What Foster Care taught me about the Importance of Love

I'll never forget little Cheyenne...

We called her "little" because she was the younger of two different foster care girls named Cheyenne that my parents briefly took care of in our home at the same time.  Cheyenne was about 5 or 6 years old or so at the time we had her.  She came into our home shortly after some guy who frequented a local drug store, the kind run out of a hotel bedroom, reported her whereabouts to the authorities.

You see, at some point Cheyenne's mom came to the same hotel to engage in some "business" there.  And when she left, she didn't take Cheyenne with her.  She left Cheyenne with the drug dealers.  One of their frequent customers noticed this little girl was there quite often, and knew she didn't belong to any of the dealers.  Feeling concerned about her well being, he alerted the authorities, who came in and rescued Cheyenne out of that awful situation.

Cheyenne was a very sweet little girl.  She had a very vibrant and energetic personality.  But Cheyenne came to us with a lot of baggage, and was very broken as a result of her past, a past that nobody but Jesus quite knows about, as nothing is really know about her prior to her being found in that hotel.

We really liked this little girl.  Unfortunately, Cheyenne was unable to stay with my family for a long time, as she simply became too much for us to care for.  One day out of the blue, Cheyenne had a deep psychotic episode of some sort.

It was normal for Cheyenne to have "episodes," and my parents had been trained on how to help her when she had these events.  But one day she finally had an episode that she simply did not come back from.  She snapped, and became extremely physically violent and insanely loud.  Her strength was akin to the "lunatic" that Jesus healed in the Gospels.  My mother was unable to successfully use any of the techniques she had learned from her foster care classes to fully and safely restrain Cheyenne.  So, in an act of desperation, we were finally able to isolate Cheyenne in her bedroom while my mother alerted the authorities.  To keep her in her room, I used all 200+ lbs of my five foot eleven frame to physically pull the door shut and to keep it shut.  But much to my surprise, Cheyenne suddenly jerked the door from the other side and opened it up on me, and screamed at me really loudly, before I managed to pull it back shut on her.  It was like something out of a scary movie.

Shortly thereafter, a team of medics showed up to our home, and it took about 6 people to physically restrain her and tie her down to a stretcher.  They loaded her up in an ambulance, and we never saw little Cheyenne again.

Over the years, I've reflected on this event from time to time, and have been taught several lessons from it.  One of those lessons is the importance of love, and it's ability to mold lives, and impact a thousand generations.

The world is full of Cheyenne's.

It is full of people who, for whatever reason, simply have not had the blessing of being deeply loved.  And not only have they not been loved, but they've been neglected and abused at very crucial points in their lives.  Things have happened to them that will forever shape the rest of their lives in this world in a very negative way.  And not only will it greatly impact their lives, but it will impact many lives for many generations to come.

God only knows what happened to Cheyenne when she was being cared for by some drug dealers.  I shudder simply thinking about it.  And, God only knows what sort of care Cheyenne received before then at the hands of her mother.

I don't know anything about Cheyenne's mom.  Nobody really does.  But my guess is that at some point in her life, she didn't know what it truly was to be loved, and as a result, lacked the ability to give that gift to her daughter.  I assume she probably "meant well" in her brief parenting of this little girl.  But at some point those good intentions failed, and that love that God intended a mother to give to her child was forever stolen, and it will forever remain a very important missing piece of the life Cheyenne should have had.

I don't know what happened to this little girl that stayed in our house.

Sadly, I don't imagine much of anything good ever came of her.  I'm sure some doctors were eventually able to medicate her enough to the point where they stabilized her behavior.  And she probably was eventually placed back in foster care.  If Cheyenne was lucky, she might have been adopted by a loving family capable of caring for such a child.  But if she wasn't, and she continued to have episodes, there is a good chance she was eventually placed in a "group home" with a bunch of children just like her.  Such isn't exactly a great environment for children to grow up in.  Eventually little Cheyenne probably aged out of the system, and has since become a young adult, and is looking to find her place in this world.

And she's probably doing this without knowing what it's like to have ever been deeply loved. But in her gut, as someone created in the image of God, she probably knows that love is something that exists, and she will probably seek it out in a million different places.  Not knowing love, she will probably encounter a lot of coldness from a lot of people who could seem to care less about her.  And at some point, quite unintentionally, she will probably have a child one day, and the cycle she's caught up in will be passed along to the next generation, and a thousand generations after that.

Imagine how different little Cheyenne's life could have been, if she had simply been loved as God intended her parents to love her.  We live in a world full of such people.  And as Christians, God has called us to share the love He has shared with us to a world that desperately needs what we've been so richly given in Christ.

So the next time you interact with somebody, be it at work, at church, the stranger on the street, or even someone you deem to be your enemy, be reminded that there are a lot of people out there who know little to nothing of love.  Especially people who prove to be difficult to handle, and have abrasive personalities.  That person could be little Cheyenne, all grown up.

