This morning as I was coming home after school drop off a song came on the radio that a friend had posted the lyrics to this week. This song had meant something significant to her as she is walking through having a child with a chronic illness. My thoughts of her were followed quickly by a prayer for her and the immediate struggles they are in right now. I can't imagine what it's like to have a child with very specific medical needs. It is not something I've ever had to deal with on a constant basis, but because I love her I am moved by her struggles in this season.
If you are around me for more than 5 minutes you have heard me talk about my tribe- my women in #the4500 that came together because of a book launch rejection letter. I'm often amazed and caught unaware at some of the differences in my life because of them. This morning's prayers and thoughts are another example. For most of my life everyone that I was in contact believed like me, acted like me and lived their life like me. The last couple of years I've really felt pulled, <pushed, forced> to see the world outside of my own worldview, my very shallow and narrow worldview. What I wasn't prepared for was just the intense depth of life changing awareness this would bring.
I have such a new view of adoption. I've never been around people that adopted or were passionate about adoption. I'm in awe and totally a weepy mess because I've learned the other side of adoption. The side where there are birth moms with wounded, broken hearts and adoptive moms who are desperately trying to balance and manage the feelings of the child in their care and the deep sense of loss that comes from adoption. I've learned that it's not sunshine and happy days because they have this great family now and someone to love them. It's forced me to see the brokenness in the world in such a different way.
Like I opened with, I have several people in this group who have children with desperate medical needs. To watch and read their daily struggles just to keep their child alive is so heartbreaking and so overwhelming that I can't even imagine their life. I can't imagine the pain they live with yet they walk with joy and so much compassion and so much appreciation for what they do have.
I have friends who have given up everything. I mean EVERYTHING for what they know God has called their family to do and walk very alone in that place without the support of family. They live not knowing there they will live next month, not knowing what the future holds, not knowing anything except the fire that God has put in their heart to do something that is too hard and seems impossible, yet they are doing it.
I have friends with unsaved husbands who beat the heavens for their salvation and for their children. I see women fighting to find themselves, seeking their purpose and calling- desperate to find God in the midst of this thing we call life and motherhood and wifehood and sisterhood. And this morning, I am grateful. I am grateful that my heart breaks for things that I have never imagined. I'm grateful that these things push me to pray in ways that I've never prayed before because I love these women in ways I've never loved before. So this morning I'm just praying. I'm praying for all those hard things that suddenly I can't not know. For the people whose lives look nothing like mine as I sit in my warm house with healthy children and so many other blessings that I take for granted. I'm praying and asking God to keep expanding what I haven't seen because for every hard thing, I see Him in a new way. For every circumstance that's overwhelming I'm amazed at the grace He gives to the person walking that path. For everything that there is no answer to, He is still the answer.
My challenge in all of these ramblings is this- move. Move beyond what is comfortable and known in your life. Connect with people who look different and act different and push you to see the world in a different way. Because when you see the world differently you begin to see God differently. You see His awesomeness and his breadth and how truly big he is in the midst of a life that is just messy and difficult. But He is faithful and we can trust him.
