I recently had a young lady ask me if I had a moment to answer a question. It had been a long day and I was really hoping it would be an easy one to answer so I could just go on to bed and sleep away all the emotions the day had already overwhelmed me with. I looked at her and told her of course. It wasn’t an easy one.
“If God really loves me and wants the best for me, if he really knows what is going to happen to us in this life, then why didn’t he just give me to my adoptive parents instead of me having to go through the hurt of being born to bad birth parents?”
Her question hit me harder than any from that day. I stood beside that sweet girl and my heart broke because I had no answer to give her. No hope of a brilliant plan I have the inside knowledge of. Instead I started to cry while looking into her confused and hurt face. “Do you know I adopted three of my kids?” I asked her grateful the night hid my tears from her. She looked surprised and answered no. I gave a silent prayer that God would give me the words and that they wouldn’t drip with the bitterness I have over this very question. “I am just going to have to be honest here and tell you I have no idea. I will add that I have asked this very question nearly every night since my kids have been placed with me. I will tell you I have cried, screamed, and demanded God to tell me why I couldn’t have just had my kids instead of them having to go through the hurt of those years with their birth families. I still don’t have an answer. If I can help you with anything on this it is giving you an insight to what your mom must feel just as strongly. I know that she wishes she could have been there from the first second. But know this, God does love you and he indeed hand-picked the mom and dad that would keep you safe and would show you his way. Someday I think you will be approached by a young girl that is hurting and confused and only you will be able to help her with a connection that you will feel to her and she will feel to you.” We spent the next hour or so talking as she poured out her heart, her hurt, and her confusion. I went to bed and didn’t find the sleep that would allow me to be free of the emotions of the day. Instead I wrestled once more with the plan that I can’t seem to understand, the questions I had for God, the anger I had with him over the orphans of this world. I could have had all three of my adopted kids. I would have enjoyed each pregnancy. I would have taken care of them from the first second they came to be. My womb would have been safe and full of love. I would have played music to them and read to them the same way I did their brother. I would have taken the vitamins, eaten healthy, and decorated their rooms full of hope and joy. I spent eight years begging God to let me do that very thing. Instead I picked up the pieces of the broken life my kids were born into.
Why?
How come?
What for?
These are the unanswerable questions. We won’t know why there are families that have the desire, ability, financial stability, and the dream to be loving safe parents and are unable to be. Meanwhile there are people who have no desire, no ability, and are not safe that have child after unwanted child after abused unwanted child. I would think it would be the other way around, but again I am not the one with the answers. I will struggle with this question until the day he gives me my answer, but has he somehow already tried to answer me and I have just been too bitter to listen. Well, there is a twist. I know that we are called God’s children, told that we are adopted into the inheritance of Jesus. We are shown through example that God has a heart for the orphans and then we are called to have the same heart. So if we all had our own perfect little bundles of joy, would we then reach out to the hurting orphans around us? Already I hear from friends on a daily basis how hard it must be for me and how they could never do what I do. I hear too often from people that it is just too hard to think about how bringing in a child might uproot the lives of the children they already have. So then is this an insight to why there are some unable to have their own, so the selfishness of an easy life isn’t there to fight? Does God use his people to give homes to those they wouldn’t think twice about if they had the rooms in it already full? Would we listen to the sermons of the preachers, the stories of the missionaries and say there is no room in the inn if our hearts were already full from the laughter of our own children? Where would my “high risk adoptive” kids be if I hadn’t had a heart for more children? This world will always be full of children needing a safe mom and dad but will it have enough men and women who will be willing to put aside comfort and sanity to offer their hearts and homes to those needing them most?
I present another question, will you step up to the plate and take on a hurting child in need of extra TLC? If the answer is no then, why? How come? What for? Our world is full of over 500,000 kids who are asking those very questions, and so I write………..
soshewritesweb 