Some Words...

Sometimes I am so completely selfish. I put my own woes up at the top of the list as if they could even compare to the plight others suffer. The little boy I spoke of before died this morning. He lost the fight to Leukemia and now God has one more angel in heaven. It makes you sad, it makes you open your eyes, and it makes you feel selfish and stupid and incredibly small. Dax died today, one day before the start of a new year, and I have to believe that he wanted to make sure his parents didn't start a new year hanging on to something he knew they could not have, him. I want to be different, not just for today, every day. I want to lay down my selfish ways and be grateful for the gifts I have so graciously been given.

Rest in peace little man and thank you for the miracles you left back here on earth.

I'm sitting here now wondering how it is that I got back to this place I swore I'd never be again. The place where trusting someone seems impossible because the person you trusted is absolutely not the person you thought you were trusting. Trust is a tricky thing isn't it? We are born with it but somewhere along the line it becomes less of an innate ability and more of an achieved one. Can you remember the first moment when you realized that trusting someone also meant putting yourself on the line? Can you remember how it felt the first time someone you trusted proved unworthy of that trust? I can. Let me tell you that the pit at the bottom of your stomach feels exactly the same as it did the first time someone let you down. I suppose one might think you would get used to getting hurt but the truth is that the one hundredth time you get hurt is just as bad as the first time.

I thought that by now I'd be a master at discovering someone's dishonesty but I suppose we get so immersed in our daily lives that those skills tend to slack off. Well, I know now and that's what counts right? I'd like to say I'm a big enough person to forgive, to hand out another chance, but I am not so sure I am. It seems like there have been so many times in my life where I had to forgive someone, had to give them a second chance, that at some point I'd be fresh out of both.

As I laid my head on my pillow last night I knew only one thing for sure, God is the only person I can put my trust in and even that is hard sometimes. He must have a plan for me but I'd really like to have a clue as to what it is. Surely it can't be this...what it is at this moment.

A long time ago I never thought about death. It wasn't that I thought I was invincible it was that I was young and when you are young you believe life will go on forever. Young people are not supposed to die. I was woken up today by my phone vibrating from a new e-mail from a journal I signed up for about a little boy named Dax. Dax is two 1/2. Dax is dying. He has incurable leukemia and just days to live. I don't know this little boy, he lives down the street from my mom, but I cried when I read how weak he has become. I wanted to scream at God and honestly the only reason I didn't is because my kids were still asleep. There have been many times in my life when I've questioned God's intentions, his reasoning, his compassion. This little boy is suffering, his parents are suffering - where is the compassion in that? There have been other times I've questioned God's plan like the time when I laid on the floor with a broken heart, in so much pain that I could not lift myself up off the floor. I figured that one out, that broken heart made me stronger, but how can taking a child's life, making him suffer his last days on earth, make anyone stronger?

I'd like some answers. I've been patient through my life waiting for His agenda to work itself out while my own faded into the background. I can't imagine any sort of good coming from losing a child and I don't think I ever want to understand.