In the Balance

Reviewing some files this past week. Children's files. Actual people.  I do not know why this feels so weird, but it does. Looking at kids' histories and pictures, weighing needs and potentialities, trying to get a feel for the long term.

But these aren't used cars, they're kids. This is part of the process, no matter how you approach it. At some point, someone is going to make you nail down what you are willing to deal with. What you believe you are capable of handling. And this part, to me anyway, is ugly.

Not, let me be clear, because of the kids. The kids inspire nothing in me but compassion. A tearing, anxious compassion that wants to sweep them all into my embrace and volunteer to raise everyone, Every. Last. One.

The ugly part is what this process exposes in me. It lays bare all my pettiness, my insecurities, the things that pollute my heart. The part of me that wonders if I can handle a child with a very visible need, a need that may never be totally fixable. Club feet are ugly, but fixable to the point that you'd never know they were there. Heart conditions are often fixable, the scar hidden unless you go to the pool, where I have it on good authority that a truly wicked scar is not actually a handicap. But what about the more obvious things? Missing fingers? Limbs? A pronounced limp? I don't know.  I am trying to feel this out, imagine myself with a child like this. Imagine being even more conspicuous as a family than we would be anyway with an Asian child.

I am unsure.  Not rejecting outright, you understand, just unsure. And anxious.

It's just that I have always taken my children's physical health for granted. I have never wondered whether they would be able to play any sport they felt like trying. Never worried that others might make fun of them for the way they walk. Never contemplated the stares, the possibly rude and intrusive questions or comments that might arise. Never ever, not once, had to consider how I would help my child cope with all these things.

And now I am being called to do this. And it is hard.

And the craven, cowardly part of me wants to bury my head in the sand and say "no way, God. This...this is more than I can do. I am not actually this big of a person. Look at me, Lord!...I am very shallow and small and weak. I don't tolerate embarassment well, I mostly like people to not notice me, I have a deeply private streak in me that really resents intrusion. I am not the one for this job."

But if I'm not the one for this job, then who is?

And let me add this little tidbit: two nights ago these children invaded my dreams. And in my dream I was chasing a child. Not just any child, but one of the little boys we are considering. One who is so darling, and yet whose needs cause some anxiety (see? -- more anxiety. It's a theme). In the dream, he was walking along the sidewalk and he turned and this deep, booming voice (not my voice)  said "He's perfect." And some other part of me, the watching part, agreed -- "perfect."

Whaddaya think? Voice of God? Might be. I don't discount these things lightly.