On Broken Families and Prodigals: What I’ve Learned as a Foster Parent

Our country has tens of thousands of children in the foster care system. They are as diverse a group of little people as they could be, except one thing—each of their families broke. The break might have been temporary or permanent. The break might have come during infancy, toddlerhood, or adolescence. The break might have allowed siblings to stay together somewhere else. The break might have meant that by nightfall the children were all scattered, each one living with strangers in a strange land. The details of the break may differ, but the break itself remains the same. The break is the very foundation upon which foster care is based, which is why there is no such thing as foster families. There are only foster children and foster parents.

Foster parenting has been an adventure. It’s a pile of paperwork. It includes juggling appointments in disparate lands. At its best, it reminds me of the hospitality Christ calls his church to provide to the least. At its worst, it resembles an uneasy landlord/tenant relationship where both parties want out of their lease. Having a foster child in the household is an intensifier. Their presence can add joy, spontaneity, and fun, but also heartache, discord, and anger.
None of this is the child’s fault. These children didn’t break their families. Their parents did. But that doesn’t stop the children from trying to fix their families one way or another. We foster parents would love to fix them too. And so would the state, for that matter. But only the parents themselves can fix what they broke, and for tragic reasons they often don’t. Sometimes they don’t even try.
In the meantime we try to provide a version of family for our foster children, but we all know it’s not the same. What I pray for is reconciliation, even if such hopes are against the odds, which brings me to Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-31.
In chapter 15 Luke gives us three straight stories about people looking for what is lost. First is a shepherd in search of a sheep. Second is a woman in search of a coin. Third is a father in search of a son.
Jesus’ lost son story begins with the son breaking his family. In foster care parents break their families, but the same principle applies in Jesus’ story: you break it, you repair it. For this family to be reconciled, the son will have to make a move. But first he decides to try to replace his family with a version of it, getting caught up with fast money, fast friends, and then left behind when it all dries up. Too proud to go back to his family, he stubbornly tries to make it on his own without them, but he hits bottom when salivating at the thought of eating pig slop. He decides to return home from the far country, back to family.
Jesus’ stories always have a surprise, and the surprise here is not that the stupid son finally came to his senses. The surprise is that the boy’s father was actively watching and waiting for his son to return. Once he saw his boy appear in the horizon, he ran to him. The father didn’t need an apology, which the son rehearsed all the way home. He only needed a hug. A huge celebration ensued because what was lost was now found. What was once broken has been reconciled.
In our fallen world, we often grow up with fallen families. We can use clinical labels like dysfunction, and we can navelgaze at how nature and nurture made us who we are today. We can distance ourselves from our families of origin by going out and making a new life somewhere else with different people. But I imagine what I have learned in foster parenting holds true for all the people who break up their families one way or another: you can only reconcile a broken family, never replace it.
One of the beauties of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that God has extended his family to all peoples. Revelation depicts a gathering of all kinds of humanity from every tribe, tongue, and nation in worship of God their Father. They are all one family in Christ. Paul describes that one of the blessings of the good news in Christ is that people who were once unfamily are now part of God’s family. People who were once not a people are now God’s people. People who were once dead are now live. People who were once lost are now found.
Like prodigal children we wandered from God into the far country, imagining that we could live life fully without him. Some of us come to our senses more quickly than others, but whenever we do we realize, in the words of Augustine, that each of our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.
Foster care is a restless enterprise. When our foster child gets angry on a whim and hides in his room under the covers, there is a pit in my chest as I try to figure out how to respond. As much as I love him and care for him, I’m not family. His family broke, and I can’t put it back together again. The boy’s parents are still in the far country, and I pray they come to their senses soon.
You might know some people in the far country too. Pray for them. Love them. Watch and wait for them, hoping for reconciliation. Of all the takes on Jesus’ story, my favorite is Karl Barth’s. He said that when God the Son took on our human nature, entered our fallen world as a servant, and became obedient even to death on a cross, his way was the way of the Son into the far country. Unlike the stupid son from the story, Jesus made his journey out of love. Jesus went to the far country to break sin’s penalty, power, and presence. In doing so he reconciled the world to God himself. Jesus repaired what we broke. As theologians for centuries have noted, we humans broke God’s family, so it was fitting for God to become human to repair it.

If God was willing to go through such great lengths for broken family, consider what lengths you are willing to go to for the broken families in your life. Pick up the phone. Get out the stationary. Get in the car. Take it from this foster parent: few things are more heartbreaking than a family broken.