A Letter To My Foster Child Stuck In “The System” on Her Birthday

I made you birthday pancakes today.  They weren’t round.  They weren’t perfect.  You probably won’t even remember them.  But I made them because I love you.

You didn’t mind their raggedy shape, the fact that they were a little burnt on the backs, though I turned them down when I gave them to you.

You ate them anyway.

You were happy to have food.  You were happy to be loved.  You were happy to wake up to a home without drugs, or fighting, or saddened souls you had to comfort or spend your energy regulating all your thoughts with.

You are two. And birthdays are meant for cake, and presents, and celebrating the life before you.  But we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I wasn’t there when you were brought here…into this world. I wasn’t the one to care for you in the hospital for your first three months as you fought for survival.  I wasn’t the one who watched you on a breathing tube, and called you to life….though her own life had fallen apart.

That was your birth mom, and I honor her today, for giving you life. But still you call me “mama”.

For nearly a year, we planted you in our home, with the soil of His Spirit, the fertilizer of unconditional love.

And we cared for you when you rocked violently, self-regulating your disturbing thoughts from trauma we can’t fully understand.  When you wailed, and pushed, and rejected any human heart or flesh.

When you sat in a shelter three days because it’s so much easier for most to foster “healthy infants”…Infants than that can be adopted, into families, forever.

Yet, God had a place for you.  For that I am thankful.  Still, all we could do at first was whisper hope over you; over and over again.

“You are going to be all right, I promise.”

I used to whisper during those emotional, eternal evenings, those five o-clock mornings, amidst all those all-day tantrums.

“I promise, you are going to be all right.”

I whispered with miraculous calmness.  I would walk with you, hold you, sing to you frequently, pulling from a hope that came from more than what I was seeing…

A faith not derived from any intellect, or prescription, education, or even our experience…

Those words of hope came straight from Him.  Him, dear one, these past two years.

Please be assured, He has been the One, the care-taker of your soul.

He was there in the hospital, in your home, and especially now here where that seed of hope has now become a beautiful flower.

“Happy Birthday to you!” You smile, and sing with melodious rhythms.  Laughing, turning to the right in circles of delight with one arm to heaven. 

And you aren’t the same kid; not flinching when we reach for you, pushing when we hug you, angry, violent, ragging, fearing a love that might be taken away from you, like it has been so many times in the past.

Yet, here we are.  In this crossroads.

And we don’t know that you won’t be gone, soon. 

We don’t know that a Social Worker who has now recently changed the plan might come and swipe this blooming flower from this place where you have come alive into a person friends and family now don’t even recognize…..because you are so happy.

A new creation, in less than a year. Blossoming with a fragrance that delights everyone who comes in contact with you.

They say you smile and hug everyone when you visit your mom in the cps office. The nursery at church tells me, when a child comes in who is sad, it used to put you in hysterics. But now you’re the one who runs up and pats that child on the back in comfort and sympathy.

Hugging them the way that you were consoled by so many. The faithful.  The servants so willing, who freely shared the love of Jesus with a troubled baby they didn’t know.

But will you light the world still, if you go?  Will the flower you’ve blossomed to, so delicately crumble if they pull you back into poverty, depression, addiction, neediness? 

Maybe.

But, my child, I can grip to you this morning.

And it’s like your first reach of hope after months of tantrums upon your initial entry….you wrap all five fingers around my index.  You cling on, just like a newborn baby awakening to life.

Just like a infant reaching for her mommy when she comes into this world for the very first time.  And it is my gift from you.

Yet, I get it fully, I am not your birth Mama. 

Still, I thank God that although your future may not go the way I want, these seeds planted in you can never be dug up; by a court, or a judge, or a last minute surfacing mom…

Or a social worker who comes and wants to return you to those they took you from, twice; the last time covered in weeks worth of dirt, wearing pajamas at 2:00 p.m. sitting in a diaper full of poop.

But what I have learned?  I am not God.  I am not in control of your future, your purpose, your destiny, your future as a now two-year-old child.

Still, I can and always will hold you close to my heart, and pray for hope to stay alive in you.  And while I do, I will personally fight to keep this soil of my heart free from bitterness. This ground in my life moist with tears of gratitude. This garden of my soul softened…regardless of a system that sometimes does us wrong. 

Because the world needs more foster moms. More fighters for justice. More finger-holders, imperfect pancake makers. More believing ones who will hold a child needing love and watch the grace of God bloom in them…

Especially on days like today, when a child turns two.

“Everything will be o.k.  You will be alright”, I hope I can still whisper this promise to you, my child….

Because, I made you birthday pancakes today.  They weren’t round.  They weren’t perfect.  You probably won’t even remember them…

But I made them because I love you.

(Update on this post! After 2 1/2 years in our home, for the second time, this child was returned back to her bio parents. 11 months later she was returned back into care, back into our home. She is now our adopted daughter.)