reality check

We have all been (more than) a little cooped up around here lately. With school and all of our other activities on Christmas break, the kids are getting tired of each other and tired of being indoors as much as we have been. All of this has led to two (guess which two!) very whiny kids.

It was about all that I could take when Charlie came to me, and with a very whiny voice told me that something "Wasn't fair." Wasn't fair? Not the right thing to say to your mommy two days after you've been showered with gifts at Christmas -- and are about to be showered with even more at your birthday party!

Especially given the fact that the day before, we had visited sweet Gage at Children's Medical Center! Gage is 5 years old and has leukemia. It doesn't matter that what he has is considered the "good type" of cancer (is there such a thing! how ludicrous!) ...he is 5 years old, has lost his hair, and is in the hospital again on Christmas Day. His family is trying to balance this with a newborn and 2 other kids ... the strain on the family is huge, I know. Now, THAT is not fair.

It is also not fair that my good friend Michelle's sister has a very serious type of bone cancer. She lives in Georgia, but is in Houston at MD Anderson for treatment -- half the country away from her husband, two kids, and friends.

It isn't fair that my friend Gini had a son born missing a large portion of his brain after an intro-utero stroke. It isn't fair that my friend S. is waiting to adopt her new daugher from Vietnam but is waiting for legal tapework to be untangled. It isn't fair that our friends the Fournets are waiting and waiting to hear back about the children they are adopting from Africa. It also isn't fair that the assistant pro at our golf club nearly lost his newlywed wife when she suddenly developed sepsis and had to have a quadruple amputation. I could go on and on...

How do you protect your child's innocence, while at the same time teaching them that there are very sad realities in this world? Because the truth is that we live in a little insulated bubble, and our kids live lives that 99% of the world's kids would dream to live. We are trying to expose them to some of these realities when it is appropriate ... but I still don't know if they are understanding any of it -- that we live in a world that is often sad and broken.

Thankfully we have a God that reaches across all backgrounds and 'redeems what the locusts have eaten' (Joel 2: 25-27). Chuck and I hope that if we teach them that, then the rest will follow naturally. And maybe we will get less of "it's not fair" when I tell them we can't go to Burger King for the 5th time this week!