Loving My Children

Questions, so many questions. That’s how it is with children. One of our toddler’s favorite games is “What’s this?” She points, and her siblings answer “vase” or “rug.” It’s fun and usually easy to play when children are young. But I’m learning that the game gets harder to play as our little people and their questions mature. It isn't enough to know what something is or when we’ll arrive to our destination. They want to know why. Why can’t I? Why did she? Last week, my young son asked one of the hardest questions yet: Why me? Why am I the one who got a splinter? The one who broke his elbow? The one with this diagnosis? "Why me" is an honest question that can lead down so many paths. My heart pumps with fear as I think of some of the paths where this question has led me that I don’t want my son to have to travel. I want to protect him from why me that leads to self-pity and why me that leads to victimization. It wasn’t a question to brush under the car

"My husband’s and my shock and sadness over one child’s diagnosis was magnified by another life-altering phone call a few weeks later. Scott rushed home from work to join me on our front porch where I haltingly conveyed the pediatrician’s message that two more of our (then) four children also carried the most serious form of alpha-1. Sounds of children playing in our neighborhood filled the silences as our hearts overflowed with grief and sorrow. "As Christians, Scott and I believe in prayer, but the enormity of our situation felt suffocating. Between gut-wrenching sobs, I whispered to my husband, 'How do we pray for God to heal  three  of our children?' Embedded in my question was the assumption that maybe we could ask God to heal one, but asking him to heal three children would be expecting too much. It raised another question, too—what does one pray for someone with a genetic condition? "Even praying for someone with long-term cancer seemed more reaso