People often ask if it was hard growing up with foster siblings- if it changed me or stripped my innocence out from under me in ways that left me psychologically scarred.

Of course it was hard; there’s a vulnerable edge to loving again and again, knowing the small person you’ve come to accept as a sibling will be taken away in a matter of days, weeks, or months. There’s a deep uncertainty and anxiety in anticipating a loss with no time frame to draw from, not knowing if a foster sibling will end up adopted in your home, or will never be heard from again. Even before I was able to verbalize the feelings of uncertainty, they were there; when I sat at the top of the stairs and listened as my mom spoke with a caseworker regarding a case, I was acknowledging that I cared deeply and would be torn apart when someone came and took my sibling away.

This is loss. It is something that every single human on earth deals with in both varying degrees and varying circumstances.

The idea of humanity’s reaction to loss is something even the most educated psychologists and counselors are still researching and probably will be until the end of time. It is such an encapsulating topic, but what I find especially fascinating is how we know what pain feels like and take great measures to actively avoid it. Whether it’s simply an embarrassing moment or the mind-numbing grief following the loss of a loved one, the common defense it to search for ways to avoid falling into the same situation a second (or third or fourth) time. Perhaps life experiences leave us seared just enough to look for healing outside the line of fire, or maybe it’s the minds way of protecting the heart. We like safety. I’m finding that it often happens at a subconscious level, but still, when I look for it, I spot walls going up all over my life, barricading me (although often unsuccessfully) from the discomfort of pain.

As a child growing up in a stable family, I didn’t have the life experience of pain to drive me toward that same defense mechanism. When caseworkers surrendered children into my parents’ care, I loved deeply, even knowing it was just for a season.  There was no other option. I think that even if I had truly wanted to withhold a piece of love from my foster siblings (knowing, of course, a loss was looming), I wouldn’t have been able to do so. The love for my foster siblings was so real – it crossed a depth of love I have rarely experienced since then. I couldn’t help loving; it was the natural reaction to living with little people who were already fighting situations I never even knew existed.

Of course having a revolving door snatched away a little bit of that naivety and innocence that my parents had so carefully guarded. There were nights of uncontrollable tears and a deep grappling with heavy topics. I questioned physical abuse before I even knew the term abuse.

“Why would a father get so mad he would break his infant’s bones? What are drugs? Why would a mom use them while pregnant, if she knows it’s bad? What is prostitution? How does she not know who the father is?”

There was pain and that pain has had drastic implications on the way I live my life. I don’t know that it’s possible to take your children on this journey without letting them hurt. But maybe if the goal is to protect our kids from pain, we’re cheapening Calvary’s love. The reality of the gospel is the very thing that drives us to the marginalized and oppressed, even to the extent that we devastatingly fall down at the cross with a new load of pain, surrendering it all to Him once again. That utter surrender is the kind of love we’re called to know.

If we seek to teach our kids how to love one another, then is there really any more practical way to do this than in the safety of your home, where you, as a parent, can be the one guiding and facilitating the hard conversations?

It makes sense to me. It doesn’t mean it’s easy or that there will be times placements will have to be turned down, for the safety of those in your home. I know it wasn’t easy for my family and I can guarantee there were days when my parents watched us struggle and questioned their decision. There were repeated times throughout the ten years that my parents temporarily closed our home, giving our family time to rest and recuperate.

Even still, taking their children along on this journey made sense to them, and fourteen years later, I am so thankful they made that decision.

On a bookshelf in my parents’ living room there’s a photo album with pictures of all of the kids who spent time in our home. On the front page, surrounded by each child’s face, Matthew 25:40 is written: “to the extent you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it unto me.”

To one of the least of these. I believe so firmly that caring for the least of these and understanding the power of the cross go hand in hand. Not that our hearts are able to fully understand the magnitude of the gospel, but that through loving hurting souls who belong to Him, we then know His redemptive power more intimately.

My heart is to share that it’s okay to take your bios along on this journey. That it gets hard and messy, but that this kind of messy love-in-action can be life-forming for all the little souls within the bounds of your home.

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Kylee recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work and is currently working at a child-placing agency while going back to school to pursue a masters in social work. Her parents jumped into the crazy world of foster care just days before her 8th birthday and cared for numerous infants and toddlers over a ten-year time span; four of those kids later became permanent family members through adoption. Kylee is passionate about learning how to better love her siblings from “hard places” and loves sharing about this journey and passion on her personal blog Learning to Abandon and on her Instagram @kyleemarissa.