Mothers Day and I have a complicated relationship. As a foster mom without adopted or biological children of my own, I’m usually not sure which category I should place myself in on this holiday. Do I take my place among other women who are still waiting for children of their own? Do I join with the women who (for a wide variety of reasons) have decided not to have children at this time? Or do I stand among the mothers whose day to day life often so closely resembles my own?
The role of a foster mom is one that requires endless patience. It involves raising children who are not my own, helping them work through past trauma, dealing with behaviors I may not understand, and protecting them from the failures of their biological family while simultaneously fighting the bureaucracy of a foster system that is often broken and unjust. My day to day life involves the diaper changes, hugs, kisses, messy mealtimes, and tantrums that most mother’s experience - but it also includes piles of paperwork, visitations, home studies, and the often crushing reminder that one day the kids I love will leave my home. I sometimes feel like a mother, but I’m often reminded that I’m not.
Sometimes the children in my home scream at me that I am not their mom and sometimes they ask me to be their mommy forever. Some of the children in my home have difficult memories from mother figures in the past, some miss their mother desperately, and for some I am the only mother figure they can ever remember having. Today I am reminded that Mothers Day isn’t only complicated for me - it’s complicated for the more than 400,000 children currently in the foster care system and my heart breaks when I think of the confusion they have to live with on this day.
Mothers Day and I have a complicated relationship. It’s complicated because I like things to be easy to understand and foster parenting is anything but simple. I often want a label that defines (and in my eyes validates) me and not having a label that is easily understood by others makes me unsure of myself. If the calling God has given me doesn’t have an official title in this world is it a legitimate calling after all? If it takes me ten minutes to explain the role that I hold in a child’s life does my role still matter?
I like things to be easy to understand, but the role God has given me is usually complicated and confusing. It’s a messy, heartbreaking, beautiful, frustrating, confusing, and rewarding calling. But it doesn’t fit nicely into a label that I can quickly explain to others. When people ask me if I have kids I often wonder if my response should be to share about the all of wonderful children who have lived in my home at various times, or if I should simply say no and move on. Or perhaps I should ask them what their definition of motherhood is? Probably not, because that would come across as really weird.
Mother’s Day can be complicated for me. And it’s complicated for the kids in my home too. A year ago I was helping my foster son work through many of the same emotions and tensions that I felt around this day. While out and about, he momentarily got separated from me and was confronted by a stranger who was trying to figure out where his parents were. I came around the corner just in time to see my sweet little boy trying to explain that his mother wasn’t here, but that was okay because Gentle was, even though that made him sad that his mommy wasn’t here. Not recognizing the word “Gentle” as a name, the stranger persisted in their questions leaving my foster son to become increasingly flustered and confused as the conversation continued. Seeing his predicament I stepped in to help him out of the awkward conversation. The stranger saw me approaching and asked, “Is this your mom?”
My little one looked up at me with relief and slid his hand into mine before replying, “No . . . No, she isn’t that.”
Starting to become exasperated with how difficult it was to get a straight answer, the stranger finally asked, “Well then who is she?”
A long pause followed before my foster son looked up at the stranger and calmly explained, “She’s my Gentle.”
I sometimes wish God had given me a different role than the one I am currently called to fill. A role with less uncertainty, more clarity, and fewer goodbyes. Specifically, I wish I had been called to be a mother. And maybe one day I will become a mother and my role will be easier to explain. But for today, I have been asked to be a child’s Gentle. I haven’t been called to be their mother, or their savior, or the one who can make everything in their broken life seem right again. I haven’t been called to guarantee them a beautiful future or an easy resolution to the struggles they currently face. I have been called to love them faithfully, serve them relentlessly, protect them as best I can, and entrust their future to a God who loves them even more than I do. Today, I haven’t been called to be a mother. I have been called to be a Gentle. And for today, that is enough.
"Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him." - 1 Corinthians 7:17a
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