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Barren but Blessed – Trusting God with the Rest
Love One Another
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
When parents have a child, they often talk about how they had no idea they could love something so much. As a foster / adoptive parent, you’re setting out to love someone who possibly has a background laced with trauma and absolutely no connection to you. You’re signing up to knowingly love strangers, sometimes those who have no intention of loving you back.
Our story is relatively cut and dry as our children were so young when they came to us, but for foster / adoptive families of older children, learning to love can be a tedious, heartbreaking process. Sometimes the child has unlovable behaviors, but it’s our job to love them through it.
John 13:34 reminds us of the command to love one another just as God has loved us. It’s a simple, yet powerful command that we must purposefully implement in our journeys.
We must choose to love the unlovable children in our homes and we must choose to love the unrelatable parents in our children’s lives. We must choose to love when our heart is broken, when our heart is full and when we feel overwhelmed and misunderstood.
We must choose to love.
The world is full of darkness and our lives don’t need to be as well. Satan encourages us to step away from love when it becomes difficult, but our command is clear – we must love one another. From the colicky infant to the troubled teen, the angry adolescent to the problematic parents, we must love.
As you walk in your journey, be conscious in choosing love. When it becomes difficult, remember the command in John 13 and know that God has loved you through your dark times. Know that you’re capable of doing the same for someone else.
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