics about child abuse, all the foster children were like a hundred thousand other children. But once we have “been tamed” by our particular foster baby (and it happens very quickly) she becomes unique to us in all the world, and the best part is our world will be forever changed.
The fox concludes by telling him that, “it is the time you have wasted on your rose that makes your rose so important.”
It is the wasting time, the care taking, the little moments of getting up and feeding the baby, picking up the baby, smiling and holding the baby, that make this baby unique in all the world.
Lastly, if there was a final lesson I’ve learned through fostering that I wanted to share with you it is learning that God gives grace for the moment, when the moment comes. I am very prone to want to plan and control my future. There have been several moments within fostering where I have felt like I was in too deep, that the pain that comes from loving a child and worrying about a child was too much. I told God, this is too hard. In these moments, God came so close. His grace gave me strength or peace or trust that clearly didn’t come from my own strength. He sent me little signs that He loves these children more than I do. Holding onto the memory of how close he was during the intense times, gives me courage to be able to say “yes” again. I’ve experienced God’s faithfulness to me, and if I can remember just how faithful he is, it’s usually enough to help calm my mind when my mind wants to start obsessing about everything that is out of my control.
So, to recap the main lessons I have learned by being at the foot of the cross of these children in foster care and also their parents is: watching the grace of fruitfulness that comes with having an open heart and saying “yes” to your vocation and seeing it spread; learning to hope for a deeper, more eternal hope, rather than imposing our own projects and wills on people; the humble realization that we are a small piece in the story of salvation, we are not the savior, and that’s a good thing; the beauty that comes from being “tamed” by one foster child; and trusting in God’s faithfulness.