Faith & Foster Care by Dr. John Degarmo

Author:Dr. John Degarmo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Hope Publishers
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

AN EXAMPLE OF GOD’S LOVE

Like Tammy, we can all be examples for our child’s birth parents. For birth parents and family members, you might be the best example of what a good parent is. Everything you do as a foster parent will send signals to the biological parents on how a parent should act as well as how to treat their own children. Indeed, you are an example of not only how a parent should act, but you are also an example of Christ. As Christians, we are to share our faith with everyone we meet. As foster parents, we can do this sharing in quiet, silent ways, and without breaking any policies about faith that your child welfare system might have in place.

To begin with, we can simply model being a good parent and a Christian by staying positive and keeping a good attitude, even in the midst of trying times and difficult challenges. I remember a time when a birth parent was cursing at me in front of the caseworker, calling me horrible names and making false accusations against my wife and me about how we were treating her child. The caseworker was relatively new at her job, did nothing to intervene on my behalf, and instead sat there next to me and allowed the birth parent to continue in her attacks. At first, I felt my blood pressure rise, my heart began to race, and I wanted to lash out in defense. Instead, I folded my hands together, and prayed silently to myself, “Love is patient, love is kind,” from 1 Corinthians 13:4. When the birth mother rose from the table where we were sitting and spat in my face, I prayed even harder and remained calm. Can I be honest with you? It wasn’t very easy for me. Without a doubt, though, it would have only created more problems if I had met her attack with one of my own. I would also not have honored the foster child in my home by treating the child’s mother in such a fashion.

Not only can we stay positive and keep a good attitude, but we can also treat our foster child’s birth parents with the same dignity, respect, and kindness that Jesus would show. One of the best ways we can show our Christian faith is by treating everyone we meet with these attributes, even if they are not returned. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told when tested by an expert in the law in the tenth chapter of Luke? Let me share it with you.

One afternoon, a young man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The distance between the two cities is roughly 15 miles and, in the days of Jesus, the roads were very rough and not easy to travel. For this young man, it would have been an all-day trip, taking around eight hours to complete. The road was a popular one for robbers and thieves, as there were many places for them to lie in hiding, waiting to ambush the unsuspecting traveler.

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