I would like to share a little tip that we used for our daughter, after the first time she asked questions about her past. These questions usually pop up at 10pm at night, and it started when she was about 4 years old. I am not really a night person, so when she hits me with the deep and profound questions late at night and I have an acceptable answer, I know it was Divine and not me.
In every story of abandonment there comes the awareness and question of: but where was God? Is thís the wonderful plan He had for my life? Where was He when I was abandoned?
In one of the Divine discussions, I realised that I must explain human free will to my 4 year old, who were trusting me to not do what she feared. We build out her baby story as she grew up and included the answers to her questions so that it will be ingrained in her as she grow up. Her very first question was: Did God take me away? After a few questions we understood that her trail of thought was, if God took her away from the baby unit, she did not want Him to take her away form us too. So, we added the answer it into her baby story. Next question came about a year later, when she asked why she wasn’t taken home (our home from her understanding) after birth. Why was she taken to a baby unit and not home (our home)? God, in His mercy, helped me to explain big things in a simple way to my toddler, and we built it into her baby story, so that she will learn to discern when does free will apply, and when does God step into the picture.
Here is a written version of how we built and tell her baby story. Her words are in bold, mine is plain:
God did not take me away.
I am a baby that was born in the tummy of another lady, who looks just like me.
Did Jesus give birth to you? No.
That lady did not take me home with her.
Did Jesus decide not to take you home with her? No.
That lady gave me to a nurse in the hospital.
Did Jesus give you to a nurse in the hospital? No.
The nurse took me to the baby unit.
Did Jesus take you to the baby unit? No.
And what happened when you came to the baby unit?
Jesus decided that I am not going to grow up in the baby unit. Jesus spoke to social worker Hannelie and social worker Frieda that I am going to grow up with Nicholas and Yzelle Swart. So social worker Frieda called Daddy to say I am ready to pick up, and Mommy and Daddy and Simon hurried down to the baby unit to pick up our Alley baby, who is now going to live with us forever.
Obviously, the process was much more complex than that, but this explanation put her heart at ease, and she started to understand where human free will and God fits in her picture.
It is important to realise; we cannot take human free will out of calculation in your story. We all have a life story that has been impacted by our own and others’ free will. The hardest is when I must accept other people’s free will without being able to change or influence it. Harder still, when others can make their free will decisions, but I did not have the same opportunity or grace. And usually somewhere along there is where God’s divine intervention will happen.
I don’t believe that we are even completely alone. Somewhere someplace there was someone or even a pet that was part of God’s intervention plan for your life. I would recommend that you start to think back as far as you are willing to think, of where God had intervened on your behalf. And those are the things to cling to on the days when you are really feeling low and alone. Remember and even list the people God sent to you during your life. Some was for a short period, some longer. But it is to remind you that You have never been alone. He saw when others’ free will was overriding your free will, and did intervene on your behalf.