What If????



This week I’ve had the opportunity to hug and hold and snuggle with all 5 of my grandchildren.  This morning I was driving down the interstate.  It was gray!  It was gloomy!  It was horribly windy!  But all I could think about as I drove was how incredibly delightful each of these children are in my life.  Holden, oldest of the bunch…what can I say.  LeeAnne has shared this blessing with us from the day he entered her life.  There’s something incredibly special that goes on between Holden and me.  I delight in his enthusiasm for life.  I laugh with him.  He snuggles in just about better than any child I’ve ever known.  I cannot describe how my heart lights up when he comes around the corner from the kitchen, sees me, smiles and says loudly and cheerfully, “Gee-Gee!!!”  It takes my breath away.  This is the same child that has to be spanked occasionally because he refuses to obey.  He’s the same little boy that has to be placed in a time out chair to think about what he’s done.  He’s the stubborn little boy that struggles to say, “I’m sorry” when he’s done wrong.  He can destroy a living room in less than 3 seconds.  I say all of that to let you know he’s not perfect.  He has faults.  He sins!  And yet I love him so much it hurts.

Then there’s Orlando…introspective, serious, intensive Orlando.  He’ll be three in a couple of weeks, but sometimes he gets the look of a wise old man on his face.  I’ve watched as he’s explored the room…looking through a “site” by tilting a Christmas tree ornament cross so that it looks like a gun in his hand and then walking slowly around the room for almost twenty minutes examining everything from that point of view.  I’ve never seen a young child who “studies” things like he does.  I’ve never seen a two-year-old who could be engrossed in a television program so deeply.  Beautiful…wise beyond his years it seems…but also capable of instantaneous destruction (he dumps before he even hits the living room sometimes – smile).  He can scream the most piercing scream I’ve ever heard if someone takes something from him or won’t share with him.  He, too, has had to be swatted and placed in the time out chair.  Teaching little guys how to function in the real world is always a challenge.  But I can tell you that he too takes my breath away when he says, “Hi, grandma!”  I can get lost in his dark, dark, dark brown eyes.  I don’t really remember much of life before him and I cannot imagine life without him.

Luke is my heartbreak grandson.  Many of you do not know, but Luke has not been with our family for almost 18 months now.  Child Protective Services stole him out of our house when his mother had to enter the hospital for a check on medications.  They determined she’d “abandoned” this beautiful child by placing him with us…because she and Andy were not married and he was not Andy’s “biological” child.  Andy was with Jen from the sixth month of her pregnancy…he was with her in the labor and birthing room.  He was and is the only dad Luke has ever known.  But CPS calls Andy Jen’s “paramour”…undeserving of being called dad since he hadn’t taken care of things legally.  The same organization that has granted Dan and I custody of three teens in the last ten years came into our home while I was hospitalized for an illness during my cancer treatments and stole our grandson.  Luke had been living in our home for almost six months…he’s been living with strangers since he was 8 months old.  There are not words to describe the heartache.  This week the courts will determine if Andy and Jen should get their son back, or if he’s better off in the home of his foster parents who are determined to adopt him.  I’ve watched this drama play out with a sick feeling in my stomach…with a new understanding of the Biblical dilemma of how to split a child in two.  CPS has hurt our grandson in the name of protecting him.  They have carte blanche freedom to do so…a very dangerous organization designed for good intentions but now more into baby-brokering than protection of those who truly need it.  They’ve taken a child from a good home and used resources to care for him that could have been used for the countless children who have not been protected in the last eighteen months and have come to great harm…or even died…at the hands of truly neglectful parents.  Please pray this week that God would intervene in the hearts and minds of all involved before Luke is ripped from his mom and dad, baby sister, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins.  I have gotten to see him a couple of times briefly in the last couple of months and I ache to have him back in the fold of our family.

We were blessed with baby Roman (his mom will be upset when she reads that…but he really is still the “baby boy” of the family no matter how big he gets or until another comes along) and have just delighted in this little impish fellow.  I don’t know how to describe how “cute” this kid is.  His ears are large…his face is small…his eyelashes are the longest I’ve ever seen…his pout is about the most heart-breaking ever…and he tries soooooo hard to do everything his big brother Orlando and cousin Holden do.  He’s both a momma’s boy and a daddy’s boy…and I love seeing his parents interact with him.  Watching the child you birthed and raised do the same for his own child is an incredible thing.  Steve and Enith are very young parents, but they have not let that keep them from being very strong, loving parents to their two precious sons. 

And finally, how could we not have been thrilled when in the midst of all the little boy sugar our angelic Shannon came along.  Shannon has a face-splitting grin that lights up the room.  She is delighted by the antics of her big brother and all her cousins…and they love her equally in return.  She squeals, chuckles and laughs out loud when the boys take time to entertain her…but she also loves to be held and hugged by each of them.  My face hurts after I’ve spent a little time with her because she makes me smile so.  I’ve learned I can’t talk to her while feeding her because she smiles and all the food squeezes out the sides of her mouth!  I just feel so incredibly blessed when she’s in our home…and especially when she’s in my arms.

So why did I need to write again about these precious little people in my life???  Because this morning I had an epiphany moment.  I’m driving down the interstate through all the gloomy weather and smiling and feeling joyful because I love these babies soooooo much.  And I thought about my own children:  Andy, LeeAnne and Stephen.  You know…there has not been one iota of a moment since they were born that I haven’t loved them…that I wouldn’t have laid down my life for them.  They’ve disobeyed me…they’ve angered me…they’ve disappointed me.  But NEVER did I stop loving them.  And as I thought about all that love this morning, I became overwhelmed with a “what if” thought.

What if God loves me as much as I love them?  What if when I’ve failed Him He still loved me as much as I’ve loved them?  What if when I’ve disobeyed Him He still loved me?  What if when I’ve disappointed Him He still loved me as much as I’ve loved them?

And I almost couldn’t breathe because I realized the truth….HE LOVES ME MORE THAN THAT!!!  He loved me so much that He SACRIFICED His Only Begotten Son so that He and I would always be able to have a relationship.  I couldn’t, not for a moment, sacrifice any one of these people in my life for someone else who would get to choose whether they’d accept my gift or not.  But He knew from the beginning of time that He was going to love me that much!!! 

And so as we prepare to celebrate again the coming of that tiny babe…God become man and coming to earth…may you be overwhelmed with the depth and height and breadth of the love of God…your Heavenly Father…the One Who made the season so special.  Thanks for letting me rant…I can’t sing His praises enough!  Thank You, God…Thank You…Thank You…Thank You!