Suffer the Little Children...

     I know I have not written in a VERY long time, and honestly this post is not about my depression at all.  That is generally under control and I have been thinking about reformatting this blog for awhile.  It is still a challenge to manage along with my family and I have plenty to write about along those lines, so once school starts I think that I might change things up with the blog and get writing again.  In the mean time I do have something to write about today, somebody actually, someone that has been popping up in my mind a lot lately, so there must be a reason why...

    When I was 22 years old, the year after I graduated from college, I spent one year in NYC volunteering as a full time staff member at a homeless shelter for young mothers (under age 21) and their children.  This was the most life changing experience of my life.  Now this was 20 years ago, but there are still some moments that I remember like they were last week.   There are also certain residents of that shelter that I have carried in my heart with me for the past 20 years.  I think of them often and wonder what became of them.  It baffles my mind to think that those babies and toddlers are the age of my oldest nieces and nephews now.  Even though they are forever babies in my mind, they are all young adults now, the age that their Mamas were, the age that I was, when I knew them.

    One particular boy has been on my mind quite often lately.  He showed up in a dream a month or so ago and then I couldn't go back to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about him.  Ever since then he keeps coming back into my mind.  I just feel like he is going through something big right now and God wants me to pray for him so I just keep praying and worrying and wondering and praying.  So this boy....we will call him Donny, would be 24 years old now.  He came through the shelter twice in the year I was there and was there about four or five months in total.  He was four years old and had a two year old sister.  His mother took decent care of the children.  They were always clean and fed, but she seemed to keep them at arms length.  It was clear after awhile that they had all been in some very abusive situations and although she knew how to take care of their basic needs, I am not sure that she really knew how to love them.  She was often very hurried and short with them.  She seemed more tender with the younger sister than she was with Donny.  He always just trailed along behind them, very quiet.

      I have two very distinct memories of Donny.  The first happened one evening as dinner was wrapping up in the cafeteria.  A fight broke out between two of the mothers.  Some of the staff and other mothers were trying to get the fighters to stop, while another staff went for security.  Other moms were making sure the children were out of the way.  Donny's Mother was front and center in the middle of the drama trying to talk down the two girls that were fighting.  I guess in some way that was a good thing.  But this fight was bad.  As a mother wouldn't your first instinct be to make sure your kids were out of harms way.  That is what my first instinct was.  There were already staff involved trying to break up the fight and someone had already gone for security.  I was scanning the room making sure that all the little ones were out of harms way.   Most of of the mothers had taken care of this, in fact all of them had, except Donny's mother and the two that were fighting.  They had their kids out of the way.  They had the babies of the two fighters out of the way, and one of them had Donny's sister.  But where was Donny?  I saw him behind the serving line.  He was huddled up against a cabinet, rocking and crying.  The fight was headed straight towards the serving line.  Now the serving line was not bolted to the floor in our cafeteria, it was on wheels.  If the fighting girls slammed into it, Donny would be crushed up against the wall.  Thank God I saw him soon enough.  It was like a scene out a movie where someone gets pulled out the wrecked car just before it explodes.  I ran over there and snatched him up and yanked him out of the way right before those girls smashed into the serving line.  Donny was terrified and he did not want to be picked up.  He was screaming and kicking and crying.  My adrenaline was going pretty good at that point.  I realized that he was hiding back there because he had obviously witnessed enough violence that he was terrified enough to hide.  In retrospect now, with more experience under my belt, the poor thing probably had PTSD and nobody realized it.  He probably needed more help than he ever got.  One of the other mothers took him from me as we worked on resolving the rest of the crisis.  Later I told his mother what had happened and she just kind of shrugged her shoulders and told me that he gets like that.  She didn't seem to realize the danger that her son had been in.  

     The second memory I have of Donny is even more heart wrenching.  One afternoon his mother was in the staff office using the phone to try to make some housing arrangements.  Donny was napping in their room just down the hall.  While she was on the phone he woke up screaming with a nightmare.  I went to get him for her.  I picked him up and brought him into the office and sat down with him on my lap.  He was still crying so I just hugged him and patted him on the back.  His body was all tense.  I remember thinking that I was holding a child that has never felt love before.  That thought hit me so strongly.  I could feel it in his body, the way his body was tensed up.  So I just held him and prayed that he would feel my love.  I just wanted this little unloved, terrified, four year old boy to feel loved for once in his life.   After a while I felt his body relax and melt into mine.  He never said a word but I held him for the longest time.  I don't remember what happened next or what his mother and I talked about, I just remember holding him.   It was such and incredibly sad and powerful feeling all at once holding a child that had never been loved. 

