Where Have You Been?

Where have you been?

More than a decade ago, I almost adopted a little boy.  He was six at the time, and his mother was dying.  I’ll call him “Evan,” though that’s not his real name.  I had never met Evan, nor had I met his mother, but she had no one, and her end was imminently near. Evan’s mother lived in my parents’ community 2800 miles from mine, but when she reached out to the pastor at my parents’ church, one thing led to another, and somehow she called me.  At the time I chose to see it as Providence.  Over the course of several weeks we decided that I would adopt Evan, become the new mother to her soon-to-be orphaned little boy.

While my heart broke for this dying mother and her son, I was excited for myself.  You see, I cannot have children, and in the tiny crevices of my heart, where I have tucked away this truth so that it’s ever-present being cannot consume my consciousness,  I had never ceased praying for a child of my own.  Evan, I was positive, was the answer to this prayer, and I breathed a sigh of grateful relief as I let go the string of that balloon.

Everything was quickly readied.  I found an attorney in Evan’s community  who had the papers set to sign.  I bought the plane tickets and packed my bags.  Then the phone rang.  I don’t recall just how it happened  or the minutiae.  This, I’m sure, is  a willful memory block.  Even now the pain is just a bit too much to face head-on.  There was a couple, a little older, a lot more financially secure,  that wanted to adopt Evan; their adoption would be moving forward.  I was crushed.

Where have you been?

Evan is 16 now, and he has a great life.  This boy who was almost my son has absolutely no idea who I am, that I was almost his mom.  But I see him with his parents sometimes, and I smile because things are, even as they were a decade ago, exactly as they should have been.

Evan needed a father.  The loss of his birth mother was desolation and devastation – as you would expect.  Learning to be part of a new family did not come easy for Evan, and that visited hell on his adoptive parents.  The transition with his adoptive mother ground especially hard.  It took several long desperate years for Evan to show her the respect and care she deserved, indeed it took that amount of time for him to obey her.  His adoptive father proved to be the mortar for their shaky walls.

I could’ve provided a loving home, kind grandparents, fun cousins, toys galore, camping, Boy Scouts, any kind of activity Evan wanted.  But I could not have provided a father.  My heart cared but little about this, but God’s knew better.

Where have you been?

So many times I pray for things I think I want, even things I think I need.  I pray for God to show me the path, to light my way.  I plead with Him. I beg Him.  And what I hear is silence.   I’m left disappointed, bereft.  After Evan, I was shattered.

I think of Elijah, His profit sitting alone in a cave knowing there’s a price on his head, terrified of the forces gathering against him, praying for direction.  Elijah is waiting on God.  His God –  my God –  tells Elijah He will show Himself.  The horrible wind comes, the rain, an earthquake – no God.  But then a gentle whisper passes, and in that gentle whisper there is God.  The message so often told about this story is that we find God mostly where we are not looking, and, yes, I understand.  But I also take away this: God did not allow Elijah to see Him before He passed by or even as He was passing by.  Instead, Elijah had to wait to see where God had been.

Where have you been?

The first time Evan’s mom called me, my own heart obscured my view.  My desires directed my prayers, and while we are to share our heart with our Father, He knows, He always knows the entire story – what all the players need.  So, while I’m begging for direction, I’ve already begun to trod a path that sometimes  just isn’t the right one.   My humanity obfuscates what’s ahead, but the grace of God allows me to understand what’s behind.

Truthfully, if I did know what was coming, some days I might not get out of bed.  But when I can see with the clarity of hindsight, when I can view with the wisdom of the whole, where He has been,  I can appreciate how the intricacies of His plans work.  Mostly.  But sometimes, the mysterious remains so, and letting go of the need to know “why” becomes my new Everest.  He knows this, and I’m pretty sure He’s okay with this.  It’s a matter of growing, changing, seeing; one might even say it’s His gift.

Where have you been?