I Wonder How it Would Feel

If we had a dad like that.

This is the conversation that I heard in the car driving home yesterday. My son and daughter were talking. They were talking about Rich. They were saying that it would be so cool to have someone like him as a father. Mary said "Can you even IMAGINE what it would be like to have a dad like that? A dad who is fun, who is nice, who is patient? Why did we get a mean dad? How does God decide which kids get the nice dads and which ones get the mean ones?"

I felt so sorry for them when I heard that. Thank God they didn't ask me the question. I truly don't have the answer. I've been asking myself that very question "How does God decide which girls get the nice husbands and which ones get the creeps?"

I didn't say a word. I just listened. I had no way to console them, no way to make them feel better, no idea what would help.

A mother who can't make it better. How nice. Aren't mothers supposed to be able to make everything better? At least when the children are little, and their issues/problems are on a smaller scale to what they are when they become teenagers?

I was tucking my daughter in at night and and she asked how we know that God made good decisions. Oh crap. Another question that I am not able to answer. I suck at this. Parenting is really hard work. I asked her what she meant. She asked "How do you know that God sees and knows everything? What if he misses something? Maybe that explains why some people suffer more than others. Maybe God doesn't know everything, so that's why everything is not always fair".

Double crap.

I explained to her that part of faith is "blind trust". That we trust in God, even though we don't see him or talk to him, but that the justice piece all works out in the end. You may see an injustice today, but it may get double better next year, to make up for what happened this year.

"What if you don't really believe that there is a God anymore?"
"Mary- are you saying that you don't believe in God?"
"I think that's what I mean. If God is there, he isn't very fair. So if he's there, he's mean. Either that, or maybe he isn't there".

Triple Crap. I seriously cannot do this.

I can't even blame her. I've been through this one myself, and I'm still not 100% there. At the end of the day, I can be a great caregiver, a great emotional support, a great homework-doer, but this stuff, wow. I really am not equipped for this.

So let me get this straight. My ex's behavior with the children is making them lose faith in God. How nice.

Damn him for screwing up the kids. Damn him to hell.