Adoptive Parental Blessings
Internet story
How many people get a visual of God's plan, and how many people get that visual taken away??
Below is a story that I heard online about a couple who could not have children. However, the guy had had a dream, as a teenager, that he would have a daughter and name her Chloe. In his dream, the child had dark hair and brown eyes. However, the woman he fell in love with and married, who also prematurely chose the name Chloe, had blue eyes, and blonde hair, making it genetically impossible to have a dark hair, brown eyed daughter. The vision of the daughter that God gave him. However, they had tried for many years to get pregnant, but the husband, who called getting a child through adoption, βa band-aid baby,β was very much against adopting. Finally, the husband agreed to look into it, and the wife received an email that said, βit's a girl.β The biological mother had chosen them to be the parents of her unborn daughter. However, the biological mother wanted to meet the couple first, so they went to meet her. The adopting father saw the woman and realized that she looked like the adult version of the daughter he had dreamed about. Another coincidence, the biological mother had chosen the name for the child, which was also Chloe.
My story
Unfortunately, not all parents' get the kind of happy ending, like in the above story. I also had a dream when I was a teenager. I used to speak to God, just like the adopting father from the internet story above. (This was during the time that I made my Confirmation, and attended a retreat.)
My conversation with God also had to do with the future. I really wanted to be a mother, so I asked God how many children I would have and what they would be. God gave me the answer in a dream. I would have three children, 1 boy and 2 girls. I did have a boy and two girls. However, in 2013 I had to leave them, and, apparently, never get the chance to see them again. That is what a military divorce can do.
Not every dream that God gives you gets a happy ending. It is disappointing. It has changed my life, and not entirely for the better. It has effected my relationship with God. However, after my discussion with a lawyer about soul damage, I am starting to work up to talking to God again. The only time that I have been to church was for my niece's baptism. (And another baby is expected, therefore another baptism.) I do not go to church during the holidays. (There is just no room for one extra person in the car. I'm the odd man out. I don't argue, I just accept it. Which was a good thing, as those that went in my parents' car were in a car accident coming home from church on Christmas Eve that year.)
However, my children were my dream. Each was planned for. (I hear so many people that have sex with the intention not to get pregnant, DUH!!). I stayed home with my kids from 1993 to 2007. They were not my ex-husband's dream. Not their grandparents' dream. Not their stepmother's dream. Mine. I was forced to walk away from that dream. Thanks to a military divorce. It is a blessing that I no longer have dreams. Or, if I do, I do not remember them. Probably the last blessing that God has given me.
In conclusion
Just like the adoptive mother in the above story. She was angry for awhile because God's plan did not match her own, until the very end, when they finally got their child, through adoption. The adoptive father seeing the vision that God gave him unfolding right before his eyes.
In my own story, my relationship with God may get better, but I doubt that it will be the same. I have given up on dreams. (Maybe that is the only way that God protects me now, by my not remembering my dreams?) However, I continue to still work as a Job Coach and do my part for the disabled population. While, at the same time, hoping for continued opportunities in my career, hoping that I will some day feel comfortable to love again.
There are people out there that will not get the happy ending they deserve. It will be the life with Band-Aids, and a temporary fix.
Those that do get their happy ending, you are surely blessed. I hope you live your life to the fullest, and don't condemn those that appear to be only in the state of being. They may continue to not move forward from that state. It would be nice to just forget, and not to put walls up after going through pain. I hope as I age, Alzheimer's may become my blessing.
I feel that if I just keep doing what I am doing in my career, the rest of life won't matter so much. I am still doing my part, until another opportunity comes along, and I.....just continue to change the Band-Aid.