The foster care world is a world in which burnout is more common than endurance, where cynicism is more prevalent than hope, and where detachment can be an essential survival skill. Reading through the hundred case files that come into offices each month is a task that requires a strong stomach more than anything. The things that have been done to children, tiny children, by the people who are supposed to love and care for them the most are enough to make anyone want to “curse God and die.” (Job 2:9) To know that such evil exists, to such an extent, and against such innocents, is an unbearable knowledge. And if you expand out to all the orphanages in the world, to all the sex trafficking, to all the children forced into slavery or soldiering, the weight of that evil is crushing.
It is possible to serve in this area for a few years by hardening your heart, or blocking out what is unpleasant, or by cultivating a serious addiction or two to help you cope. And I understand that survival mode. But it is a temporary solution only, and will cause great damage to the soul of the one who tries it.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves)
What is the alternative? How can we serve in the face of such evil and not fall prey to devastating despair? Hope.
The hope that sustains me in this work is not the secular hope of “humans are getting better.” That doesn’t last two seconds in the face of those files. It is not just the standard Christian hope of heaven either. Heaven is a glorious and comforting concept, but it is not enough. The hope that sustains is an eschatological hope, a hope based on the promises of what the end of this age and the beginning of the next will be like.
There will be justice. I do not delight in considering the punishment of evildoers, since I know I am as evil in the sight of God as any other sinner. But I do find reassurance in the knowledge that God is just, and that the wicked, the unrepentant, rebellious wicked, will be punished. The people who have tortured their own children without hesitation or remorse will someday have to answer to God for their actions. There is reassurance for me in that, in knowing that God hates evil even more than I hate it. There is reassurance and motivation for repentance, for I know my own sins grieve Him as much as the ones I see so easily in others.
There will be mercy. There is so little mercy in this world for those suffering through no fault of their own. Children starve to death, are orphaned by horrible diseases, are ignored and isolated in institutional orphanages. Millions upon millions of children have never seen mercy in their lives. But the Almighty God of the universe has demonstrated His unfailing mercy in the cross and resurrection of Christ. One day, because of that great and powerful mercy, believers will reign with Christ in a Kingdom that abounds with justice and mercy.
There will be goodness. I can’t quite wrap my head around it, but at some point in the future, believers will see God’s plan for our redemption and His glory, and we will agree with Him that it is the best. It will be so overwhelmingly good that all of the suffering and pain and evil in the world will have been not only endurable but for good. I can’t conceive of anything amazing enough to warrant so many centuries of horror, but I know that the revealed plan will be that amazing. It won’t just make sense; it will make us rejoice. It is so astounding, a whole new word has to be used to express the joy: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” (Rev 19:1)
There will be eternity. In a sixty year life, four years of torture is a long time. In an eternal life, that four years is the tiniest blip. Even in this life, I can no longer remember the traumas and tragedies of my earliest years. They have faded away in my memory, replaced by more recent or more singular events. I don’t know how our brains will work in our glorified bodies, but I am pretty confident we won’t feel resentment or anger or pain.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” (Rev 21:1-4)
This glorious, perfect world will be our home forever, with God Himself in our midst. That future fills me with a phenomenal hope.
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