Answer

Could Foster Care Be Part of What Christ Is Calling Me to Do?

You have thought about fostering and then stopped, probably at an objection. You already have children. You are not sure you could hand a child back. You may even wonder whether the desire is really about a child or about something missing in you.

Possibly, yes. The way to find out is not to resolve every objection first. Start with what is already true: a child in foster care belonged to God before they belonged to any family, including the one they were removed from. They are not a case being managed. They are one of Heavenly Father’s children who currently has nowhere safe to sleep.

Eternal Truths

Receiving a child is treated in scripture as receiving Christ Himself. “Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me,” He taught (Matthew 18:5). Elder Neil L. Andersen took that line as the title of “Whoso Receiveth Them, Receiveth Me” and asked members to be deliberate and tender toward children whose family life is not what they deserve.

Going to children without a family is how James defines religion. He called pure religion the visiting of the fatherless and the widows in their affliction (James 1:27). Not admiring them from a distance. Going to them.

Every child is entitled to what the Proclamation names. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be reared by a father and a mother. A child in care has not had that. Knowing what they are owed is what lets you supply as much of it as you can.

What Can Make This Confusing?

The objections are real. Most foster families already have children, and those children often describe it later as the thing that shaped them. If you have struggled with infertility, fostering is not a consolation prize and should not be entered as one, though many families find it is a different door rather than a lesser one. And yes, you may have to let a child go, and it hurts every time. Foster parents tend to describe that grief as the cost of having done the thing rather than evidence they should not have.

Questions to Think About

• Which objection am I actually stuck on, and have I asked anyone who has fostered about it?
• What would our household have to change to make room?
• Is there a foster family near me I could support this year even if we never foster?

What You Can Do

Call your local agency and ask what the training involves. That is one phone call and it commits you to nothing. If the answer for now is no, families who have fostered often stay in a young person’s life after they age out at eighteen, turning up to graduations and answering the phone late at night, and that is open to you without a placement. The essay behind this Answer goes further into both the doctrine and the practicalities.

Jesus Christ can give a child a season of peace through your household, and He can carry you through the part where you have to let go.