06/21/2026
Happy Father’s Day 💙
Today, social media will be filled with photos of matching shirts, fishing trips, backyard barbecues, and children who share their father’s eyes.
And all of that is beautiful.
But today, I find myself thinking about a different kind of father. The foster dads.
The men who became “Dad” knowing they might never get to keep the title. The men who said yes when the phone rang, not knowing whether the child arriving at their doorstep would stay for a weekend, a year, or forever. The men who made room in their homes, their schedules, and their hearts for children who desperately needed a safe place to land.
There is something extraordinary about a man who chooses to love when there are no guarantees.
A foster dad knows the risk from the very beginning. He knows there may be court hearings, uncertainty, sleepless nights, difficult conversations, and heartbreaking goodbyes. He knows he may one day stand in a driveway and watch a child he loves drive away. Yet he chooses to love anyway.
Over the years, I have watched foster fathers do the quiet work that few people ever see. They assemble cribs in the middle of the night. They learn bedtime routines. They sit through doctor appointments and school meetings. They teach little boys how to throw a football and let little girls paint their fingernails. They kneel beside beds at night and pray over children who are carrying burdens far too heavy for their young shoulders.
These men become fathers in all the ways that matter most.
Many people assume foster dads stay emotionally guarded to protect themselves from the inevitable heartbreak. In my experience, the opposite is true. The very best foster dads are the ones who love wholeheartedly. They don’t hold back because of fear. They don’t protect themselves by staying distant. They choose connection, attachment, and love, fully aware of what it may cost them later.
And sometimes it costs them everything.
Somewhere today, there is a foster dad wondering about a child he once tucked into bed every night. There is a foster dad looking through old photographs of a little girl who used to run into his arms. There is a foster dad remembering birthdays, bedtime prayers, fishing trips, and Saturday mornings with a child he may never see again.
The world often expects foster parents to move on when a child leaves. But love doesn’t work that way.
The truth is that foster fathers carry those children with them forever. Every child leaves a fingerprint on their hearts. Every goodbye changes them. The children may leave their homes, but they never leave their hearts.
As I write this today, I can’t help but think about my own husband.
For years, I have watched him open his heart to children who arrived carrying fear, trauma, uncertainty, and loss. I have watched him become a safe place for children who desperately needed one. I have watched him rock babies to sleep, carry toddlers on his shoulders, comfort frightened children, and show up day after day without ever knowing how their stories would end.
I’ve watched him sit in courtrooms and hold his breath. I’ve watched him celebrate victories and grieve losses. I’ve watched him love children as if they had always been his, even when he knew they might not stay.
What has always amazed me most is that he never seems to love less after a goodbye. If anything, he loves more. Each child becomes part of his story, part of who he is, and part of the reason he continues saying yes when the next child needs a home.
That is the heart of a foster dad.
He understands that fatherhood is not defined by biology, DNA, or a shared last name. Fatherhood is showing up. It is protecting. It is sacrificing. It is loving a child well for however long God allows that child to be in your care.
So today, I want to honor all the foster dads.
The dads who stayed up all night with sick babies.
The dads who attended school programs and doctor appointments.
The dads who learned to braid hair, fix bicycles, throw baseballs, and comfort nightmares.
The dads who loved children they didn’t create but chose.
The dads who have said heartbreaking goodbyes.
The dads who still wonder how those children are doing years later.
The dads carrying both gratitude and grief this Father’s Day.
Your love mattered.
It mattered on the ordinary days when nobody was watching. It mattered during the hard days when you questioned whether you were making a difference. It mattered during the court hearings, the reunifications, the adoptions, and the goodbyes.
And it still matters today.
The world may never fully understand the sacrifices you have made or the pieces of your heart you have given away. But those children carry your fingerprints with them, whether they remember your name or not.
And God sees every act of love.
Happy Father’s Day to the men who stayed, the men who showed up, and the men who loved anyway.
Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25:40
