Our little pilgrims' progress

A look back at the journey as we prepare for the littles to return home.

This will likely be my last post of 2024. So I’m getting in all my words. There will be footnotes!

Introduction: We are all pilgrims

One night way back in June of this year, I was reading Little Pilgrim's Progress to the four older kids (our three plus the foster boy). Little Pilgrim's Progress is a child-friendlier, anthropomorphic retelling of John Bunyan's classic allegory. In Little Pilgrim's Progress, Christian is a rabbit; there is a part 2, but Christiana is his friend, not his wife. And yet it does not shy away from the themes and hard realities of its source material. Faithful dies. The pilgrimage is hard. Those who oppose or deceive or refuse to join the pilgrims are portrayed and treated as enemies of the King. My memory is fuzzy, but I think we started reading it right before or right after our two foster children were placed with us. We slowly traveled its pages, and the book became a defining part of our summer and early fall together—a metaphor for the road we were collectively walking; its truths a delight and a comfort.

But on that couch on that particular evening in June, we were feeling collectively and existentially uncomfortable due to the rapid and sweeping changes that had enveloped all of us. I don't remember what chapter we were in. But in the middle of the reading, the boy got up from the couch rather abruptly and started for the stairs—presumably to go to his bedroom. He looked blank and despondent. I encouraged him to come back and asked if anything was the matter. He slumped down in the rocking chair, his back to me. I asked again. Quietly, he said that he missed his "real mom." I tried to empathize and asked if he wanted to come back to the couch so that I could give him a hug. I said that it's okay to feel sad, and that we know that this whole thing is really hard.

He didn't respond. We had only known each other for two weeks at this point.

Then my older daughter (who had just turned 10), said, "I was a foster kid once. I know how it feels."

There are moments as a father that will you never forget. This is one of them. I looked at my daughter with a kind of awe. I didn't know what to say. But I had an inkling that I shouldn't say anything. We sat there quietly for a moment, letting the unifying power of her words soak into our the seats of our reality.

Then my other two kids joined in with sincere words about what they remembered feeling when they were in a place similar to his. He seemed to absorb their comfort even though he didn't respond. I explained some of the differences between my kids' situation and his but mostly underscored what had been articulated: the strangely hopeful truth that we are all pilgrims. The boy's demeanor softened. He rejoined us on the couch and we continued reading.

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Chapter I: Foster care as hospitality

To think of foster care as a kind of pilgrimage, or the Christian's pilgrimage as something akin (pun intended) to foster care, means a couple things. First, it means that we need to disabuse ourselves of the romantic notions of pilgrimage. Pilgrimages are hard work, rarely scenic, and not something to be reserved for bucket lists. We're not talking about retired Gen X-ers or childless Gen Z-ers taking a couple weeks on the Camino de Santiago to "find themselves" or whatever. We're talking about life and death. We're talking about a "long obedience in the same direction," as Eugene Peterson might say.

Secondly, if foster care is a pilgrimage, foster families provide these travelers rest and hospitality on the journey. We are innkeepers. We are homemakers. We are mentors and practitioners of kindness.

Yes, we are parental figures—and I am a kind of father figure—but we have such little control of the situation, that their lives often feel separate from ours. Because they’re not our kids. We can “parent” them in ways that are similar to how we parent our actual children, who are also from hard places, but more than anything, we love them well by feeding them good food and introducing them to consistent, life-giving routines, and all manner of things that by the mercy of the Lord they might take with them on the rest of their journey.¹

This is both freeing and dissatisfying. I suppose what I mean by this is that expectations matter. Of course, once these kids enter your home, they start to take up residence in your heart. Attachment and bonding are good things, even if it's temporary.²

Over the last six months, I've picked up the littles from some of their visits with their mother, and the anguish at their parting is real and deep and hard to watch. They want to be home with their mom. In Little Pilgrim's Progress, Christian perseveres in his journey partly out of a deep desire to be reunited with his mother in the Celestial City. It is very much a story about an orphan boy longing for home and mother.

Chapter II: All pilgrimages come to an end

Yes, I'm afraid that I've buried the lede, as they say in journalism-speak. The big update is that this phase of the littles' pilgrimage may be coming to an end soon. At the last review hearing, their mother and her attorney put forward a rough plan for a trial return home. Nothing is definitive at this point, but they're eying the week before Christmas to start transitioning the kids back home. They'd stay overnight with their mom (at their actual home) a couple nights the first week, then an additional night or two the following week, etc. This arrangement gives the county caseworker and the kids' attorney an opportunity to see how things are going and make the appropriate next steps from there. If things go well, the kids will likely be back home—fully back home—the first week of the new year.

