A Waste of Time

Recently a professional colleague and his wife were involved in an adoption of a newborn baby. They were there for the delivery and held the baby.  Finalization was all set once the newborn overcame some breathing issues in the hospital but the mother backed out of the arrangement at the last minute. This indeed had to be difficult to endure.  Both he and his wife traveled two states over, took a huge chuck of vacation time and spent a significant amount of money.

I expressed my sympathy for this difficult situation.  He said to me that it was an incredible waste of time and money.  His frankness startled me a bit, but I certainly could understand his sentiment.  After months of anticipation, large sums of money and too much time and to still be empty handed is a much like a kick in the stomach that doesn’t go away for a long time.

We’ve all been there, dealing with expectations, hopes and plans that don’t materialize for some reason or another.  When it comes to pouring our lives into someone to love, the hurt and disappointment is magnified.  Despite the hurt, is investing in a personal situation such as this a waste of time?

Many people may perceive that, yet no experience has to be a waste of time. There are many things we would like to forget, but learning from experiences can be a way of making those miserable or hurtful experiences seem less wasteful. Even if all we learn is to not do that again.

Yet on the other side of this is a young mother who decided to keep her child and however cruel that may seem to this empty handed couple, the hope and focus they provided to this woman may have been the difference in her life to make her the mom that she never thought was possible.

This couple may never know the outcome but their investment probably was not a waste of time in the lives of this young mother and her child.

As a child, I would often come home from school, change clothes and head to my favorite spot in the world. The top of the Box Elder Tree in the back yard.  From that vantage point, I would watch the world.  I enjoyed that high point perspective - well at least high for a 6 year old and probably too high for most parents.  It gave me a different view than anything else ground level.

With that same curiosity and desire, I still seek to see the world from a different vantage point.  It may not be from a tree in the backyard, but from my set of experiences.  It is with this same passion that I set forth this blog.  To share my perspective on a variety of things - life, social concerns, faith and more as the days unfold.