If you’ve spent time in and around child welfare, you’ve likely heard someone say, “Love is not enough,” when referring to caring for children from hard places. You may have even said it yourself.
When someone uses this phrase, they’re onto something if we are talking about the culturally acceptable definition of love as portrayed in the media and popular literature. A teammate suggested I ask Chat GPT to create a one-sentence description of love in the style of a Hallmark greeting card. Here are a few of the results:
“Love is the warm embrace of the soul, where hearts find their forever home.”
“Love is the magical bond that brings hearts together, filling life with joy, warmth, and endless smiles.”
“Love is the timeless melody that plays in the symphony of our hearts.”
In an attempt to find something a little less . . . gooey, a simple Google search for a definition of “love” produced “an intense feeling of deep affection.”
If love is “an intense feeling of deep affection” or “a warm embrace of the soul,” then it is accurate to say – when it comes to caring for children from hard places – that love, in fact, is not enough.
However, as followers of Jesus, we don’t look to Chat GPT or Google for our definition of love. Love, as described in the Bible and as modeled by the person of Jesus, is action-oriented, sacrificial, and unconditional. It’s at its best when fighting against the rushing currents of our feelings.
Love isn’t merely an intense feeling of deep affection. It’s often a way of treating others when we may not feel deep affection for them in a given moment. It’s choosing to act in another person’s best interests, even when we don’t feel like it.
The real problem with saying “love is not enough” in foster care is that our working definition of love as a culture is utterly insufficient.
In the movie Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, Donna Martin, the wife of a local pastor, is talking with a social worker about the possibility of bringing children into their home:
Social Worker: Religious guilt can’t fix a broken child’s heart.
Donna Martin: Love can—real, determined love.
Social Worker: I have to pick up the pieces. When all the lovey-dovey is gone, the real world hits hard.
So what is this “real” love that Donna Martin speaks of, and how is it different from the fading “lovey-dovey” feeling that the social worker is understandably wary of?
I Corinthians 13:4-7 is a good place to start:
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (ESV)
Reading each phrase one by one, it’s clear that these things are hard to do consistently. On any given day, we may not feel like doing them. But this is how the Bible describes love.
To go a step further, the person of Jesus provides a model of what “real” love looks like. He lived it every day, loving the kinds of people that others didn’t feel like loving. His love was embodied by consistent daily action until it was ultimately fastened to a cross.
Jesus instructed his disciples in John 15:12-13:
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (ESV)
Jesus commanded His followers to love with His kind of love – the kind willing to give everything for another.
So, is love enough for children from hard places?
It depends.
If by “love,” you primarily envision cuddles, bedtime stories, board games, happy family dinners, and encouraging words, then no, it’s not.
But if by “love” you mean the kind of love that Jesus modeled and Scripture describes, then yes, it is all there is.
Here are just a few of the things that kind of “real” love will do:
- That kind of love will make personal sacrifices to get our kids the help they need.
- That kind of love will provide firm boundaries even when it makes life less fun for us.
- That kind of love extends the grace to a child’s biological family that has been extended to us.
- That kind of love will forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive.
- That kind of love will do the work to understand the realities our kids have faced and how those realities affect them now.
- That kind of love will help a child’s biological family reunify with the child placed in our home, even when it means great loss for us.
- That kind of love will set up that next IEP meeting at the school and advocate for services our children need.
- That kind of love will patch another hole in the wall (and keep extra drywall patches in the garage, just in case).
- That kind of love lays awake for hours in the middle of the night and prays for our struggling children.
- That kind of love waits patiently and prays diligently for an adult child who has wandered.
- And that kind of love enters into the suffering of a child who has been abused or neglected and willingly suffers with them.
That’s real love, and it is enough.
Jason Weber is the National Director of More Than Enough, facilitated by the CAFO community.
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Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot released in theaters July 4th, 2024. Learn more about the film here. If you are looking for resources to help you leverage this film to engage people in your community, explore our suite of Mobilization Resources.