At the most-recent review hearing, their mother and her attorney put forward a rough plan for a trial return home.

There's much I could say and much I shouldn't say. We knew that this would come eventually. But the timing—a week, give or take, before Christmas—is not great, Bob. Sure, from the mom's perspective, I understand her desire to have her kids back home for the biggest holiday of the year. But transitions are hard on kids in the foster system, and the back-and-forth nature of the trial return makes my gut queasy. At the end of the semester. Right before Christmas. This feels the ultimate dis-regulator for us and the kids. I can't help but think: really? This is what the decision-makers in this case are going to do to these kids and to us? This is how their stay at our home is going to end?

For Lindsey and I, we’re feeling split by relief and grief. We want good things for these kids; we have major reservations about what they're returning to; and we're planning to remain involved in their lives moving forward. But this isn't about us or what we think is best. We have very little say.³

And if I’m being honest, I’m ready to resume life as a household of five. I feel spent. That we’ve done all that we can do, and that we can’t do more than we can do (thanks, Joe Deany-Braun). I feel both heartless and heartbroken as I type that. Like I said, relief and grief.

Mostly, though, I’m tired. And I’m tired because the closer these kiddos get to returning home, the incline of the Hill of Difficulty we’re climbing gets steeper and steeper.

Chapter III: Progress is not linear

I can tell you that the pilgrims who have stayed with us since June have made much progress. In big things and little things. The 2-year-old hasn't said the F-word since July. She's learning how to use her growing independence in productive ways and has recently started the potty training process. She loves singing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Lullaby" to her baby dolls. The 7-year-old is kinda-sorta learning how to manage his big emotions. Overall, he is much more comfortable at home with us and his new “siblings.” Even though his sleep habits were rough at the beginning of their stay, things improved markedly (for a time—more on this in a moment). Thanks largely to Lindsey, he has grown in his love for reading. (Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type is his current favorite.) He has learned the Lord's Prayer and sections of our bedtime liturgy. Collectively, the two kiddos have responded well to the stability we have been able to offer them. There is much to thank God for.⁴

But here's the truth. Progress is not linear.

Once the wheels of return began to be set in motion, the behaviors of the kids—especially the boy—have reverted back to where they were in June. We could say that he has regressed. He has had a particularly rough stretch at school and his after-school program. Multiple outbursts. Impulsive and physically aggressive behavior. He’d have a couple good days here and there, but those were blips on his existential radar. He’s been angry, afraid, uncertain about what to do with himself and his emotions. Just this week, he got kicked out of his after-school program. We don’t think the decision was warranted, and more than anything, it serves as yet another transition, another loss in continuity, in a season that is filling up with them.

These behaviors flared up after he and his sister started overnight visits with family here in town—and when visits with his mom moved to her place. Correlation, not causation. But it seems that the closer he gets to home, and the places he used to inhabit, the more triggered and unstable he’s become. He is hurting and afraid and is a black hole of need and attention.

Chapter IV: Pilgrims in the dark; or, “Enter Sandman” keeps it real

In Little Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian must pass through the Dark Valley—the valley of the shadow of death. Christian is afraid and stumbles his way through the dark passage. But he makes it through. As we were reading this chapter, I remember hoping that these themes would registers in the boy’s heart. We read this chapter before bed one night and followed it up with a bedtime prayer from the Book of Common prayer, the one that includes the petition to “give Your angels charge over those who sleep.” When we finished, he asked if angels go away in the night. I told him that they do not. And I have told him—countless times over these months—that God never sleeps and is always with him.

The regression of his sleep habits has followed the same timeline as his other behaviors. For most of November, he was up almost every night. He'd wake like clockwork between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. Around Thanksgiving, he grew utterly unwilling to return to his bed because of how much he feared the dark.⁵ And it wouldn't matter if he fell asleep listening to Lindsey reading, or how many times we prayed over and for him, or if he saw his mom that day, or didn't see her: the night brought out the worst of his traumas and fears, and those drove him to our door, knocking and crying. One morning, he came upstairs around 6 a.m. I was in the kitchen, making tea. He was visibly shaking and told me he heard voices.

How long, O Lord? How long must this little boy live in fear that feels cut straight from a Metallica song? In the age-old question of whether art imitates life or life imitates art, the answer is, Yes.

It’s just the beast under your bed
In your closet
In your head

Eventually, we made a landing pad for him in our bedroom. After waking us up and going to the bathroom, he’d crash there and would sleep soundly until the morning light crept in under the curtains.

