The Terrible Heartbreak of “Choosing”

"Psalm 68:6 “God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing…”

This past Friday, Mel and I took more time out of work to go take care of more bureaucratic governmental requirements for our adoption. This time it was fingerprints. Even though we’ve had fingerprints done for our home study last year, which could have easily been photocopied or whatever, we had to take time out of our busy, crazy week and go to two separate government offices to get fingerprints done – one with ink, the other with a digital machine. Even though the appointments went “well”, the ordeal was exhausting! By Friday afternoon I thought that literally nothing in this process could be worse than this.

But alas, there is something about this process that is far more heartbreaking, frustrating, and trying than visiting offices of a government that couldn’t care less whether we lived or died, let alone a foreign child. That thing – that thing that weights so heavily on my heart and sometimes brings me close to tears – is the “choosing.”

Choosing what, you ask? “Choosing” our future child. Yes, believe it or not, we actually have a choice about which child we bring home to be our future son or daughter. We have access to a list of orphans that we can literally sift through like a vicious catalogue of human beings ready and waiting for our “purchase”! We can look at their characteristics, medical needs, and backgrounds and say, “I don’t want that one, put it back!” or “That one looks good, keep him as a backup!” And I HATE it!

Who gave us the right to be able to pick and choose which kid we want? Who gave us the right to make decisions about a stranger’s life that will determine, perhaps literally, whether he or she lives or dies? Birth parents do not have this luxury! They may have many others, but they do not get to choose which child they get. AND, they are not forced to make a choice that will affect the puny, listless existence of an abandoned human being!

In today’s modern age, we value “choice.” We pride ourselves on the fact that we can pick and choose what we want, when we want it, what we want it to do, what we want it to be! We live in “drop-down menus”…choices abound. But I hate this choice!

This child is a person, not an item. This child has a heart and feelings and endless possibilities. What gives me the right to choose whether he receives a home or stays a prisoner of an orphanage? Who made me God that I should choose whether he lives a fulfilling life, full of love and acceptance or a damned life, full of neglect and shame? Why must I choose? I don’t want the choice! I don’t want this child’s blood on my hands! I don’t want the blood of the children I don’t choose to be my son on my hands!

I’ve thought about this a lot, and the more and more I think about it, the longer I sit and try to fight off breaking down in tears, the harder I try to push their tiny little faces out of my head and stave off the guilt of “not picking all the children”, the more I come back to the verse at the beginning of this entry – God sets the lonely in families.

Did I hear that? “God” sets the lonely in families. The choice – Praise the Lord – is not mine after all! The Lord Himself has a plan for all these children because He loves them, and I am part of that plan for one of these children. I do not have to make the “choice” because He has already made it. To find out what choice He has made for me and Mel, all I have to do is ask Him and wait for an answer or confirmation. The Bible says that if any of us lacks wisdom, we can ask for God who gives to all freely and without reproach! I can ask the Lord what His plan is for any given child, and if that plan involves me and Mel, then the Lord will tell me. If the plan is for the child to be “set” in our family, the Lord will confirm it to us. If the child’s plan involves someone else, then the Lord will tell me to keep looking The “choice” is made, and it’s not ours to make!

My heartbreak at seeing child after child after child on the waiting lists is definitely still there. I may try to hide it under my stalwart smile, but it still exists. Reading through the characteristics and medical records of each child is still greatly difficult for me on an emotional level. It will never not be. These are PEOPLE, not PRODUCTS…! But I am not a “consumer”! The choice is not mine!  The guilt of choosing one child over another is not for me to bear because the LORD sets these children in families, not I.

Thank you GOD that You have a plan and that the only thing You ask is that I follow it and ask for wisdom on how to do so. Thank you God that You are working to get these dear children into homes and that You see where they are supposed to go. And thank You God for allowing me a glimpse of the heartbreak You feel at all Your lost Children that need Your Family. Amen.