There will come a day when my children will find this blog, I have no doubts.
They’ll look through the posts, and hopefully laugh, and hopefully see how much they mean to their mom and me. If they haven’t seen that by now, they need to know it.
And maybe they’ll find this post.
The post where they’ll see this was the day they had a brother born. A brother that I have no idea if they’ll ever get to meet. A brother that they’ll know about the second I think they’re ready.
There’s a chance we’ll get a phone call telling us to come down and pick the child up. However, that chance grows smaller by the minute. I could pick up the phone and make a call to a Case Manager at DHS, just to notify them of the situation.
After all, in the state of Oklahoma, once you forfeit your parental rights, you forfeit them for any future children as well.
Does that mean Alicia and I should follow this woman around for the rest of her life and try to snatch up any children she’ll have? Somehow, intrinsically, we know that’s wrong. She should have another chance. Our kids got a second chance. I’ve been given a second chance. You’ve been given a second chance.
But it’s a baby.
“I know that I took her kids and made them my kids because of who she is. Then I have to watch her discard my kids and want this other baby. A baby I can’t have one of own of and I am expected to act like it’s okay. It’s not okay, but I feel bad because I should want her to have normal life a second chance. But all I can think of is where is my chance to bring home a baby and not be robbed of first smiles, laughs, words, steps.”
There’s a glimpse into the Sloat family’s mindset right now. Those words may have come from Alicia, but they might as well have come from me, because I feel exactly the same way.
This is that whole “rubber meets the road” thing they always tell you about. You know, when you’ve done a lot of “Hey, God is in control. Just pray for His will to be done,” and now it’s time for you to actually live those words.
So that’s what we’ll do. We’ll pray that God works His will in this situation, and we’ll pray that the child grows up happy and healthy, with whomever God chooses. And Alicia and I would like to ask y’all to pray for that as well.
After all…he is His.
Right?