What To Tell Yourself When They Leave

Five months doesn’t sound like a long time. But it’s long enough to learn how they laugh.Long enough to know what scares them. Long enough for routines to form and for your home to quietly rearrange itself around their presence. Long enough for your heart to adjust.

Recently, we said goodbye to a little girl who had been in our home for the last five months.

Now, to be clear, this was a good move. She went to a wonderful family. A family that will love her, care for her, and provide exactly what she needs in this next season. We’ll still get to see her. There’s nothing broken about where she’s going. But still, something can be right, and still be incredibly hard.

There are a few things you have to remind yourself in these moments, because your emotions will try to rewrite the story:

Foster Care is Stewardship

God placed her with us for a season, and we trusted Him with that season, and now we trust Him with what’s next.

While her being moved may have felt sudden to us, it was not sudden to God. Nothing about this caught Him off guard. He was not reacting. He was not adjusting. He was not scrambling to figure something out. He knows exactly what He is doing, and He always does what is best.

Our job is not to figure out what God is doing. Our job is to obey what He has told us to do, to be faithful in what He has already said. Because foster care was never about ownership. It was always about stewardship.

She was never ours to keep. She was entrusted to us to care for, for a time. And for that time, we were called to be faithful.

Foster Care is a Success - Even When It Hurts.

A good transition is success. That is much easier to type than it is to actually have to live. But it is true. We did what we were supposed to do.

When a child moves to a safe, loving home, whether that’s reunification or a step toward adoption, that is a success. That is what everyone in the foster care system is supposed to be working toward. And in this case, that’s exactly what happened.

And yet it still hurts. But both can be true at the same time. We can be thankful, and grieving. We can trust the outcome, and still miss her deeply.

Foster Care Can Be A Struggle.

This is the part many people struggle with the most. The grief of a child leaving is often the very reason people never step into foster care at all.

I have heard on more than one occasion people say: “I couldn’t handle that. I’d get too attached. It would hurt too much.”

And they’re right. It does hurt.

But that pain is not a sign that something went wrong. It’s a sign that love was real. Foster care requires a different kind of love, one that doesn’t cling, but still commits. One that gives fully, even knowing it may have to let go.

Because sometimes the best way to love a child is to prepare them for what’s next. I would rather love a child and lose them than never love them at all.

Foster Care Is Her Story - And Ours.

Out of all the homes, all the families, all the possible paths her life could have taken—God, in His wisdom, allowed our stories to intersect for this season. For a few months, our lives overlapped. Her needs, met our availability.

This was part of her story. A season where she experienced safety. A place where routines were steady. A home where she was cared for, known, and loved. Even if she doesn’t remember every detail later on, this chapter still shaped her. Amanda sent the new foster mom the early photos, so one day, she’ll be able to look back and see that this part of her story mattered too.

This was part of our story. God used her life to shape something in me. To stretch my patience. To deepen my compassion. To remind me that love is not always permanent, but it is always purposeful.

And maybe that’s the part we miss sometimes. We think we’re the ones doing the helping. But in ways we don’t expect, God uses these children to do a work in us too.

So those four things are important reminders when at moments like this: When talking to your own heart: “I was faithful in my season.”

“Love did what it was supposed to do.”

“Love doesn’t waste anything.”

“This was part of her story, and mine.”