Reality Check

I am sitting here eating lunch looking at pictures of my handsome little man, and I am reminded of how blessed I am as a woman, as a mother, as a human being. I was given a much needed reality check recently from a very dear friend--a divine appointment that I believe God set up to help me through this time and remind this pessimist how powerful He is!



My dear friend Alicia recently took a trip to do some missions work in Uganda. She saw things I imagine most of us will never see. Among these images were stories of children, small children, made to be soilders. Children with no childhood, children trained to kill, children forced to kill those they love, children abused in every way imaginable. She came back changed, and she looked at me in the midst of my pity party and said something that has been a true reality check: "you don't know how blessed Sammy is." I've spent the last weeks in sellf-pity mode...feeling temendous guilt over my return to work, knowing full well that I am not the first "working mom" on the planet. I'm no longer able to spend 24/7 with my son, but despite that, he has been given more in his 9 months of life than a large number of children around the world will ever see. He has two parents who are partners in life and in raising him--he was created in love and hears "I love you" at least 50 times a day. He has an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who think the world of him. He has a church family who will be part of guiding his future--a group of people who shower him with constant love and prayer. More than all of this, he will grow up knowing the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I don't know why my son has been given all he has while children a world away are forced to live in fear and poverty. I do know that I will spend the next months and years trying to teach him how to love and give and pray. So as I look into my son's eyes, may I see in him all the children who have lost their childhood, the children who are forced to kill, and the children who have never heard their mothers whisper "I love you." Perhaps one day Sammy will travel the world to share Jesus with these children. I am indeed blessed, and so is my child.