Sometimes its hard to share

Sometimes it's hard to realise that I will always share Rupi. I love him so much and to be honest, at times I want us to be the only family he has. [Being real here...!]

Last night we watched a program called "Missing Pieces" where people are put in touch with relatives that they have lost contact with.

The first story was of a man looking for his birth mum. They traced her to Belfast and when the TV crew made contact with her she was overwhelmed. She has given birth (in shame) at 17 years old and her baby was taken from her when he was 3 months old. She didn't even have a chance to say good-bye and has always carried a picture of her baby in her wallet. The reunion with her birth son was lovely and she planned to come out to NZ for his wedding. Her happiness was like a beacon of light.

I sat on the couch in the ad break and something in me cried out to God 'I don't think I can carry on sharing Rupi. Help me God!" A very human side of me came out there and then and I wished we were all he had. For a magic switch to be flicked and I could have carried and birthed him. I knew God was listening and also didn't judge me for my weakness.

I mopped up and watched the second segment of the program. This was about a woman looking for her father. He has abandoned her and her mother when she was just two weeks old. They traced the man to England and again approached him about his child. This time the outcome was so different. The man was awful. he called his daughter a "complication" and would have nothing to do with her. He wouldn't even look at a photo of her or watch the DVD she had made for him. The rejection was brutal.

Back in NZ the TV crew told this young woman that the news was not good and asked her if she wanted to see her fathers response to news of her. She hesitated but could not say no. The rejection and pain on her face as she watched her fathers response was almost unbearable to watch. It was like someone had physically assaulted her. She hid her face in her hands and sobbed.

And I knew.

This is why I will share. This is why I will die to myself again and again and again over the years to come. I would do anything to spare my son that pain. Anything.

I do not want Rupi to wonder who gave birth to him and who fathered him. I want him to know. I want him to know that he was adopted out of love and not rejection. I want him to have relationship with the birth families so he can trace his biological heritage and secure his identity. I don't want adoption to be a shock to him, I want it to be normal.

So I will die to myself and the feelings that I sometimes have. With God's grace I will open my heart and free to Rupi to love others. I will never stand in his way. Because I love him so much and his happiness is so much more important than my feelings.

And besides, God has created us to give and to share. I am reading a book by Eugene Peterson on Jeremiah called "Run with the horses"

This morning I read the following passage:

"Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we are born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is. God gives Himself. He also gives away everything that is. We are given away to our families, to our neighbours, to our friends, to our enemies- to the nations. Our life is for others. That's the way creation works."

Amen.