by Amy White
I’ve been a foster parent for about 10 seconds. But as a single woman turned first-time, full-time caregiver, it feels like an eternity. The 8-year-old boy now living in my house has taken me out of my comfort zone.
It’s a comfort zone three decades in the making, built with equal parts fear and familiarity. For years, I have chosen to keep myself safe.
But being responsible for another human being doesn’t feel safe; especially one I hardly know. I feel exposed and vulnerable and afraid. Because I know my fears are unwarranted.
Stumbling blocks
I know staying in my comfort zone is a stumbling block for a deeper experience of God and life and relationship.
And yet I can’t quite shake it, and there are lots of moments when I want to crawl back into the security of last-minute girls’ weekends, late nights working at the office and impromptu dinners out.
For most of my life, I’ve been free to go where I want when I want.
But I’ve never felt very free. So now I get up every morning and look into the eyes of a little kid who was taken away from his home and dropped off with a total stranger. His deep blue eyes tell a hard, sad story—one he’s had no say in writing, one that’s given him real reasons to feel exposed, vulnerable and afraid.
A meltdown
Those fears were triggered in a major way recently. In a kicking, screaming, I-hate-your-guts meltdown sort of way. We were in public, of course, and by the end of it I was fighting back tears, too.
Slowly, whatever upset him gave way to a quieter plea: “I’ll be good now,” he kept saying. “I’ll be good.” Like he was offering some last-ditch effort to combat the lie that has been whispered to him throughout his life, the lie that makes him feel like he’s disposable— like he’s not enough.
I grabbed his little cheeks in my hands and said, “I need you to listen to me. Nothing will change how much I care about you. Nothing will change the fact that I want you around. Nothing.”
I said it for him, of course. And I meant it. But I also said it to remind myself. Because as happy hours give way to finding lost shoes and telling bedtime stories, I have a growing sense that we need each other.
Sweaty palms, stomach knots
So even when I miss the way it used to be, I’ll keep trying to step into more and more moments with sweaty palms and a knot in my stomach—fighting for him to know he’s valued and loved.
And for his part I have a feeling he will continue to chip away at my fears and tear down some of my walls. Hopefully, along the way, we’ll both end up with a deeper sense of the kind of freedom God offers—the kind of freedom that invites us to love and to serve.
When she’s not traveling or making food with friends, Amy White serves as a writer and marketing strategist for Calvin College. She also blogs about her journey as a foster parent at abrokenpencil.com. This post first ran as a column in the April 2017 issue of Gather magazine.
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