If your church, conference, or organization would like Jason and Whitney to speak about foster care, adoption, or living a meaningful life through small acts of faithfulness, you can contact them at [email protected].

In this episode of the Dream Small Podcast, Jason and Whitney talk about how easy it is for foster care to harden your heart and why followers of Jesus must fight to stay soft, compassionate, and tenderhearted anyway.

They begin by asking a simple but honest question: Have you ever felt yourself getting harder, not because you wanted to, but because it felt safer? From there, they unpack how foster care can do exactly that. The broken systems, hard goodbyes, repeated disappointments, caseworkers and judges making frustrating decisions, compassion fatigue, and the trauma children bring into your home can all make it feel easier to shut down emotionally than to stay open and loving.

Whitney shares that even foster care relicensing paperwork can become a reminder of how exhausting the system can be. She talks about filling out the same paperwork again, getting fingerprinted over and over, and answering questions about reunification in ways that don’t always seem centered on the best interest of the child. That frustration becomes part of the larger conversation: foster care often feels more system-centered or bio-parent-centered than child-centered, and that reality can harden foster parents if they are not careful.

Jason and Whitney also reflect on how hardening can show up in real life. It can look like losing compassion and becoming transactional, seeing a child as a bed to fill instead of a human being with trauma, a story, and a need for love. Whitney shares an example of receiving a placement call for a sibling set and recognizing that while they wanted to help, it would not be fair to the child to say yes beyond what they could realistically handle with her upcoming surgery. Their point is that tenderness is not the same as saying yes to everything. Tenderness can still have boundaries.

A major part of the episode centers on what soft strength really looks like. Jason talks about tenderness not as weakness, but as strength under control. He points to Jesus as the model: strong, powerful, and fully capable, yet gentle, compassionate, and willing to love even when betrayed. They reflect on Jesus washing Judas’s feet and forgiving those who crucified Him as examples of softness that is deeply powerful, not fragile. Their message is clear: softness is not weakness, it is Christlikeness.

They also name the specific things that can harden foster parents:

1. repeated disappointment in the system
2. feeling unsupported and unseen
3. compassion fatigue
4. trauma in the home
5. unsafe or rushed reunifications
6. the temptation to emotionally detach because loving children who may leave is painful

Whitney shares that compassion fatigue can cause you to stop seeing behavior through the lens of trauma and start simply seeing a child as frustrating, difficult, or “a pain in the butt.” Jason adds that hardening can show up as not wanting to come home, losing joy, being short with your spouse and kids, or refusing moments that normally would spark joy — like when a child asks you to play.

One of the most moving parts of the episode is when they revisit stories from their own foster care journey with Leah. Whitney talks about how, early on, Leah was a medically fragile baby who was miserable, vomiting constantly, and incredibly hard to care for. In her exhaustion, Whitney reached out to close friends and vulnerably asked them to pray that she would genuinely love this baby because she felt tired and disconnected. Just a couple hours later, Leah smiled at her for the first time, and Whitney describes that moment as healing.

They also share a painful hospital story involving Leah’s biological mother. Whitney describes greeting her warmly while holding Leah, only to be charged at and nearly hit while being accused of harming the baby by using a feeding tube. After security got involved, Whitney hid in the chapel and cried, asking Jason, “How am I supposed to love her?” That story becomes one of the clearest examples in the episode of how foster care can tempt someone to harden, and how God can still soften a heart.

Later, Whitney explains how that same relationship changed over time. As she continued sending updates and building trust, she was eventually able to tell Leah’s biological mom that if Leah did not return home, they would adopt her and love her like their own, and that Leah would not get lost in the system. That conversation became a picture of what it looks like to stay tenderhearted even when there has been hurt, fear, and conflict.

The episode closes with practical ways to remain tenderhearted:

1. stay connected to Jesus
2. feel your feelings instead of burying them
3. grieve losses honestly
4. set boundaries without becoming hard
5. choose empathy
6. stay in authentic community
7. let God heal the wounds you are carrying

Jason and Whitney end by speaking directly to foster parents: this calling is hard, but loving children who may leave is not wasted. Even if a child is only in your home for a season, the love you give matters. They challenge listeners to ask: Where have I started to harden? and pray, “God, soften what life has hardened.”

What You’ll Hear in This Episode

1. Why foster care can make it feel safer to harden your heart
2. How broken systems, paperwork, and reunification decisions wear foster parents down
3. What it looks like when foster care becomes transactional instead of compassionate
4. Why tenderness is not weakness
5. Jesus as the model of soft strength
6. Signs of compassion fatigue and emotional hardening
7. Why staying connected to God matters if you want to stay soft
8. Why feeling your grief matters after foster care loss
9. How to set boundaries without losing compassion
10. Why authentic community matters
11. Stories from Leah’s early placement, medical struggles, and hospital stays
12. A painful interaction with Leah’s biological mom, and how God softened Whitney’s heart anyway
13. Encouragement for foster parents who feel weary and tempted to shut down

Call to Action

If this episode encouraged you, share it with a foster parent, adoptive parent, or someone walking through a season where it feels easier to shut down than stay soft.

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Music Credit

"Paradise Found" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons