Blessings

My son's friend has cancer. She is eight years old and suffering from a very rare form of leukemia known as AML-M3. The prognosis does not appear to be very good and her treatments are not going very well at this time. Ashley is a lovely little girl who is trying so hard to just be a normal little kid. But much of her day is spent hurting and feeling sick and suffering. Amidst her "normal" daily things are squeezed in visits to various doctors for blood work and bone marrow biopsies and medication reviews. Her mother told me yesterday that it is looking as though Ashley is coming out of remission. They are so tired and frustrated and feeling helpless as they watch Ashley take on this tremendous battle for her life. And it is not a battle they can lose....at all. Her mother, Mary, also told me yesterday that now they want to run some tests on their four year old daughter, as she is having a lot of headaches. Apparently, there is some chance that Savannah may have this as well. I cannot begin to imagine what this family is feeling right now.

Which leads me to reflect on my own family. We have been blessed with not one, not two, but three VERY healthy children. Our biggest health threat is Benjamin's dairy allergy...which, while inconvenient and unfortunate, usually results in nothing worse than a pretty horrible tummy ache when we miss milk in something he gets ahold of. Within a couple of hours or so he is usually back to himself. I think about how much time we spend fighting with our children, over chores or petty fights amongst themselves or messes, or bedtime or whatever....while Kevin and Mary are spending every day fighting, not with Ashley, but FOR her. Knowing full well that months from now they may not have her with them anymore. I cannot begin to imagine even one day without my children. I cannot imagine what it would be like not hearing Clara announce each morning as she walks into my bedroom "Here comes the princess." Or not to have Max sitting at the table each morning pouring over the comics...or not to have Ben giving me those sweet hugs and telling me "I love you, Mom" throughout the day. The loss of any of them would be such an incredible void in our lives,in our family, that I don't know how we would go forward. My children are such a part of me and who I am...losing one of them would be losing a huge part of myself. Having them, knowing them, loving them....it is one of the greatest joys and gifts of my life. Sometimes I forget that. I get so caught up in the messes and chaos, that I can forget to consider the source of the mess and the blessings that those messes truly are. There are women whose homes are scrupulously clean...because there are no little ones there to mess it up....even though they have hoped and longed for and prayed for them. Women who would give anything for crayon on the wall and cheerios in the couch and dirty socks in the living room. Women who would give anything to have 3 extra loads of laundry, too many birthday parties and tangly hair on a three year old wiggly girl to comb out each night. Women who would wholeheartedly embrace the multitude of messes and chores and errands that come along with these little people we love so much. I imagine that Mary treasures every smile right now, every mess and every silly conversation with her daughter. I imagine that each day is seen as a gift like no other...and that each and every moment is being treasured. I am looking more closely at my own little people right now and treasuring them a bit more and hugging them a bit closer. I am trying to focus less on the mess and more on the magic. I am not unaware of the great blessing that they are in our lives. And I am moved to my knees in prayers of thanksgiving for their health. I am grateful beyond words that God entrusted these children to us and shared them with us. We have no promises of tomorrow...all we have is today. And so today I pull them close and hug them tight. I will overlook the poorly made bed and the dirty socks under it. I will treasure the sense of chaos that they bring and cherish the moments we share today. I will take out my camera and take each of their pictures... and know that I have been blessed so far beyond anything that I could ever deserve...and in ways that I never could have imagined.

I will pray continually for Ashley and her family and I will give thanks for the blessing that child has been in my own life. Because it is in her battle to live, that I am reminded to treasure my own life and the lives of my own children. I look at things a lot differently now, after seeing things through her eyes and her mother's eyes. Her life and her battle have changed my heart....so much for the better. Blessings are so abundant in my life and my home. I don't know why....but God is so amazingly good to me and I am so thankful....so, so very thankful. Life is good here in the desert...so, so good.