Tony, like many other foster children, spent a lifetime looking for love and belonging. Where do you suppose he finally found it?
Today there are over 500,000 foster children who are unwanted or cast off. Each one has his or her own story to tell--stories of loneliness and abandonment. Foster children, like all children, desire to be loved and cared for. When this love isn't present, feelings of insecurity, anxiety and anger result. Thankfully, no matter what one's circumstances may be, there is hope. The following is a true story of hope from one of these foster children--a little boy named Tony. (The name and some locations have been changed to maintain confidentiality.)
Tony was a foster child--just a number--just a small story. He was born between two monumental world events of the 20th Century--the Battle of Britain in August 1940 and the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
The little boy stands about ten feet away on the walkway leading from the house to the sidewalk. He stands there wide-eyed looking at the woman of 5 feet, towering over him like a giant. He is told that the woman is his mother. She looks at him with a wide smile and plaintive eyes and asks, "Tony would you like to come home with me?" Stunned, Tony's thoughts flash back to Anne, whom he has always thought of as his mother. He takes three steps back. He shakes his head slowly from side to side. With a furrowed brow, staring at the woman almost fearfully, Tony utters in a low almost inaudible tone, "Nooo!"
This is one of Tony's earliest recollections. Most of his memories have faded into the far distant past.
Years later, after the boy had grown up, he asks Anne, "How old was I when I came to your home?" The memory is too distant and Tony was too young to remember. Anne tells him that he was about 1 1/2 years old. She had gone to the New York Foundling Home to look for another foster child. She had previously taken in other foster children and about three years prior had given birth to her only son, Brian.
At the Foundling Home she saw a scruffy little boy, whose nose was dripping and whose head was swollen from rickets. When the boy saw Anne, he ran to her and cried, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Anne's heart melted. How could she turn down the plaintive cries of this little child? At this moment, Anne and Tony departed for a new life in Franklin Square, Long Island.
For Tony life now seemed normal. He had a father, a mother and a brother who cared. He now had a stable family background which included friends, relatives, special toys and a puppy, named Jeep. There were birthday parties and holiday treats. At one party there was a watermelon-eating contest and Tony won first place. In addition to the fun of the contest, there were lessons to be learned. Learn to treat the neighborhood kids well. Don't take what others have and think you can get away with it. Your sister's costume jewelry is "not yours". Then came punishment for misguided deeds. Someone cared to teach Tony the right way to live. Those were good days--but those good days didn't last.
All too often things don't work out the way we would like. Anne had another foster child by the name of Stephanie. Stephanie was older and had experienced a very troubled past. Anne could no longer handle her and sent her back to the foster home. Within months, in 1948, Social Services insisted that since Anne could not take care of Stephanie, Tony had to move to another home also.
A strange young woman called a "social worker" took Tony from Anne, the woman he knew and loved as his mother. Tony and the social worker traveled to another small town, Babylon, L.I. There Tony was introduced to his new family--his new "mother and father".
The social worker said, "If you need anything write and let me know." Then she walked out the door.
Moments later Tony asked a foster sister, "Do you have a pencil?" "Yes! Here is one!" "Do you have a piece of paper?" She responded, "Yes! Why?" With sadness Tony cried, "I want to write her a letter and tell her I don't want to be here." She replied, "Oh, you'll like it here!"
But Tony didn't like it there. He wanted to go home. However, did not receive his wish. A year later he moved to another home and then another and another and another. The moves seemed endless.
Tony was derided by his peers because of his divorced parents. "No!" he proclaimed, "They are just separated". Divorce was taboo in those days. Tony was so hurt by the things the other children said. It seemed that all the other kids had a mom and dad at home. Tony grew up lacking confidence, always sickly and afraid of developing relationships. He feared someone else would again walk out of his life.
In the instability of the 1960s' racial riots, anti-war demonstrations, and the God is dead philosophy, Tony looked for firmer foundations and understanding of events going on in the country he loved. He even began to search the pages of the Bible and begin seeking God's help. Had a merciful God now begun to set in motion events that would make Tony receptive to God's Word?
Tearfully, choked with emotion Tony read of a cast off rejected child in the Book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 16:4-10, the prophet speaks symbolically of Jerusalem as a cast off child rejected by all. Tony often felt like this child--cast off, rejected and unwanted. But the God of mercies reached down and lifted this child and loved it and nurtured it.
Tony knew then that someone cared, just as Anne had cared, but even more. In reading further, he began to understand that in the eyes of God he didn't have to be big or important, for God cares about all people. In 1 Cor 1:26-27 God even calls the week in spirit and the downtrodden, "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty."
Tony was now a part of something bigger--something that could not be taken away by any man. There is a Father, and He has a family that cares. God promises that this family will be everlasting in Romans 8:15, "For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, 'Abba, Father'."
Thoughts of what Christ says about friends brought this promise to a very personal level for Tony, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:13-14). Tony now had a Friend who would never leave nor forsake him. He had found a home, and in that home, Tony found hope!
