Filled: Devotions for a Foster Parent's HeartSýnishorn

Day Two

Scripture: Ephesians 2:10, 2 Corinthians 5

"Foster mom.” It’s a title so unique and so defining that it’s at risk of becoming the thing by which I most identify myself. Much of my time and focus are spent on visits and behaviors and workers and biological parents. Even between placements, there’s still the web of family connections, the stinging losses, the stress of waiting for calls, or the anguish of saying no to them.

Ask me to define myself in two words, and I’d be tempted to say “foster mom.” But I’d be wrong. The best definition takes only one word: daughter.

As a child of God, nothing that I do is the most important thing about me. And foster parenting is something that I do. It is not who I am. When I put my actions before my identity, I am building on a changeable, faulty foundation. Right now, I am wife to Alan and mom to Liv, Wes, Bella, Em, Jax, and Dillon. And not to be morbid, but even this most important part of what I do with my life could be taken from me in an instant.

The only completely constant, unchangeable and unchanging, irremovable and unflinching part of me? That I am His. And this is what is most reliable about me. Why? Because it is based on Him and not on me. He is constant. His grace is unchangeable and His mercy is unchanging. His adoption of me is irremovable and His love for me is unflinching.

Who I am is, simply put, based on who He is rather than who I am.

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that we were created to do good works. But you simply cannot consider the meaning of Ephesians 2:10 without the rich verses that precede and define and inform it:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (vv. 1–9 ESV, emphasis mine)

We were created and commissioned by God to do things for Him and for others that are so eternal, they were prepared before we were even born. This is big news.

But preceding this commission is a reminder of our identity.

We were dead (v. 1).

We were loved, with great love (v. 4).

We were made alive and one with Christ (v. 5).

We were saved to exalt the riches of His grace (v. 7).

We had nothing to do with our salvation. It is a gift of grace from God (vv. 8–9).

The full gospel message of this passage is absolutely crucial to the “good works” battle cry we pull from it. We must guard against putting the proverbial foster-care-mission cart before the saved-by-grace-alone horse.

Foster care is a mission—a grand and glorious, eternal mission. Spending up your days loving and serving the people involved in it is good, good work. And good works are important—we were created to do them! But good works must proceed from what precedes them. Namely, our identity in Him. Our works are not what define us, not what identify us, and they never save us. The saving work is His, and it’s only ever “the gift of God, not a result of works” (vv. 8–9 ESV).

You are called to do for Him, but first and foremost, you are His.