Our quiet home, our place of peace, had become chaotic, unpredictable. This safe refuge was instead a tinderbox; we tiptoed through each day hoping it wouldn’t catch fire and explode. What had become of our lives, of us?
My husband and I were newly licensed foster parents, which, as it turns out, is a baptism by fire. We’d read all the books, done several weeks of training and home study visits. We’d met with seasoned foster parents, seeking to learn and understand as much as we could. We were told over and over again that this would be a hard road, and we fully believed them. But there’s a chasm that exists between knowing something will be hard and the actual experience of that hard thing.
We stumbled into this second sort of knowing in the dark days that followed. My husband and I had become parents overnight to two siblings who’d endured significant trauma in their short lives. The older child’s experience of trauma made it difficult for her to regulate her emotions. She was constantly anxious or angry, fraught with energy she wasn’t sure how to manage. This resulted in unsafe and often violent behaviors. In addition to all of this, she quickly determined that I was the bane of her existence.
I struggle deeply with the idea of being disliked by anyone. After all, I’ve always sought to be pretty affable— I try to be kind, to listen well, to be sensitive and soft. I don’t really rock the boat. I’ll go out of my way to keep things comfortable for everyone else, downplaying my preferences and seeming very “chill.” I like to be liked. Who doesn’t?
So when a little person came to live in my home who was incredibly unkind and tore me down every chance she got, it was jarring. It felt like she saw right through me, revealing bones that shook with fear and a heart that needed steadying.
On some level, I was aware the issue was much bigger than me. I had frequent reminders from friends and family to not take her insults personally. I understood she was suffering and couldn’t quite express everything simmering under the surface. So I became a convenient punching bag, in more ways than one.
What was most devastating to me was realizing I believed every hurtful word she said. Insecurities that had previously laid dormant were given an audible voice. My inner life was primed and ready for a take down. It wasn’t actually our foster child walking through unimaginable pain who was destroying me, I was destroying myself. A war raged in my mind, and I was losing. Desperately. Guilt and shame joined in on the attack, pulling no punches.
The truth is, I am my own worst enemy. I spend my days doubting who I am, questioning whether I have anything to offer anyone. I can see the image of God in my friends, in my husband, in children. In people who seem to own their calling and move in confidence of the Lord’s leading. But I find it difficult to see how he has imparted something of who he is to me.
In my worst moments, I would receive this little girl’s cruel words as a crushing blow. While I’d try to not internalize them, when the hurt kept coming, I’d inevitably say or do something unkind. My husband, my ally in our powder keg home, received the fire of my anger.
I hated myself for all of it.
When I was feeling especially low, I’d beg my husband to remind me of anything good he could think of to say about me (though I was sure he’d have trouble coming up with anything). I needed to hear the words spoken. Anything to counteract all the hateful things I’d heard and believed.
Much more than that, I needed to crawl, over and over, to the well of God's word. I needed to hear and believe what the Lord had to say about me. His voice was one of boundless, unshakable, perfect love.
“…I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God,” (Ephesians 3:17-19).
I needed to see the words of truth on the page. I had to turn the heart I hated inside out before the Lord, revealing everything I was ashamed of thinking and doing. He saw me. He heard me. He knew. God probed the depths of my sinful heart, and still he called me his own.
I needed the power of the Holy Spirit actively working within me to grasp the depths and heights of God’s love. I could not possibly make sense of this by myself. No matter how far I ran, or how deep the pit of despair, God’s love ran farther and sank lower.
I also needed the Lord’s holy people around me to remind me what his voice sounded like. Several times during that season, I felt I’d reached a breaking point. Whenever I shared my struggles with others, they made the truth of my identity as God’s beloved audible. Their words reminded me God was my friend. They prayed for supernatural strength for me as I continued to try to faithfully care for the kids.
The Lord used the difficulty of my circumstances to expose my most broken places. In a journal entry from this season I wrote, “Lord, you’re peeling back all of my layers, exposing my sin— the ugly, the insecure, the hateful places. It hurts. But I know that the work you’re doing in me is worth it. Please grow my capacity for love, show me how I am more like than unlike these children.”
God shines light on our brokenness, not to embarrass or shame us, but to heal and transform us. We must be aware of the ways that we are broken before anything can change. When we are well acquainted both with the love of God and with our own brokenness, it becomes rich soil for new growth. If, in my lowest moments, I have truly tasted of the love of God, I cannot possibly remain unchanged.
I was reminded of this truth the other day in speaking with some friends who are parents. We were discussing the power of our words to speak either life or death, and the way they have seen this impact their children. When they remind their eldest son of his own capacity for kindness, he stores this up in his heart. He begins to believe it so much that kindness flows out of him. But if, in a moment of anger, they speak a harsh word over him, he internalizes this instead, and acts out in malice.
In the same way, we are invited to receive the power of God’s words spoken over us: “What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it— we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are,” (1 John 3:1, MSG). As we begin to believe and trust in God’s love for us, as we allow this truth to saturate our hearts, love begins to work its way out toward others. Our outer reality, the way that we move through the world and interact with our neighbors, will reflect a rich inner life with God.
During the remainder of our time caring for these two little ones, some of our greatest fears were realized. The tinderbox we tiptoed through still went up in flames more times than I care to count. My insecurities continued to show up, painful in their revelation. Love was the only way to endure. Love was Living water, extinguishing each fire as it came, keeping us from burning up— even when we felt sure we would be consumed.
We all need the words of Divine love spoken over us. As I learned to receive them for myself, it became easier to share them with our hurting girl. I’m still learning. But God is kind, he does not leave me on my own. He continues to press in, to reveal himself afresh, to remind me who I am in him. As his love becomes the basis of my existence, I find a deeper well of love to pour out on others.
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