Knowing such things, let us make sure we pass along the love we have so richly received in Christ to people wherever we may go.  And we need to do so purposefully, and actively, not as passive folks who just so happen to treat other people nice from time to time.  But as people who intentionally love on as many people as we can.  And in doing so, we might just snatch a life out of the claws of the devil, and help to rewrite the future history of this world, as they come to know the love that God has for them through us, and we give them a love that nobody bothered to give them.

Naturally Born Haters

Whether we admit it or not, one experience that is common to all humanity is that we identify people who are our enemies, and then whenever possible, we hate them as much as we can.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

Recent news headlines (which seem abundant lately) illustrate this point quite well:

• Riots and looting have overwhelmed the small town of Ferguson, MO, after a white police officer there shot and killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown.
• ISIS has been establishing an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria, persecuting Christians, and beheading small children.
• Israel and Hamas/Gaza have been lobbing missiles back and forth at one another.
• Russia and Ukraine have been under a tense stand-off, with possible war looming.
• A flood of immigrant children have been dropped off at our nation's border, and are overwhelming the system in place, leaving politicians sharply divided on how to solve the problem.
• Big banks have been paying out multi-billion dollar settlements for lawsuits over bad lending practices that helped create the last mortgage crisis.

A lot of these headlines stir up deep feelings within all of us. We often end up identifying with a particular person or issue in a story, and choose sides in the process. Our passions become increasingly inflamed as we learn more and more about injustices going on all around us.  We dig our heels in deep in support of our cause, and no amount of facts spoken to the contrary will ever convince us we are in the wrong.

Such a phenomenon isn't limited to global geo-political issues either. We see such strife in our everyday lives as well.

Managers and their employees square off against one another. Family drama creates factions that no longer speak to one another. Romantic relationships are soured. Neighbors feud. And the things that make for an episode of Jerry Springer abound.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

At the end of the day, so many things boil down to "US" vs. "THEM."

Distrust abounds.  Dirty glances are exchanged.  Crossed words are spoken in haste.  People are vilified and demonized.  We speak in absolute terms about "ALWAYS" and "NEVER."  Fear and panic flood our minds.  Battle lines are drawn in the sand.  War erupts.

Such seems to be an endless cycle we simply cannot seem to escape from. And as much as we say we hate the cycle of violence that unfolds, at the same time we find it impossible to turn away from. It's as if we secretly crave it.

Instead of looking for reasons not to go to war, we look for reasons to "justify" war, and write long philosophical books on the subject. And soon, what was once only supposed to be done under exceptional circumstances becomes a way of life.

As soon as any sort of conflict raises its ugly head, somebody on TV or Facebook starts a campaign in the name of taking swift and decisive action against somebody tens of thousands of miles away.

It's as if we are naturally born haters.

No wonder Jesus had to command us to to "Love your enemies." (Matthew 5:44) He had to command it, for loving your enemy is not a naturally occurring thought or desire.  It is counter intuitive to our first impulse, yet in the command we find that which is God's very heart.

It's hard enough to like somebody you have a hard time getting along with, let alone loving them. But loving your enemy is another matter altogether.  Your enemy, after all, is not only somebody who you find it hard to get along with, but is somebody who feels hatred for you.  They hope for bad things to happen to you, celebrate when they do, and as much as possible, actively campaign against you, even to the point of taking your life.

Yet, these very enemies are the people that Jesus commands us to love.  

Love your enemies, Jesus said...

...even the young black man in the ghetto who hates you because you are white.
...even the trigger happy police officers who abuse their authority and oppress minorities.
...even the Islamic radicals who fly airplanes into towers and behead people on YouTube.
...even the Jewish solder who randomly kills unarmed civilians in Gaza.
...even the parents who abused you, and played favorites.
...even the ex-husband who cheated on you, and spreads lies about you.
...even the boss at work who writes you up to save his own tail.
...even the President who won the election, even though you voted against him.
...even the man who breaks into your house at night to rob you.

We need to get out of the business of hating people who are our enemies, and fighting against them.  We need to get out of the business of merely loving the people that love us back.  The most vile and godless men are capable of the same.  We need to think new thoughts, and think about the challenge of loving our enemies.

Of course, such a thing puts us in a tremendously vulnerable position.  Loving your enemies opens yourself to a lot of risk.  These same people may take advantage of you.  They may even harm you and your loved ones.  They may shoot you dead in the street.  They may bomb you into oblivion.  They may treat you even as they treated Jesus.

But we as the people of God can afford to take such risks.  Kill us though they may, we know that our lives are ultimately in the hands of God, and we know that even though we die, yet shall we live.  And we take the risk of loving those who hate us, with the hopes that through our demonstration of God's love for them through us, that they might be transformed from a people who are naturally born to hate, to a people who now even love their enemies.

Such is nothing short of a miracle.

And such is a greater cause to rally behind than any "justice" we may attempt to uphold and execute against those who wrong us and those whom we naturally love.  

Love your enemies.  It may not come to you naturally.  But it's not supposed to come to you naturally in the first place.