During this stretch, I grew resentful. This work is hard enough on its own, and with what felt like mild sleep deprivation, my outlook on our situation started to get bleak. I’d go to sleep anxious about getting woken up. On most of these occasions, I lacked the requisite amount of pity that he needed. I was groggy and gruff. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted him to sleep. I would often fail to lean into the austerity demanded of fatherly love in the night watches. What will he remember of me from this time? What picture of godly, masculinity am I imprinting on him in his vulnerability?

In the morning, he’d leave to catch the school bus, and we’d wonder what kind of day he would have. Would his fears chase him into the light, or would he remember that God is there and goes before him and the dark night of the soul is not forever?

Chapter V / Epilogue: The way is lit with Christmas lights

So, there I was. Trying to put the boy to bed. It was late on the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. We stayed up past bedtime to put up the Christmas tree. It was a good night. We enjoyed one another’s company, and we found ways for the kids to help with tree stuff. But the spells on his bed are hard to break. And after singing and praying, we came to the moment of me leaving the room. He wasn’t having it. He asked me to sleep on the guest bed for five minutes. I said okay, and laid down for 15 minutes. The moment I got up to leave, he started crying. But I had a plan.

As I laid there freaking out about another contentious, restless night, I realized that we needed to banish the dark. The nightlight wasn’t cutting it. He needed a Christmas tree.

As he asked me through tears to stay, I told him that I had something for him. I went to our storage room and pulled out the little 3-foot Christmas tree we usually reserve for our Jesse tree ornaments. I set it up in his room, plugged it in, and… only half the tree worked.

OH, COME ON, LORD! I randomly pushed and twisted the wires on the unlit half and, by the grace of the God, the rest of the lights came to life. Prayer-hands emoji. The entire room glowed with that warm, incandescent technicolor glory that LED lights will never be able to touch.

I called the boy over. “This is a magical Christmas tree, like all Christmas trees,” I told him. “It reminds us that Jesus is always with us and that he is the light of the world. We’ll leave it on all night, every night. It won’t be dark anymore.”

He stared with wide, wondrous eyes at the tree. He was totally down. He went back to his bed, I tucked him, and he slept all through the night.

And the next night.

And the night after that.

And I thought that we had done it, turned the corner. I thought of a line from N.D. Wilson’s Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl:

We need not fear the dark, for the way is lit with Christmas lights.

Alas, his fears have returned each night since. He’s been up at our door, repeating his refrain about being scared of his room. I’ve accepted the fact that he will finish nights in our room.

Like I said, progress is not linear.

And neither is hope. It wanes and waxes. And as our family faces the next few weeks, I know I will pass through more phases than the moon. In my weakest, more faithless moments, I dread what will to come. I, too, am afraid of the dark, but for different reasons. It’s trite to say that God knows what we’re going through more than we do, but it is true. And the way—the pilgrimage—is indeed lit with Christmas lights, even if they feel dim and distant at times, and the very light and presence of Christ himself.

Lindsey and I are praying, and we ask for your prayers. That we stay strong and finish well. That we can rally our own kids for one last push up the Hill of Difficulty and love these little pilgrims until the end of our shared path.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Have a blessed Advent, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

1. At one point in the book—I think it was after or during the chapters about Valiant, Christian’s dad—the boy turned to me and said, “I’m ready for a long journey.” I was encouraged by this, surprised by this. I do think his faith is being stirred. But given what we know about the trajectory of kids who are dealt the deck he’s been dealt, his journey might be agonizingly long. Long and hard and full of so many obstacles.

2. Most of the time, the foster children in your care return to their original home. However, roughly 22 percent of all foster kids will be involved in a case in which the rights of their biological parents are terminated. This is where foster care hospitality can sprout into something permanent like adoption. But each year, nearly 25,000 foster kids age out of the system as legal adults—homeless in the most literal sense of the word.

3. We could become a party in this case, which would give us actual legal standing to have a voice, but that's a whole 'nuther ball of wax that I won't get into now.

4. As for the other pilgrims in our household, I am so proud of my wife. She could be a professional juggler with all the plates she keeps spinning day to day, and she is practically working a part-time job managing all of the aforementioned administrative and communication aspects that are part of this work. She has advocated for the well-being of these kids from the bottom of her heart. And I am so proud of my kids. They lovingly welcomed strangers into their home and have loved them well. They have learned much about how to love well in the process. One of my favorite lines from Little Pilgrim's Progress states that the pilgrim's life is not his own. Everyone of us has grown in our understanding of how true that is and what that means.

5. And it’s not like his room is pitch black. We have this owl-shaped noise machine / white noise generator in their room (his sister sleeps in a crib right next to his bed, and she has slept through the night every night that she’s been with us) that projects stars onto the ceiling from the forehead, and the belly glows quite vividly, as well. There is ample amount of light.