      I wonder what happened to Donny after he left the shelter.  I wonder what the rest of his childhood was like, what kind of man he grew up to be.  I wonder why he is weighing so heavily on my mind and heart right now.  Donny, where ever you are I hope you know that you have always been loved, not just by me, but by God.  He has always been with you and he has always loved you. 

     If you are reading this, say a prayer for Donny.  That isn't his real name, but God knows who he is.  Pray that he gets through whatever trials he is going through right now.  Pray that he has love in his life, that he finds love in his life.  Pray that he knows God or that he is led to find the love of God in his life.  Just pray for Donny.  Pray for all those lost and unloved kids out there who have never felt love from another human being before. 

   

Dear Master of the Darkness

Dear Master of the Darkness,

I wanted to take some time to let you know something.  You fight a good fight, and lately you have won a few battles, but guess what?  You are not going to win the war.  You might sneak into my thoughts and prey on my insecurities and make me doubt myself, my Faith and my ability to mother.  Some days are harder than others to push you back, but I always do.  It's been 3 1/2 years and you haven't won me yet.  You aren't going to.  I am stronger than you are, I have too much to live for, too much to fight for.  Let me just remind you (and myself) of what I have that you are not going to get.

I have my God.  No matter what kind of day I have, or how far I wander, He isn't going any where, and He will always take me back.  Whatever confusion and questions and doubts I have, He and I will work them out, and you aren't getting in there.  You can try, but you won't succeed.

I have this guy:

I waited around for most of my adult life for him.  I spent a lot of lonely years before I found him.  Then I did.  Our life together hasn't been easy.  We face constant challenges and struggles.  We have bad days, bad moments, but we have more good days and spectacular moments.  I miss that sometimes in the dark moments.  You sneak in there.  Then I make mistakes.  I worry that I am failing him.  But guess what?  You can't take what we have.  He loves me.  He will fight this fight with me, and he isn't going anywhere. 

I have this girl:

She can drive me absolutely crazy.  She is stubborn and dramatic and JUST LIKE ME!.  She is AMAZING.  Look at her!  She EXUDES light.  She has the gift of happiness.  She has an amazing imagination and creative spirit.  She has a kind and loving heart.  You can't have her.  She is my rainbow baby.  She is the light of my life.  I will fight for her with everything in me.  And when she is older and I explain all of this to her, she will understand what it is to have a Warrior Spirit.  She will know how to fight, and you will never take her.

I have this boy:

He has a quiet stubborness and a wild energy.  He is also snuggly, and charming, and so sweet.  And look at THOSE DIMPLES.   My sweet boy is my heart.  You can't have him either.  He will fill this world with light and love and those adorable dimples.  He will melt hearts where ever he goes.  Darkness can't get into melted hearts.

Then I have this guy:

Whenever I feel disconnected from the world, from God, from my family, when you get in there and I just can't feel anything...this pup is there.  He looks at me with those eyes filled with love and devotion and reminds me what unconditional love is.  He soothes my spirit, and fills me back up with light and love.  You can't have him, no way can you get in there.  This waggly, lovey, has eyes only for me puppy is the biggest barrier against the darkness that I have.  He always brings me back.

So you can keep trying.  You will bring me down sometimes, you do pack a pretty powerful punch, but with these four in my corner, plus my supportive family and friends and my God.  Let's face it, you don't have a chance.  So I guess the choice is yours.  You can admit defeat and move on, or you can wear yourself out trying.  You aren't going to get me, I have too many reasons not to let you win and I will fight you to the end.

Sincerely,
Me

Witness To A Miracle

Miracles happen all the time, every single day, in thousands of different ways.  Most of the time we aren't paying attention and we miss them.  Then every now and then we will hear a story on the news about a miracle.  Like the people that survived for days, and days trapped in the rubble of the Nepal Earthquake, or how someone miraculously walks away from an accident that should have killed them.   We are always moved by these stories, but then we forget, because they didn't happen to people that we know and our lives were not touched by them. 

