It happened to be my birthday and I recall vividly someone asking me why I was still single and this question sparked a few memories. In my opinion I do believe everyone has their time and seasons in life but the particular memory that came to my mind was the feedback I had received from a past relationship just before it ended. This feedback was one I found to be a quite off and lacking a depth of insight.

You see, sometimes one could set out and to be married to a partner who unknown to them could end up being sickly for the rest of their lives. Its not cast in stone that someone who is sickly at the onset of a relationship may never get to be better overtime neither is it cast in stone that a perfectly healthy individual today would not turn out to be sickly tomorrow. The said statement took me aback. Here was a healthy AA individual who could care less to be with a warrior for no other reason.

That being told, what exactly does one term as sickly? I’ve seen and heard cases of people who get hitched and their health immediately starts to deteriorate and I’ve also heard of cases of individuals who get hitched with someone who is frail, only for their health to bounce back. I think for a fact that sometimes one should be careful in terming another individual as strong or as frail because in the end, the only one with the ability to see beyond a man’s life is God. By this I’m not implying that two AS and AS individuals should get married rather if they insist on doing so there is the option of adoption.

I’ve always wondered why our society views adoption quite differently from the advanced societies or is it ingrained in the African culture to be more material conscious or superstitious? I’ve heard feedback from various quarters why they do not consider the option of adoption and to an extent it seems a bit derogatory. Some say that what’s the guarantee that the adopted child in question is not the heir of a robber or a nut case and would not turn out to be so in future OR for reasons of inheritance they prefer a child from their loins.

Such individuals need to understand that a child grows into whom you nurture them to be. After all is it only children of robbers that turn out wrong? what of children of law abiding citizens? so many of whom function dysfunctionally. A child always becomes what you groom them to be; groom a child to be strong and independent and that’s what you’ll get in return, spoil a child and the repercussions will be obvious at the end.

Although its not wrong to want to see your own offspring, but sadly, whilst many children get to grow up in orphanages, many individuals consider various options that sometimes prove futile OR choose to live with heartaches and solitude for the rest of their lives for the mere fact that an adoptive heir is not from their loins. Who then gets to shine a ray of hope into the lives of numerous orphaned children? By the way, who says that after they decide to adopt, God is not more than able to bless them with their own seed in the end?

Sometimes our trials and circumstances are but a test to get us to respond either negatively or positively and the blessings and eventual outcome from our positive response is countless….