Empathy

I had a really great post planned...until yesterday. Now I have been sidetracked, and I will just go with it.

Mothers.

Wow, we are incredible women aren't we? There is something to be said about carrying a child inside you, bringing said child into the world and looking into the eyes of the infant child who for 9-10 months (or longer if you are Christian!) was inside you. At that every moment every emotion rolls over you at once. Love, fear, relief, humility, protection, gratitude, love, lovelovelove. Oh yes, overwhelming love.

That isn't to say that women who didn't physically carry their children don't have the same fears, love, gratitude that mothers who do give birth do. There isn't a way to measure one mother's love to the next.


I'm just sayin' that at the moment that I looked into my children's newborn eyes I was hooked. LOVE. I will love this child, and I will protect this child.


I will never forget when Columbine was attacked. Benjamin was just over a year old, and it just devestated me...from a mother's perspective. I had put myself into the shoes of all the mothers. Not just of the victims, but of the attackers. How? How could that happen? I would look at my young Benjamin running around, innocent and sincere and just cry. I couldn't imagine him being taken like that. It really hit home for me. I can't really explain why it affected me the way it did.


My heart aches for mothers. And right now, my new friend's heart is broken. After reading her story for over a year, exchanging emails for some time, and finally meeting and talking with her a few times, playing with her children, and visiting with her husband, I wish I could take away her pain. I wish I could heal Stellan. I wish I could make this all better. I wish I could make a wish--one that would take Stellan's heart and heal it in a way that will never need another drug, stint, needle, or doctor.

But I can't.

And what's worse, I can't help but feel a bit grateful that it isn't my Christian. Or my Benjamin. How awful is that right?
They are in their rooms right now playing with their new watches---they should be reading, but I can hear the beeps as they set timers, and dates--- and I can't help but feel relief that it isn't me sitting in a room listening to the beeps of monitors that are connected to their bodies in order to alert someone at the first sign of danger.

Oh wait, Stellan is WAY past the point of danger. Rock, meet hard place. That is where this family and team of doctors are right now.

And I can't do a thing.

Except pray. Will you please join me? Each time you pray for your dinner, or your night time prayer, or middle of your work commute, or WHENever you pray, will you say an extra one for Stellan's family?

I have.

Because it is all I can do.