Today’s guest poster is Jesse. He’s a TIO member with personal experience in foster care side of caring for the fatherless. When he asked how he could help, I asked if he’d be willing to write a guest post about that experience. Here it is. (And, no, the title of this post has nothing to do with Frozen. Just in case you now have a certain song playing through your head.)

~*~

Is it really worth it? To pile on love and adoration, only to know the one you love will soon have to leave? Is it worth it to completely give all you have to someone who you quite possibly might never see again? Is love worth the tearing and pulling apart that comes when you open your home to a situation like this?

When this little guy first came into my life I totally welcome him way down deep into my heart. I would stay up late, sometimes begging him to just go to sleep, other times wishing he wouldn’t drop off so fast. I would love to hold him in the back of church, totally reveling all the attention we would get, never dreaming about the day it would actually end. I guess I’m great at living at denial in that way.

I knew when my parents first mentioned foster care that the child would most likely end up back with his or her parents. I knew that, but refused to accept it. Now I have to. This awesome little guy just turned two, and we are really good friends. There’s nothing like coming home from work and having him run up to me yelling my name, or cranking on the tunes and watching him dance and try to air guitar like his favorite foster brother. These are good days, golden days. But soon, they will end. He will go back to live with his mom, and I can’t stop it. All I can do is pray more desperately than I have ever prayed in my life. I never knew how hard it was to let go until I had to do it. He is her child after all. But I learned a long time ago that reason does not stop pain. The pain is necessary, in order to heal. Which brings it around. Is all this pain, all this hurting worth it?

In a word, totally. In a thousand words, well just look at a picture of him and you will see what I mean. The chance at changing a life forever is worth the pain. Because he has had a stable first two years of his life, he has a much better chance at a stable adulthood. The shot at making a real difference in not only the life of a child, but also his mom and her family. Not to mention the real, epic, lasting changes and experiences I have gained on this journey.

So, is it hard? Yes, heart rending, one of the hardest things I have ever walked through. Is it worth it? Yes, probably one of the most satisfying things I have ever walked through, knowing that we as a family and myself as an individual are doing God’s will, and reaching out to the hurting, the broken and the fatherless. So if you could gain anything from my feeble attempt to put down what races thru my head, let it be this, never let anything stop you from what God is telling you to do. God speaks thru different ways, but He always speakers thru His word. And one the largest and most recurring themes in the bible is serving the fatherless and the widow. Even the ones right in our own country. May God be with you as you go regardless of the pain, regardless of the hurt and possible failures. For the voiceless

–Jesse

Do you have any personal experiences like Jesse? Do you believe the difficulty of caring for the father