People like to use that line when they find out that something bad happened to a person. Can you imagine how God feels about that... every time something bad happens to us, we tell each other that it's God's fault. No wonder people have a bad outlook on our God... he is blamed for everything, even though it usually the fault of human nature, human error or just plain old human sin. This world is sinful, and along with that comes hurt and pain. There is no way around it, if we want to live here, it is what will happen. We can get through it though with God/Jesus. He will comfort us and even guide us how to get through it. I don't believe in that saying at all (for the most part). I think there are times when God tells us to do something, but life gets in the way and human choice makes things very painful. Do remember that God gave us choice in the beginning, and has never taken that away. Let me tell you a story... a story of a loss of a daughter... her name was Colleen...
About 5 years ago I was watching a TV show called Judging Amy. There was an episode about a teenage boy who was in the foster care system and it was mentioned how once kids hit a certain age in the system, that they would have a very little chance to get adopted. I light went off in my head... why not adopt a teen. We love that age group and we don't have a desire for babies, so why not... we had a decent sized house, good jobs and lots of love to give. I think it was about October at the time. So we got in contact with social services and started the process. They have a website with all the kids in the system, so we went through the website. We knew that the right person would jump out at us, and she did... her screen name was Colleen.
The process starts with a home visit and an interview... and we got that done right away. We also joined a program that specialized in connecting the older kids in the system to parents. When we explained who we were looking at, the head of the group said we would be a perfect match. Coleen was looking for a couple with no kids, people with a dog, someone who would be OK with her still spending time with an aunt, and other things that just perfectly matched with us. So away we went on the long grueling process that could take months and months. Turns out the group leader got us fast tracked through and the only thing slowing us down was some courses we had to take. They started in February and ended in late March... but we found out that we were fast tracked and could even meet Coleen part way through March. We did our home studies and were approved. Everyone liked us and thought that Coleen and us would be a great match. Everything was falling into place perfectly and we figured in about a month, we would get to meet our daughter...
Doug's family is different... some are really nice and some aren't. Doug's sister has some issues, and proceeded to phone social services and tell them a bunch of lies. In our system you are guilty until proven innocent, and how do you prove innocence on lies??? Within a day of her phone call, we got called to the office and were informed that we were not able to adopt, and in fact, we couldn't do anything with children. Our names were black flagged. We were devastated and we considered fighting it, but how?? It meant bringing his family through the mud... all the secrets, all the bad things in the past, etc... we just couldn't do that. Even though we don't like his family much, we didn't know if we could hurt them that badly, especially his parents. So we just gave up... and we gave up on Coleen, which I think was the hardest. Should we have fought for her more... did we choose his family (who we don't like) over our future daughter? I guess we did choose his family, but what could we have done? We are to honour our parents, and putting them through hell is not honouring them, even though they made mistakes.
So what do some people say when they heard our story?? I guess it wasn't in God's time!! So, we follow everything to what God tells us... everything falls into place as if it was meant to be, and then God rips it away from us? Good grief, what kind of God do people think we have... there is no way this was God. It was his sister and her hate... nothing to do with God. Put the blame where it belongs and don't blame the One who handed it to us, and who eventually comforted us through it all. There are times where prayer's aren't answered in the way we want, and that is just God saying it isn't time, or something like that, but really... if God gives you something, or lets things happen for good, he isn't going to rip it away from us, his children. Life is what screws with us... it's our sinful life here on earth that messes things up. It's people's choices that puts us at risk of being hurt and in pain.
Even with our Mexico fiasco in December, I totally believe that it was God sending us there and everything worked out so well, that it had to be God. It was two people's choices that changed our destiny and NOT God. Their choice to play with peoples' lives and to mess with our heads. I will tell you that story at some other time... it's also a doozy... we have had a few in our lives, but through it all, we are still strong and know that God loves us very much. I don't believe that we would be any less stronger without these experiences. There is no way God does this to test us, otherwise that would be very mean of him. Again... it's this sinful world that does this to us and it's God that comforts us and brings us through it. Remember, Jesus was sent to take away our pain, our sadness, our burdens... he carries them for us.
