My Heart is Breaking

The kids absolutely loved the torrential downpour we experienced today. They ran outside and stood in it until they were soaked and dripping, then came in and peeled out of their clothes, tossing the wet clothes into the bathroom I had just cleaned. It just proves my theory: when you clean one mess, natural law states that seven other messes are being created. Nature abhors a vacuum. That's why the kids keep tracking in the pine needles, just to foil that vacuum. Ha ha. Bad pun day.

I had several extra kids over at the house all day. Their mother, a woman in my ward I'll call "J," ended up in the hospital when she started leaking amniotic fluid. She's not full-term yet, but the baby is already 6 pounds, so there's every chance the baby will be just fine. Baby Girl is getting medicine to hurry along the development of her lungs and will be removed via C-section next week. The house is a mess (the parts I didn't clean, and even parts that I did), but at least I could help out.

I was talking to my neighbor, D, last night and I remembered why I thank Heavenly Father that my life is predictable and routine. D has had a bad month. She is filing separation papers against her emotionally and verbally abusive husband who left and hasn't bothered to pay child support (and she has a number of kids). Her mother had cancer sugery, which went well, fortunately. Her daughter's best friend was hit by a car and died, which has been very hard for the whole family. And, finally, someone called DCFS on her. She homeschools her kids and she has given birth to several of them at home, two red flags that DCFS thinks contribute to bad parenting. If the government can't control what's being put into your kids' minds or bodies, they suspect you of being abusive and/or neglectful (exhibit #1: Parker Jensen). I know D quite well and I know for a fact that she is neither neglectful nor abusive. She is a good, Christian woman who believes in family and God. Her house is neat and tidy, she feeds her kids well. Her kids come over to play and they are educated, polite and outgoing. As a single mom, the last thing she needs is some overzealous busybody with nothing else to do siccing the government on her, a government that tends to take the kids first and ask questions later.

I was up a long time last night sick with fear. D told me of one of her fellow homeschooler friends who had lost her kids to DCFS because the parents failed to correctly file the papers one year out of three for homeschooling. Then DCFS found out that the parents had stopped giving one of their children Ritalin. They took the kids on the grounds of educational and medical neglect. The parents ended up having their parental rights terminated. It made me so upset I cried in anguish for that family. I can't imagine losing my kids like that.

I am not a Republican or Democrat. I guess I lean more toward Libertarian, but I wouldn't call myself a card-carrying member of any political organization. I'm a somewhat cynical Gen-Xer, I suppose. The more I read about what's going on the more I feel sick to my stomach. Our country is heading down a dangerous slope, in my opinion. Look what happened to Argentina in the 70's, 80's and 90's: the politicians and the big companies who could get away with it financially raped the country, leaving many of the people in abject poverty, without access to even the most basic human needs. Sure, everyone accepts corruption as par for the course in Latin American countries, right? In the U.S. they couldn't get away with it, at least not as brazenly and boldly as they did in Argentina. I don't kid myself that the same thing isn't happening here, only just a little more quietly. It's all there.

I don't feel humorous today. I'm worried for my friend, D. She's stressed nearly to the breaking point. I told her if she needed a glowing character reference to send the DCFS agents over to me. The only other thing I can do for her is offer to keep her kids at my house so she can concentrate on the numerous legal papers she's trying to negotiate through. And I can pray. I slept very little last night because I was praying. Pray for D and her family. Pray for all of us, that we can be guided in our choices of political leaders, that those leaders will be concerned with doing what is right before God, and not the god of money.