Battle fatigue

Photo by Jake Lorefice on Unsplash

Fatigue is real.  That bone-tired feeling that floats over you like a dark, lead balloon; A sort of sadness that over shadows you like the sun that never seems to peep out from the gray clouds. Fatigue can make you feel like pulling the flannel blanket back over your head and the fatigue one feels from  parenting battles, even more so. On the frontlines of fostering, the battle can be grueling and lonely at times.


Yesterday was spent with a foster parent who had just completed her first "deployment" as a foster mom. As she bubbled out her experience, her emotions, and her love for the four siblings who had just left her home, my heart was touched.  This sweet mama was worn out. Her words were a mixed bag of emotion- raw emotion of having come from the battlefield.

She definitely had battle fatigue.


That look of...

"They took me for everything I had"

"I'm spent"

"I'm done"

"I got nothin' left"

Oh how I have felt those same feelings! It is a fatigue like no other.
But, the light in her eyes could not be missed.

It was a look of pure delight.

The realization that she had given something to these kids that they so desperately needed was present in her eyes. The feeling of satisfaction that she had done the right thing- given freely of her love and poured into four very empty, deprived vessels was easily observed.

I say, job well done.

This perfectly describes foster care. Freely expending yourself for the sake of another...a child who, despite your own fatigue and lack of self-care, is even more in need than you.

It is a  battle, that is for sure.

It is a juggling act of the most delicate nature- think  ceramic plates in the air, not little soft, foamy balls. This child before me, at no fault of their own, has been deprived of having someone willing to meet their needs. They have been going without for so long and sometimes the mere presence of the fountain (you) has them salivating for water.  The miracle of fostering is that the fountain keeps flowing.

Mending those little ones, wounded from fighting a different kind of battle, is exhausting. Sometimes you feel you are patching them up only to send them back to the front line...all before the wound that you painstakingly wrapped has even quit bleeding. But, we patch anyway. We continue to  mend, love, discipline, feed, and care for these beautiful children.

The truth is... parenting, whether foster or any other kind, if done well, is expending yourself willingly for someone else. It is taking on a responsibility way bigger than what a child can bear.  When I talk with prospective foster families, many times I will hear "I just don't think I can get attached and then let them go."  Usually, I respond with an understanding nod.

It IS difficult. Those who do it don't find it easy. But, for that child's sake, we do it anyway.  As adults, we decide to bear the burden of attachment and possible goodbyes.  We willingly place that weight on our own shoulders so that this little one learns how to attach. And by the way, their little shoulders can't bear that kind of weight. They are children. It is about allowing our hearts to possibly hurt so that their heart can heal.

Thank you, sweet foster parent. Thank you for bearing the scars and fatigue of battle. Thank you for taking on the burdens of others and for enduring; For shouldering a backpack of trauma and marching into battle. You are heroes, plain and simple.

Every wound healed.  Every child, a home.