People may not agree with this, but heck, this is my blog, and it's my opinion, so please do not post negative responses to it. You won't change my mind and why bring hurt and pain onto a blog that is about me ;)
About 5 years ago I was watching a TV show called Judging Amy. There was an episode about a teenage boy who was in the foster care system and it was mentioned how once kids hit a certain age in the system, that they would have a very little chance to get adopted. I light went off in my head... why not adopt a teen. We love that age group and we don't have a desire for babies, so why not... we had a decent sized house, good jobs and lots of love to give. I think it was about October at the time. So we got in contact with social services and started the process. They have a website with all the kids in the system, so we went through the website. We knew that the right person would jump out at us, and she did... her screen name was Colleen.
The process starts with a home visit and an interview... and we got that done right away. We also joined a program that specialized in connecting the older kids in the system to parents. When we explained who we were looking at, the head of the group said we would be a perfect match. Coleen was looking for a couple with no kids, people with a dog, someone who would be OK with her still spending time with an aunt, and other things that just perfectly matched with us. So away we went on the long grueling process that could take months and months. Turns out the group leader got us fast tracked through and the only thing slowing us down was some courses we had to take. They started in February and ended in late March... but we found out that we were fast tracked and could even meet Coleen part way through March. We did our home studies and were approved. Everyone liked us and thought that Coleen and us would be a great match. Everything was falling into place perfectly and we figured in about a month, we would get to meet our daughter...
Doug's family is different... some are really nice and some aren't. Doug's sister has some issues, and proceeded to phone social services and tell them a bunch of lies. In our system you are guilty until proven innocent, and how do you prove innocence on lies??? Within a day of her phone call, we got called to the office and were informed that we were not able to adopt, and in fact, we couldn't do anything with children. Our names were black flagged. We were devastated and we considered fighting it, but how?? It meant bringing his family through the mud... all the secrets, all the bad things in the past, etc... we just couldn't do that. Even though we don't like his family much, we didn't know if we could hurt them that badly, especially his parents. So we just gave up... and we gave up on Coleen, which I think was the hardest. Should we have fought for her more... did we choose his family (who we don't like) over our future daughter? I guess we did choose his family, but what could we have done? We are to honour our parents, and putting them through hell is not honouring them, even though they made mistakes.
So what do some people say when they heard our story?? I guess it wasn't in God's time!! So, we follow everything to what God tells us... everything falls into place as if it was meant to be, and then God rips it away from us? Good grief, what kind of God do people think we have... there is no way this was God. It was his sister and her hate... nothing to do with God. Put the blame where it belongs and don't blame the One who handed it to us, and who eventually comforted us through it all. There are times where prayer's aren't answered in the way we want, and that is just God saying it isn't time, or something like that, but really... if God gives you something, or lets things happen for good, he isn't going to rip it away from us, his children. Life is what screws with us... it's our sinful life here on earth that messes things up. It's people's choices that puts us at risk of being hurt and in pain.
Even with our Mexico fiasco in December, I totally believe that it was God sending us there and everything worked out so well, that it had to be God. It was two people's choices that changed our destiny and NOT God. Their choice to play with peoples' lives and to mess with our heads. I will tell you that story at some other time... it's also a doozy... we have had a few in our lives, but through it all, we are still strong and know that God loves us very much. I don't believe that we would be any less stronger without these experiences. There is no way God does this to test us, otherwise that would be very mean of him. Again... it's this sinful world that does this to us and it's God that comforts us and brings us through it. Remember, Jesus was sent to take away our pain, our sadness, our burdens... he carries them for us.
People may not agree with this, but heck, this is my blog, and it's my opinion, so please do not post negative responses to it. You won't change my mind and why bring hurt and pain onto a blog that is about me ;)
sorry to hear about your loss, and it always seems to be family or the ones closes to us that hurt us the hardest, its like they just don,t see how we will feel. and like you say you have to be strong in your faith and ask god to help you to forgive them. which is so hard to do.
To comment on the above post... forgiveness is a must, so honestly, it isn't that hard. If we don't forgive, we can't be forgiven, so it's really a no brainer LOL.