Termination

• an act of ending something

• the act of making a person leave a job : the act of firing or dismissing someone

For a word not to be used often in my daily language, this word all of a sudden has TREMENDOUS meaning in my life.

Our precious foster son’s parents lost their parental rights this morning.

Rights were terminated.  Their job as parents ended today.  They have not been involved in his life so this was most likely not a drastic surprise to these two people who gave life to our son. But their connection to this child is over, at least legally.

I can’t stop wondering if they feel any sort of connection to this amazing little boy. I want them to.  I so want them to long for him.  I want them to be broken that in a sense, they are fired.

While I am rejoicing in the truth of what terminating parental rights means for us as foster parents, my heart is broken by the facts. The hard, cold facts that the parents never really accepted the job in the first place. They never showed up.  They never followed the employees’ manual.  Never invested interest or time.

They never took advantage of the benefits of loving this little boy.

We are filled with excited anticipation tonight and we are also filled with grief.  This is part of our little guy’s story but it is definitely a tragic beginning.  This is a loss.  A great big loss.  We most likely will never know to what extent the parents are grieving and what this loss means to them. We will, however, be exposed to a little boy one day wondering, grieving, questioning this loss.

May we have the wisdom, discernment, and skill to accept this job as his parents.