Let Go and Let God

by: Charis

On April 15, my birthday, Duffy flew out of town and "sanity" went with him. The kids got sick (Lovie had a fever of 103 and Bumblebee was throwing up) and I had to leave 35 people at a training session to pick them up from childcare. I had wrecked my car the day before, so with two sick kids I had to take the car into the shop, get a rental car, go to kinkos to print off our tax return, and go to fedex to ship it off. They couldn't go to school the next day so I had to cancel my spa appointment and hunker down for 4 days without childcare or Duffy. To make it worse, I started feeling sick and throwing up again, had cramps...and it rained all weekend - trapping us inside.

We survived...barely. It was so hard - and so much work. Mad props to all the single mothers out there! By the time Tuesday rolled around, I felt like a zombie. God's timing is always perfect and His lessons timely. Just about the time I was convinced that motherhood was NOT for me...I got an email from our caseworker saying that they were considering taking the girls away from us and giving them to a distant family relative that had just surfaced.

Instantly, the remainder of strength I had dissipated and melted into a puddle of tears. I put my head down on my desk and started shaking as the tears flowed. I didn't even know why I was crying. Was I relieved that the tour of duty had a finish line - or was I devastated at the thought of them leaving? Then the thought came to me, "These girls may have been sick for the past three weeks giving me what I can only call the most violent stomach virus ever known to man, I may never get to go to the spa again, my house will perpetually look like a Toys-R-Us warehouse, and the toddler may be the most combative, boundary challenging child I've ever seen - but she's my difficult child!" The momma bear in me had surfaced and was on the war path for her cubs.

As I prayed about it on the way home, God reminded me that He loves these little girls more than I ever can. He made them, He loves them, and He has a plan for them...."for good and not for evil, to give (them) a hope and a future." I can't control what happens to them, I just have to let go and trust them to their Heavenly Father.