Google defines a miracle as this:  a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.

How often are you lucky enough to be a witness to a real miracle?  We all hear stories from time to time, but how many miracles do you know?  I know one, beautiful, living, breathing miracle.  Her name is Audrey.  She and her family (Mom Krista, Dad Matt, and Big Brother Austin) are part of my church family.

Audrey has always been challenged by some physical and developmental delays, but her amazing Mama and Daddy have made sure that she has had the support that she needed to conquer the obstacles in her path.  But, last summer, when Audrey was three years old she started to have unexplainable seizures.  This was very scary for her parents and her big brother and for Audrey.  The seizures came out of no where and quickly got worse.  Audrey was admitted to Albany Medical Center and the testing and questioning started.

The initial fear was that Audrey had a brain tumor.  I went and visited her when she was in the hospital. I will never forget the talk that I had with my Kindred Spirit friend Krista when Matt took the kids off for a walk.  Once the kids were out of the room, the first thing I said was "How are you really?"  All the testing hadn't been completed at that point.  Krista sat before me, full of grace and peace and told me that she was prepared for the worst case scenario.  She said "If three years is all we have with Audrey, she has already touched so many lives."  I was amazed by Krista's strength that she was able to say this at such a desperate point in her life.  But Krista knew that God was in control of the situation.  That is the amazing thing about God, if he brings you to it, he will bring you through it, if you let him!  A big part of this miracle is the steady faith that Krista and Matt have had, and their trust that God would care for their daughter.

And Audrey, she was just her happy, smiley bubbly little self.  So happy to see me when I came to visit, and so pleased with the little bag of trinkets that I brought her.  Audrey is a LIGHT BRINGER!  Light shines from her where ever she goes.

Over the next few days, Audrey went through a series of testing to determine the cause of her sudden seizures.  This is a picture of her right before she went in for her PET scan.  They had to sedate her because a person has to remain perfectly still for a PET scan to get accurate results.  That cannot be expected of a three year old! 

The testing showed that Audrey has a rare brain malformation.   There is no cure for this brain malformation, no surgery that can help.  It explains the physical and developmental delays that Audrey has had to deal with.  The goal for treatment for Audrey is to control the seizures to protect her brain from any further damage.  But, that is not the miracle part.

Over the last year Audrey has spent time in and out of hospitals for testing.  She has visited doctors that specialize in her particular brain malformation as well as doctors that specialize in treating seizures.  Why is Audrey a miracle you ask?  I will tell you.  Every doctor that has seen this child has said the same thing.  This child should not be able to walk.  This child should not be able to talk.  This child should definitely not be able to run.  This child should not be toilet trained.  The list goes on and on. Audrey should not be able to do any of these things, but she can! The doctors' have told Audrey's parents that they cannot not explain her abilities.   Krista always responds with "I can explain it."

This little girl has a whole army of prayer warriors, and a whole big extended family who loves her.  What blows me away is God's purpose for this little girl.  He gave her warrior parents who will fight for the services that she needs.  He put her family in our church so they would be surrounded by love and support.  He gave her the exact big brother that he knew she would need.  Austin loves his little sister so much that it warms my heart.  He won't leave her side when she has seizures.  He is always making sure that she is okay.  He has such an amazing heart.  Austin is another LIGHT BRINGER!

Most importantly God has given Audrey a determined spirit.  When the doctors told her that she would never be able to write her name, Audrey decided that she was going to learn to write her name.  She spent days practicing over and over until she could write an A.  The doctors have said she will never be able to read.  The teachers and therapists that work with Audrey every day say that she will learn to read.   Audrey is a true miracle and I feel so blessed to be able to know and love her.

Audrey is four years old now and still continues to battle with the seizures.  She can go weeks without one and then suddenly have multiple seizures in a day.  We all continue to pray for her family and the doctors and hope that they can find the right medication to keep the seizures under control and prevent further damage to  her brain. 

In the mean time, I, and many others will continue to be in awe of this amazing little LIGHT BRINGER that continues to baffle the doctors with everything that she can do, everything that they say she can't do, but God says she can do!  We are all so blessed to know this little Miracle.  We love you Audrey!!