Child Share of Delaware County

05/06/2026

Everybody loves to say “the system is broken.”

But what are you doing besides talking about it?

Because babies are still sleeping in DSS offices.
Teens are still aging out feeling unwanted.
Foster parents are still crying in bathroom floors from exhaustion.
And caseworkers are still carrying impossible caseloads while everyone points fingers from the sidelines.

You don’t get to scream that foster care is a mess while refusing to become part of the solution.

You don’t get to call bio parents lazy or unfit if you’ve never tried to understand addiction, poverty, abuse, mental illness, or generational trauma. Some of these parents were failed long before their children ever were.

And you don’t get to judge foster families for “getting attached” when attachment is literally what wounded children are starving for.

The truth is this system is not just failing because of policies.
It’s failing because too many people are comfortable watching children suffer as long as it doesn’t inconvenience their own lives.

The Church posts sermons about loving your neighbor while children enter care with trash bags and no pajamas.
We sing about being the hands and feet of Jesus while foster families drown quietly behind closed doors.
We say “someone should help” while praying it never costs us anything personally.

But real ministry has always cost something.

It costs sleep.
It costs comfort.
It costs time.
It costs heartbreak.

Sometimes it looks like sitting in court praying a judge makes the right call.
Sometimes it looks like loving a child hard enough to let them reunify.
Sometimes it looks like opening your home when it would be easier to protect your peace.

Kids in foster care do not need more opinions.
They need people willing to show up.

People willing to stay.
People willing to love when it gets messy.
People willing to stand in the gap even when it hurts.

Because maybe the system is broken.
But maybe our unwillingness to do anything about it is too.

04/08/2026

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately…

Most of this life is just showing up.

Not fixing everything.
Not having all the answers.
Not getting it right every time.

Just showing up.

Again.
And again.
And again.

There are days I feel completely emptied out.
Days where the trauma in the room feels louder than anything I can say.
Days where everything stacks up at once and it feels like too much.

The emotions.
The behaviors.
The weight of it all.

And I still show up.

I sit in it.
Right there in the middle of the hard.
On the floor. In the chaos. In the quiet after.

I wipe tears.
I pass out snacks.
I give hugs when they are wanted and sit close when they are not.
I whisper prayers under my breath while I am doing a hundred other things.

I answer questions no child should have to ask.
I hold little hands through big feelings.
I stay… even when I feel like I have nothing left.

And that matters.

More than we think.

Because healing is not found in perfection.

It is found in presence.

In someone who does not leave.
In someone who stays steady.
In someone who keeps showing up even when it is hard and messy and unseen.

Some of these kids have known more disappointment than we can even wrap our minds around.

So when we show up… consistently… gently… without giving up…

It does something.

Even if we cannot see it right away.
Even if we never fully see it at all.

God sees it.

Every quiet moment.
Every exhausted prayer.
Every time you chose patience when it would have been easier to shut down.

He sees all of it.

Nothing is wasted.

So if today feels heavy…
If you are wondering if what you are doing even matters…

It does.

You do not have to be perfect.

You just have to keep showing up.

Because healing comes from love that stays.

04/08/2026