I fell hopelessly in love with a waiting child.
We haven't been looking for a child to adopt. Still, I am on certain lists and emails come my way... and there was this boy. And through a set of circumstances and "coincidences", I became certain that this child was destined to be mine. I prayed and prayed; knowing that, at best, this was going to be a tough sell for almost everyone in my life. I was sure that God was speaking and that this boy belonged to me. Walls would come tumbling down. Patience and faith were the keys... patience and faith.
Except they weren't the keys and this boy will not be my son. Months passed while I patiently prayed for the pieces to fall into place. But they didn't fall the way I had hoped for. Tom feels our family is complete and will not be swayed from this position. He, reasonably, doesn't want to risk tipping the delicate balance we have developed in our family. While I might hear God, this time Tom does not. Not here and now in this situation. Faith and patience did not turn out to be my allies... while I was faithfully praying and patiently waiting, the agency advocating for this child quietly eliminated their waiting child list from Ethiopia and with it the listing for "my" boy. I am too late.
I cry now for this child who was never mine and never will be. I wonder what will become of him, a child with a significant special need in a third world country with absolutely no services to assist his family in caring for him now or to help him be a productive member of society in the future. Will he grow to adulthood? Will he get any education? Will he be surrounded by people who will nurture him or will he end up on the streets?
I don't know. I have no way to know.
I am sad that I will never have this boy to hold and love. The ache I feel in my heart is almost unbearably painful. I am sad that I was so wrong about what I thought God was asking me to do. I wonder why it is so hard for me to hear God accurately, and yet so many other people seem to have a direct line right to their eardrums. I feel foolish and faithless and hopelessly wrong.
And my heart is broken, with two big holes in it... a hole for this child and a hole for my faith.
