A Former Foster Child Shares How Faith Restored Their Sense of Worth

I was eight years old the first time I believed the lie that I was disposable.

Sitting on the cold, cracked steps of a foster home I had only lived in for a few months, I watched my social worker load my trash bags into the trunk of her car — the only possessions I owned shoved into black plastic, like garbage. I remember hugging my knees to my chest, fighting back tears because I had learned by then that crying only made you weak.

If they wanted me, they wouldn’t be packing my things, I thought.
If I mattered, someone would fight for me.

That day, something inside me began to unravel.
But what I didn’t know — what I couldn’t see yet — was that God was already writing a different ending to my story.

Background & Personal Journey

My journey through the foster care system wasn’t just rough — it was brutal.

Before I entered care, my life was already fractured.
Born to parents battling addiction and instability, I spent my earliest years in chaos — bouncing between relatives’ houses, sleeping in cars, sometimes going days without a proper meal.

By the time Child Protective Services intervened, I was more familiar with hunger and fear than with safety or love.

The system was supposed to be my rescue.
Instead, it often felt like another kind of survival.

I moved through twelve placements by the time I was fourteen.
Every move reinforced the same narrative:
You’re too much. You’re not enough. You don’t belong.

Even the well-meaning foster families sometimes unknowingly deepened the wounds. They offered a bed but not a home. Rules but not relationship. Expectations but not grace.

By the time I hit high school, I wore my brokenness like armor.
Tough, detached, numb.
It was safer to be unwanted than to hope and be disappointed again.

Somewhere deep down, I started to believe that maybe God had forgotten about kids like me.
Or maybe He was never real to begin with.

Key Struggles & Moments of Faith

One night during my junior year, after another argument with a foster mom who didn’t know what to do with me, I decided I was done.

I packed a bag, left a note that said simply “Don’t come looking for me”, and walked into the night, believing no one would care enough to follow.

That night should have ended badly.
Statistically, it should have led to worse — exploitation, jail, addiction.
But God had other plans.

As I wandered the streets, cold and alone, a small church caught my eye. The lights were on, and music drifted into the night air — soft, haunting, beautiful.

Something pulled me toward the door.

Inside, a group of people was gathered in prayer and worship. They didn’t notice me at first, standing awkwardly in the back, disheveled and angry.

But then a woman — maybe in her late 40s, wearing jeans and sneakers — walked over and simply said, “You look like you could use some hope.”

No judgment.
No interrogation.
Just an invitation.

She introduced herself as Miss Carla, and before I knew it, she had wrapped me in a hug so tight it cracked something open inside me — something I thought had long since died.

That night, for the first time, I heard about a God who didn’t abandon the broken.
A Father who adopted the fatherless.
A Savior who carried wounds so He could heal ours.

I didn’t say yes to Jesus that night.
But I took a Bible home that Miss Carla pressed into my hands, and I started reading.

Psalm 27:10 leapt off the page at me:

“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.“

Could it be true?
Could I really be received — not tolerated, not pitied — but welcomed?

It was a hope so foreign it hurt to even imagine.
But once hope creeps in, it’s hard to snuff it out completely.

Breakthrough & Transformation

My road to faith wasn’t instant.
It was more like a series of small resurrections.

Miss Carla and her husband, Mr. Ben, became the steady presence I never knew I needed.
They didn’t become my foster parents officially, but they became something even more powerful — spiritual family.

They fed me dinners I didn’t have to earn.
They asked about my day and actually listened to the answers.
They cheered for me at my awful basketball games and sat in the front row at my high school graduation.

Through them — and through countless hours wrestling with scripture, questions, doubts, and fears — I came to realize something life-changing:

My worth wasn’t tied to where I lived, who wanted me, or what I had survived.
My worth was anchored in the unshakable love of a God who called me His own.

I remember the exact moment I finally surrendered my life to Christ.

It wasn’t dramatic — no lightning bolt, no angelic choir.
Just a broken teenager kneeling by a creaky bed in a small room, whispering,
“If You still want me, God, I’m Yours.”

And oh, how He wanted me.

Since then, my journey hasn’t been perfect.
Healing doesn’t erase scars.
But it does turn them into testimonies.

Today, I’m not just a former foster kid.
I’m a college graduate.
I’m a mentor to youth aging out of the system.
I’m a child of God — beloved, chosen, redeemed.

And every day, I get to live proof that no story is too broken for redemption.

Encouragement

If you are reading this — maybe as a foster parent wondering if the love you’re giving is making any difference…
Maybe as a youth still aching to believe you are more than your past…
Maybe as someone considering stepping into the messy, sacred world of foster care…

Hear this:

You are seen.
You are loved.
You are worth fighting for.

God specializes in lost causes.
He makes families out of misfits and mosaics out of shattered glass.

The world may label you broken.
But heaven calls you beloved.

As it says in Isaiah 43:1:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine.“

Don’t give up when the road feels long and lonely.
Don’t believe the lie that says your story can’t be rewritten.

Love heals.
Faith rebuilds.
And grace transforms.

I am living proof.

And so, dear friend, could you be.