I remember my mom telling me a story about when I was a little girl/toddler and I disappeared with a neighborhood girl (at a house where my parents were house sitting). She was older than I was and she told me that it would be ok to run down the street to look at some new puppies that were just born (without mentioning that to anyone). After noticing I didn't come right back home from asking my neighbor to come over and play, my mom searched and searched for me, and eventually ended up calling the police... eventually they found the two of us kids walking down the street. But during the time when I was missing, my mom was clearly scared and upset. She felt that God was in a way testing her, saying, "Whose child is this anyway?" My mom said her reaction was that I was His child, but she sure wanted to keep me around for awhile.
I feel like I had a similar experience of God asking me whose child is Kayla anyway? We were at a park close to our house, at a school which is on a busy road. There is a fence that separates the park from the street, but there are several gate doors that will give you access to the park from the street. Kayla had made friends with a girl a bit older than her and I was talking with her mom. They were running around, and Kayla was getting a little farther away from me than I felt comfortable. I yelled her name and asked her to come back, but she kind of ignored me and continued to play chase with the other girl. The other girl stopped when I asked Kayla to stop, but then Kayla thought I was chasing her. I soon realized that Kayla would get to the next gate before I could get to her, and that gate was open. I continued to yell her name and yell for her to stop, but she did not. She then went through the gate and onto the sidewalk and was just several feet from the road where the lunch-hour rush had many cars going 30-40 mph. I screamed her name with more emotion than I can explain and she stopped cold. I have never heard that tone come out of my mouth before, but the only way that I can describe it was I felt like I was pleading for her life. I was so aware of the fact that she was SO close to running out on that road and either being killed or having some major injuries. And I felt God asking me, whose child is she? I have always taught Kayla that we don't run in parking lots, she has to hold my hand. We don't ever let her go past the sidewalk on our road, just to instill the idea that it's not safe to go near the road. But it never occurred to me to tell her not to ever run out the gate at the park. And there are like 1 million other extremely dangerous things that COULD happen, and there is just no way that a child could take in all of that information, even if I explained to her those million things (which I couldn't). There will always be situations where I have no control, and just have to hope and pray that nothing bad happens. And my answer too is that ultimately, she is God's child, but I would sure like to keep her around for awhile.
The next day we found out I was pregnant. I felt like Kayla's life was so close to being taken, and the next day I find out that we had created another life.
The next day at church we sang a song that has these lyrics:
"You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord blessed be Your name."
I was balling. I hope that I would choose to say Lord blessed be Your name if some major tragedy happened. But I can't even imagine how horrid that situation would be. I don't want to imagine it. As we sang that song I wondered how I would be feeling singing that song if Kayla had died and then I'd found out the following day that there was a new life created. Even as I write this, over 3 months later, I'm still balling. Sometimes I replay that scene in my mind and I don't know how I would have done anything differently. I don't think I could have. I am SO thankful that Kayla eventually listened. I am so thankful that God spared her life. I am so thankful for this new life. I am so thankful that I have a God that will be with me no matter what. And I pray that I don't have to face that "no matter what".
