Mixed feelings after reading the posts. Good points to be made on both sides.
Please forgive how sad this post will be. And possibly, how long.
One of my children died of SIDS at two months old, and losing a child is certainly an experience I don't want to live through twice. (Some people do live through it twice, or even more times, and I can't imagine it.) I did briefly wonder why God bothered giving her to me, if He was only going to take her right back again, but I immediately realized she is in Heaven with Him, where she would not be if she had never existed. He hasn't taken her away. He merely made it certain that she will always be safe with Him, and at least I have one child I will never have to worry about. As King David said when his own baby son died, "I will go to him, but he will not return to me." In this case, I am glad I did have her.
Of my two remaining children, one is infertile and the other is an addict in and out of recovery. She gave birth to two children, but (correctly) realizing that she was not being a good mother to them, she voluntarily surrendered them for adoption. Our state has no grandparents' rights. All cards and letters to their adoptive family have gone unanswered. I might as well not exist in their eyes. I have not seen my grandchildren since they were a toddler and a preschooler. They are now a tween and a teen. If I ever do see them again, it will have to be after they are adults. My husband keeps reassuring me that all is not lost. I might have them back in my life some day, after they are grown up. He doesn't seem to understand that their childhood years are something I will never have back. Watching them grow up has been denied me, and that is something that cannot be replaced. On one hand, I can't say I would rather not have been their grandmother at all, since there does remain that faint hope I might see them again. On the other hand, if they had been born into their adoptive family instead of into mine, I would never have known the difference. I might think, "Gee, I wish I had grandchildren," but I wouldn't have this tremendous ache of having had some, and lost them.
Most recently, I was hired for a wonderful job. I had completed two weeks of training, including classroom and in-house, working with clients who have developmental disabilities. Oh, how I loved working with those beautiful people. Unfortunately, the company hired me before the background check results came back. When it did, a 25-year-old bounced check charge showed up, that I had been told was to be expunged, but apparently it had not been. No matter that it was not a deliberate crime, but a math error. No matter that it was 25 years ago and has not happened since. No matter that the reason I didn't disclose it was that I didn't know it was there to disclose. Anything financial shows up on your record, they don't want you working with vulnerable adults. They did everything but come right out and call me a liar (for not disclosing it) and a thief.
In this case, oh how I wish they had waited for the background check, and discovered the problem, and had not hired me in the first place. Then, being turned down, I would merely have taken steps to expunge my record. But to work that job for two weeks and have it suddenly yanked away--yes, that one hurts me to my soul. It would have been better never to set foot there, or meet any of them.
I draw the comparison to a father bringing home a puppy. He watches his child squeal and dance with delight. Over the next few weeks the child joyfully plays with that puppy, trains that puppy, walks and feeds and bathes that puppy, and sleeps with that puppy. Only then does it come out, "By the way, the puppy isn't yours. I was only keeping it for a friend of mine who was out of town, and they're coming to get it today." Only a very cruel father would do something like that to his child. And, although I know God is not deliberately making any of these things happen just to be cruel, I have had that conversation with Him that I already realize the figurative puppy isn't mine. It's His to give and His to take. He owes me nothing.
But dear sweet mercy, how much this hurts. All of it. Please don't even show me the puppy, if it isn't going to stay with me.
