Why?

Why is it that God allows people to have children who don't want them, don't deserve them, and won't care for them?

And why is it that God allows wonderful, loving, competent people, who desperately want a child, not to have them?

It seems to me that it would have been much easier to "plague" infertility and adoption troubles upon those who fall in the first category, rather than the second.

Children need good people.
They depend on good people for their survival.
And this world makes it way too hard for good people to get to children who need them.
It isn't fair.

No one ever said life was fair.
And I don't for one second want to theologize about the nature of God, free will, sin, theodocy, or any of those other things that my questions drudge up.
I just want this world to be a place where children are loved and seen as human beings, not objects or possessions.

If you read Katie's blog, you know they got bad news this week about Eliot's adoption. They have another 4 to 8 weeks before they will know whether or not Katie can return home with Eliot. He turns one year old in just a few weeks. Katie is living in Guatemala with her son, but without her husband. She has literally given up everything to be Eliot's mom, and that just isn't good enough for the Guatemalan government. I don't understand how that is possible.

But their story is (to use Katie's analogy) just the tip of the iceberg. The nature of my job allows me to see children a minimum of three times a week. And I see the ones who are desperately loved, treated excellently, and prized. But I also see the ones in foster care who are not allowed to be adopted; I see the ones whose parents refuse to let them be children; I see the "little diva" who is never told no because she's really more of a toy for her parents than a developing person.

Children are the greatest hope this world has. And if we cannot treat them as such an investment, what future are we creating for ourselves?

We must do better.

Pray for our children.
Pray for those who care for them - the ones who love them purely and the ones with questionable motives.
Pray for Katie, Russ, and Eliot - and for the many, many people around the world trying desperately to do nothing more than to love a child.