Hickory dickory dock, there’s no stopping this clock, I thought.
I spent years wishing and wanting and crying for a child.. When I moved into my forties the clock wound down for me. A man I was dating at the time and talking marriage with posed a question of having children if we married. He thought it would be a good idea for me to have the experience. I felt “no” not now…not at 44. Maybe adoption? My desire had waned (probably because I no longer have the energy to chase down a toddler 24/7). Maybe because I had the privilege of a close relationship with my nephews through their growing years and stages of development.
Teaching Sunday school and public substitute school teaching (a few years of my life), pediatrics at the hospital where I served as a nurse plus the kids in the neighborhood. What’s better than the sound of laughing children from a school playground over my backyard fence?
Not only single men and women suffer from the beating of the biological clock, married people do too! As we know so many are opting for in-vitro fertilization and adoption to have children.
Recently my brother happily announced a couple he knows who have been married for twenty years and prayed for a child were expecting: He is 53 and she is 45. It is a miracle and they are as surprised as everyone else. It smacks of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the Bible who had John the Baptist, long after they had stopped praying! And my wonderful single friend and former roommate who fostered her little girl at 3 and then adopted her at 6-- that little girl is now seventeen and beautiful inside out! Another miracle.
My times are in your hands Psalm 31:15
