Love Never Fails

She’s not that sweet baby girl you once knew.  Somehow, when you weren’t looking, she grew up.  And in spite of 18 years of your very best parenting and your most fervent prayers and your consistent love and nurture and training, somewhere along the way she chose a different path.  A dangerous path that has left you frightened and anxious about her future.

When you look at her piercings (27 at last count), black eye make-up, and dyed hair that covers most of her face, you barely recognize her.  Who is this person sitting on your front porch sharing a cigarette with her tattooed boyfriend?  How can this young lady with the slumped shoulders and bony ribs possibly be the same girl you once tenderly rocked to sleep?

This is perhaps the most difficult path that you have ever been asked to take.  It requires more faith than you think you have.  What are you supposed to do now?  Does she need “tough love,” where you lay down the law, keep the standard high, and accept nothing less?  Or does she need grace and acceptance and unconditional love?  Do you let her live with you while she struggles to find her way, or, since she has chosen such an immoral and self-destructive lifestyle, do you make her leave your home and find a new place to live?  There are no easy answers.  Or rather, so many possible answers!  How do you know which one is right?

When Love Runs Out

I have so much love to give!  When people ask you why you became a foster parent, that might be your answer.  Because I have so much love to give!  As if somehow you have more love than anyone else.  As if, in some miraculous way, your heart is bigger than average.

It doesn’t take long for you to realize, however, that commenting on how much love you have is only half the answer.   Or maybe, if you’re truly honest, is not the right answer at all.  You understand now that what you really mean is, I became a foster parent because I thought I had so much love to give . . . and because I wanted a child to love me back. 

Is that so wrong?  To give and expect something in return?  To smile and be rewarded with a sweet grin in response?  To open your arms and feel little arms squeezing you back?

It’s not wrong, necessarily.  It’s human.  You were made to give and receive, to love and be loved.  To feel satisfaction from knowing that someone adores you as much as you adore him.

So what happens when it’s not reciprocal?  When you give and love and reach and smile and extend and offer, and you get nothing in return?  What happens when love runs out?

Mama Duck

I’m a Mama Duck, I will admit it.  I live in a beautiful pond with lots of other ducks, and oh, how I had dreamed of having a fine row of perfect little ducklings following behind me.  Ducklings that look like me, swim like me, quack like me.

So there she was, a tiny, helpless, fragile little thing.  Motherless, alone and afraid.  I eagerly welcomed her under my wing, thrilled at the opportunity to love and nurture this precious creature.  She was the duckling I had dreamed of!

It wasn’t long, however, before I began to realize that this youngster who had been entrusted into my care was, well, different.  And in the pond where I live, different just won’t do.