“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:27-28

I’m gonna be honest. I have read this scripture quite a bit in my life, and it was only in the past couple of years that it has made sense to me on a personal level. So often I would look at it and think, “What a great concept for people who have enemies.” Thankfully (or maybe naively) the word enemy had never struck a chord with me. There just wasn’t anyone out there who I thought felt that strongly about me.

Then came foster care. And over the past couple of years, I began to realize that enemy didn’t necessarily stand for someone who hated me and was trying to cause me harm. Enemy was someone that I felt very strongly about. Who I felt needed to have justice meted out upon them.

Along came a book (as they so often do in my life). This one is titled Foster the Family by Jamie C. Finn. (I highly recommend it.) The author has been a foster mom for many years and has much wisdom on fostering from a Christian
perspective. As I read the chapter entitled “My Foster Child’s Family Is My Enemy,” so many things I had felt and thought on my foster care journey fell into place.

Jamie writes, “On a good day, I may use a Christianese phrase like “I’m struggling to love them.” On a bad day, I just flat-out say it: “I hate them.” Either way, I need some direction for this fight. How do I think and feel toward someone who has hurt a child I love, someone who has hurt me? When it’s too complicated to pull through the tangled threads of all my
beliefs and emotions and expectations, I flip the script and simplify the struggle. I rename the discussion completely. I don’t have to sort through each piece individually. Instead, I can label my kids’ parents with a simple word, one that you would, most likely, never expect: enemy. See, God doesn’t provide specific direction for the complicated biological-foster parent relationship in His Word…. It’s all just too convoluted; I can’t wrap my head around it.
But I know how to deal with my enemies. God speaks to that, loud and clear. I find “enemy” to be a helpful category because it includes, well, everyone. Whether I’m actually experiencing threats and accusations or “just” struggling through hurts and disappointments, I have the same answer: love, do good, bless, and so on. Even when I reduce my relationship with my kids’ parents down to the lowest common denominator, I still know how God commands me to think about them and treat them.”

This chapter stopped me dead in my tracks. Because when I examined myself, this was truly how I felt about my kids’ birth parents. I viewed them as my enemy. And yet, how am I supposed to treat my enemies? The same way Christ treated His.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

I was an enemy of God. I was dead in sin and choosing my own way. And yet, Christ still died for me. He died for all of us – even those who will reject His salvation. As difficult and painful as it can be, I am called to love, do good, pray for, and bless even the people I feel don’t deserve it. As we approach Easter, let us thank God that He chose to save us even though we didn’t deserve it. And let us also choose to show His grace to those around us, whether they are our enemies or not.