Inspiration

I have a lot to be thankful for. I have two beautiful children. I have a loving husband. We have an amazing extended family. We have a house we can afford. We have jobs and great childcare. But yet, I am so frustrated with the boys' food allergies. I am struggling. I do not like feeding them. I don't know what to feed them. I don't know how to get them to eat new things. Meals are my least favorite part of the day.

I have been trying to put this all in perspective lately and have had some pretty good examples to look to. A friend Jack went to high school with, Matt, and his wife left last October with their two kids for Africa to be missionaries. They sold everything they owned and moved, not intending to come back for years. Five months later, they had to fly back to find out their oldest daughter has leukemia. Not that anyone "should" have a kid with cancer, but really? Missionaries? Lindsey, Matt's wife, also keeps up on a blog and she had an amazingly insightful post not too far back. In essence, she said that for a kid to get through cancer, she needs two loving parents. She needs faith, family and love. For any other child, it would be just too much to go through without all that. I'm not sure I could have been that insightful in her position.

Another friend I used to work with, Rob, had just moved to Arkansas for a new job with his family when his second child, Johnny, (of five) was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He died a few weeks ago after a year long battle. Through it all, they were an amazing witness to God's faithfulness. In every news story (and there were a lot -- from Dick Vitale wearing Johnny's arm band to Cornerstone's basketball team winning their division championship and giving the MVP trophy to Johnny), the focus was on God and the family's faith. One comment from Rob in an article said something about how he would have gladly switched his healthy brain without anesthesia for his son's cancerous one. And how, when he thought about that, he was struck by how willingly God gave his only son for us and how he wasn't sure he would do the same.

I realize that these allergies, while a total pain in my side, are not life threatening. These two amazing families have been inspirational to me, not just because of these stupid allergies, but just in general as they have gone through so much and can still praise God. How can I even blink about something so relatively easy?

I started writing this post last week Sunday when I was quite depressed about how things were going with the boys. I am happy to say, however, that I think we finally may have made some progress as Sam is finally improving (not perfect, but improving).

Rob / Johnny: http://www.mlive.com/smallcolleges/grandrapids/index.ssf/2011/05/family_friends_of_johnny_teis.html

Lindsey / Lola: http://followingthecall.org/2011/03/who-should-it-be/