Pondering the selfish reasons I have for not adopting particular 'hard to place' children (a post I wrote last summer)

I was working outside on the garden today and I started thinking again about the reasons we have for not adopting particular 'hard to place' children. I imagined what one of those unadopted children might say to us if we ran into them later in life.

What would they do? Would they smile weakly and offer the words that we offer others as our justification for living safe and not bringing 'them' into our families. Or would their hearts cry out to us even as adults? Here is my thinking on how one conversation might go......

"I understand that you couldn't make room -
that there wasn't a place,
I was not of your womb.

That my age was all wrong,
and my history belonged,
to a place and a people you know
have all gone.

I see in your eyes that my life
was a chore,
that my needs were too big,
my emotions to raw.

That you were afraid
I might never leave home,
or I might find anger
and by failure be known.

That my heart was too broken

my mind was too slow,

That the drugs in my system

defined me, you know.

And maybe, just maybe,

I wouldn't love you -

for my mind was too battered

too deep were the wounds.

But I wish you had tried,

I wish you had found room,

For this one tiny boy who

so achingly stood

and looked in the windows and watched

as you prayed,

and asked the Lord Jesus

to move you each day.

To bring out the family

that He had prepared

but none came forward

as I stood lonely there.

I understand - that man would say

my childhood has slipped away.

I have a father, this is true,

I know the same strong God as you.

But I wish that I had, had a mom,

a brother, a sister, a dog, some lawn.

That you had tried to reach me there

not left me to my own despair.

To people who were paid to feed,

and paid to wash and paid to read.

To those who didn't stay too long

and those who chose to teach me wrong.

I wish,

I wish that you had found a way

to wedge me in and let me stay."