Foster Care Reflections: PTSD Pays A Visit

     PTSD in children is a real thing. It's a terrible thing to witness as it spirals out of control. As a mother, you want to comfort them and ease their pain; you want to bring calm to the raging storm inside of them. PTSD is no friend of mothers, it's no friend of anybody. As an outsider, I have to watch helplessly as it rips open wounds inside my bonus baby that eyes cannot see. PTSD symptoms don't just last a few hours, they can last for days. So I stay close, I offer reassurance, and I hold my breath.

     The thing about parenting children from hard places is that their past traumas don't follow our schedule. They don't play favorites and they show no mercy. Training does not prepare you for days like these. Books do not describe what it feels like in your soul on days like these. No one wants to talk about days like these (honestly, neither do I). It shatters your heart, it punches you in the gut, it makes you angry, and it strikes the worst kind of bone-melting terror into you. Will I know the right way to handle this? Will I even be able to handle this? When will I know when it's over? How will I know before next time?

     Then the dust settles and you look back and beat yourself up a little over how you missed the "signs". Why didn't I notice that he was on edge? How did I not see the trainwreck about to happen? Why was I not more vigilant? It's what we mothers do, always. I'm sure I missed a few clues somewhere, but there is no way I could have predicted with accuracy how it all would have fallen apart. Logically, I know this is true. My momma heart still hurts a little too much right now to fully take it in, though. 

Humans are fascinatingly diverse. This also means children suffering from trauma operating in survival mode are virtually unpredictable. For some, this unpredictability makes children from hard places dangerous and even scary. I get that, I really do. Yet, I also see beautiful souls that are hurting and scared and need adults to come alongside them and let them know it's going to be okay. We don't look at someone in a car wreck that's bleeding from the head and run away because they are "damaged and dangerous". We don't yell at them for being stupid and tell them they now have to suffer the "natural consequences" of their actions. We don't tell them it's time to get out of the car and "move on" because everyone has had a wound at some point. No, we spring into action. People remove victims from the damage, get them to safety, treat the immediate wounds, and get them the proper help. Why do we not do that for the children who come into our care barely walking in their damaged lives with a bleeding heart? They don't need our routines as much as they need our care. They don't need our discipline as much as they need our grace. They don't need our "culture" as much as they need us to help them understand how to live inside their own. They don't need our family as much as they need us to bridge and mentor the one they already have.

When Christ was calling me years ago, I was resistant because I believed that I was too broken, too sinful, and too damaged for Him to love. That's when I found the true meaning of grace. After all the melt-downs and the behaviors and the broken things from my bonus babies, I keep coming back to grace. Children from hard places can become hardened to such luxuries as grace, forgiveness, and unconditional love. It isn't up to us to save them, it is up to us to be living breathing examples of His love. If Christ could take a broken life like mine and redeem it, then He can build my bonus babies up from the rubble as many times as they attempt to knock the house down. And as many times as it takes, I will stand by in faith that God isn't finished with any of us yet. PTSD is real, but so is God's amazing ability to transform brokenness into beauty.