We entered the foster care system knowing that our job was to love, and not to judge; our job was to be a safe space for healing.
Hurting children have a small but powerful arsenal of survival skills; they are operating from a fight or flight mentality, assuming that they are not safe. There is a misconception that children in foster care are "bad" or "troubled". The truth is, they are the same as every other precious child, but necessarily encapsulated in a protective shell of survival skills. In some situations, a child might need to be physically aggressive to survive, in some situations, he might need to run, to hide, to swear, to fight, to scream, or to throw things at people. These defenses, in these situations, are not bad behaviors, and they are not disrespectful attitudes.
That being said, there was a day where I firmly planted myself in the doorway between two rooms in my house. On one side was a justifiably angry young boy. On the other side were two small toddlers. These young children were brilliant, beautiful, and engaging. They had also had been hurt in more ways than one can imagine. Sometimes that hurt has to come out. On this particular day, the boy jumped on the bed, hurling wooden blocks at me and the little ones, yelling "YOU JERK BITCH, YOU RUINED MY LIFE". On the other side of me, the two little ones threw toys back at him, matter-of-factly chanting "f-you, you mother f-er".
I sat in that moment, in that doorway, in the crossfire, knowing that this moment was do or die for me. It had been a long and exhausting road already, I wasn't sure that I could do it anymore. I knew I had to either fully commit to being what these children needed me to be, or I was throwing in the towel.
It was that day, in that doorway, that I chose to be Jerk Bitch. Brent lovingly nicknamed me JB, and we dug into the beautiful, messy process of giving all of ourselves to these beautiful children in our home.
I am not a cursing person, nor do I condone cursing from children. But to that boy, in that moment, I was JB. I embraced it and it became part of me--it changed me.
I cherish the title, and I wear it proudly. Being JB is my badge of honor. I had the honor of standing in the space where a young child felt safe enough to let his anger out without repercussion. I had the honor of sitting in the space between these children, to mediate their hurt, loss, and sadness. I was able to see them through to a place where they felt comfortable, where they learned the skills of living and loving. I wouldn't have been able to carry them through the darkness if I hadn't entered the darkness to find them. Being JB means going into the dark and ugly spaces and places with them. Being JB means joining in communion with not only the flawless and unscathed, but with the hurting and broken as well. Communing with someone in their dark spaces is a strong predictor that they will eventually commune with you in the light.
In order to help them break their protective shell of survival skills, I had to break my shell of comfortable, socially appropriate niceties. I couldn't be a Stepford mom anymore, I couldn't pretend to have it all together or to put on a show. In order to make a difference, I had to go to the ugly places. If that meant being called ugly names, than so be it.
I could have decided that JB was not for me. I would have gone back to an ordinary life. I would have taken the easy road, where there was less cursing and block throwing. The easy road would have been, well, easy. But healing and growth doesn't happen on the easy road. The light only shines in darkness. Healing and growth, the shedding of armor, the revealing of the heart: these things often happen in unsavory and ugly ways.
All of the times that I heard someone say f-you to me, all of the times I was called a JB, all of the block throwing, kicking, hitting, and gnashing of teeth: these are my sacred souvenirs. These are the things that remind me of those ugly places and painful spaces, where healing occurred, beauty prevailed, and love won.
Being JB is being present for the hurt and pain, being someone's unwavering strength, being someone's unshakable rock. That little boy tried to move me from that doorway. He tried to see if I would remove him, hurt him, or cast him aside. He tried to use JB to get under my skin, he tried to make me run from the blocks, to run from his hurt. Being JB is putting yourself out there for the ugly and unsavory moments in life. It is tearing down the protective shell and letting the blocks hit you directly in the head.
My friend Kristy made this coffee mug for me. It is JB on the outside and FU on the inside. A slightly inappropriate, humorous, yet poignant reminder; sometimes the path of FU JB is the only way to reach sacred spaces and holy healing.
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