Philemon

I don't talk about God and religion very much because I have a strange relationship with both.  My pastor is, however, happy that there's at least a relationship.  I never have liked taking orders. And I'm not one to judge others for their actions or how they live their lives.  Thus I don't always do well in organized religion.  I do believe.  I just don't always like the people who call themselves believers.  My guess is many of you can understand what I'm saying.  I'm really just saying this at the beginning so you understand where I come from on this.  Sometimes, God can put something in my path that makes me furious.  And other times, He brings me something that helps.

A few years ago, my pastor decided to start up a bible study.  It was a long one.  Took about ten months.  At the very beginning we had to read a couple of short passages.  One was to read the book of Philemon.  If you're wondering what in the world that is, don't worry, so did everyone else.  But it is a book in the New Testament; right between Titus and Hebrews.  In my bible, it's about a page.  In some shorter bibles, it's two pages, either facing each other or front and back.  There's only one chapter and has a total of 25 verses.  That's it.  Takes about five minutes to read.  It's shortness is probably why it is often over-looked.

It's one of the letters that Paul wrote while in prison.  While there he wrote a letter to his friend, Philemon.  It starts out like most letters do, "Hope all is well... Timothy and the others send their love... yadda yadda yadda..."  But then he starts to speak of a man who he is currently travelling with.  The man's name is Onesimus.  Onesimus was a slave owned by Philemon who ran away.  Somewhere along the line, Paul and Onesimus met up and Onesimus became a Christian and began following Paul and helping him.  Paul, in the letter, shows great affection and love for Onesimus, but knows that he needs to return to Philemon and answer for running away.  So Paul is writing a letter to Philemon explaining what had happened and for Philemon to welcome Onesimus back into his home.  The verse that struck me the most in this chapter is the twelfth verse:

"I am sending him -who is my very heart- back to you."

To this day I'm not quite certain how to explain how I feel when I read that verse.  But every time I read it, all I think of is my son.  He is my very heart.  And I had to send him back.  Not to slavery, nor to the family that I took him from; obviously I did neither.  I just had to send him back to the forces that gave him to me in the first place.  And from there it had to be decided to what to do.

Being a birthmother has a lot to do with faith.  Faith that the birth will go well.  Faith that the people we give our children to will take care of them.  Faith that they will keep in touch with us and honor us.  Faith that everyone around us will at least let us do what needs to be done even if they don't agree with it.  And faith that one day our children will understand why we did this.

When I placed my child for adoption, a lot of the future I was taking on faith.  It was scary. Definitely the hardest and most frightening time of my life.  But I knew this was the only thing to do.  There was no other choice.  So far, things have been good.  I hope they stay that way.

I hope all of you are having a good weekend.  I hope you find your peace wherever you may find it.