Sometimes our foster parents go way above and beyond to love a child, and it’s that extreme love that causes onlookers to occasionally raise an eyebrow to the amount of sacrifice and time that is given away. One of my families is an extreme example of God’s unconditional love. A few months back a baby was born and placed on my caseload who had extreme medical fragility. He was born with a dead bowel, a rare condition that requires an eventual transplant, and an ostomy bag that needs to be tended to several times a day, frequent blood transfusions, and a huge amount of doctor’s visits. In order to make it onto the transplant list, he had to be placed with a foster family who would love him and help him to thrive. We found an incredible family to take him in, and take on all of his medical struggles.

The last few weeks, this infant has gone through a surgery to reconnect his bowel to his esophagus, after having been out of the hospital for almost a whole month. Due to a few complications with the recovery of this surgery, he’s stayed in the hospital much longer than expected. The sweet, tender-hearted foster mom has spent nearly every night over the last several weeks in the hospital with him, and all day long, along with her elementary-age homeschool kids and often foster dad. This family has accepted, taken on the ups and downs of such a huge medical problem, and chosen to love this little guy through it all. I asked the foster mom today, how she was doing, and if she was exhausted. Of course she can’t deny wearing out physically a bit, but it was her spirit that just inspired me. She told me, she wouldn’t have it any other way, than getting to love on this little boy. She wants to just give the love to him that he needs. She reminded me of a song by Stephen Curtis Chapman called “Something Crazy” where he quotes “It’s crazy when love gets a hold of you. And it’s crazy things that love will make you do.” This love only comes from one source, God, and although people might think she is crazy for giving the love away she does, when you’ve experienced the love of God, you really don’t have a choice but to give it away.