When loving hurts

My heart hurts. B&C are bouncing from relative to relative, no one wants to or can take responsibility for them long term. I want them here, with me, with us, where we can shower them with God's love and learn as we go what it means to parent. But, due to a lot of factors, some legal, some practical, they can't come live with us again.

And I cry. Cry for the abandonment and rejection they've suffered more than once. Cry to think they may feel that we've abandoned and rejected them too. Cry for their vulnerability and my powerlessness in the face of it. Cry because it hurts to love and let go. Cry because I don't see answers and I want love and a home and stability for them. Cry for dreams that I thought I held lightly still hurting when I let them go. Cry because while I said I was painting the guest room, in my thoughts it was the boys' room, and now it's empty with nothing but the shadow of dreams.

I ask God why. Why, when I am willing, is the answer no? Why, when I don't see any other solution can't I be part of the solution? Why do children suffer for the sins of the parents? Why does it look like He isn't acting?

But God reminds me, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9).

I don't have his perspective. Joseph sat in prison for years. Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness before going back to Egypt and leading the Israelites to freedom. Dead ends. Failure. Forsaken. At least, that's how it looked. But God orchestrated it for good. He can do that for them too. Not only can he do it, I know that God's love for these boys is greater than mine is. These boys truly are fatherless. God talks a lot about his love and protection for the fatherless in his word. "He defends the cause of the fatherless. . . " (Deuteronomy 10:8) "Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close." (Psalm 27:10).

So, I cling to that. God loves them. He will hold them close. He will defend them. He's better at that than I am anyway.

But still, it's hard.