He Gave What He Had

This week we celebrated Ace’s 4th birthday!

I cannot believe my first little bundle of endless energy is four years old already. How is that possible?!

His contagious smile brings joy to everyone he comes across. Some days I feel a glimpse of what Mary must have felt when the Bible says she “treasured all these things in her heart”. Wherever we go, Ace catches people’s hearts, and time and time again I get to hear how God has used Ace as a blessing in their own lives.

Don’t get me wrong, he is still very much a typical 4-year-old! And most of my days are riddled with guessing games: Is this chocolate or poop? Is he lovingly hugging his little brother or wrestling him in a chokehold? Or the heart-stopping find of a Sharpie cap without the marker!

But, I am overflowing with thankfulness for our big little miracle.

Each year when the days surrounding his birthday roll around, I can’t help but remember what these days were like for us when he made his grand, intense entrance into this world.

The heartbreak and fear and confusion that seemed to encapsulate each day are quick to replay in my mind.

But this year, in God’s amazing, intimate goodness toward me, He reminded me of what doesn’t come back to mind as automatically. And He did this through the Good Samaritan story where we’ve been studying for the past few weeks:

“Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.” Luke 10:30-34 (ESV)

Imagine for a minute you’re the beaten man.

We’ve all been there at some point in our lives. Beaten down by life. Feeling broken and alone, maybe even abandoned.

The Samaritan wasn’t an EMT responding to this man’s needs. No way could he have been perfectly prepared for what he was walking into.

But, he stopped, bound up his wounds and used what he had on hand to care for him.

He did what he could.

He gave what he had.

And honestly, if it came between lying alone in my brokenness or someone showing up and trying to help me with whatever they could offer- I’m going to choose the latter.

We all go through our own times of being beaten down by circumstances in life. They may look similar or they may look very different.

But, they all leave us feeling like this beaten man.

While Ace was in the NICU, most people didn’t know what to say. They didn’t know what to do. They wanted to help, they wanted to comfort, but it’s hard to know exactly how to do that.

And I’ll admit there were days where the well-meaning words that people said to me as comfort were sandpaper to my broken, bleeding heart.

That’s just how life is.

Some things happen and there aren’t perfect healing words. There isn’t anything you can do to make it better. But, what mattered most was that they cared enough to try.

They hadn’t forgotten me in my pain.

And they showed me that.

I knew time didn’t stop for them like it had for me. Their lives were moving on and they had their own responsibilities and worries they needed to focus on. But, they still took the time to reach out to me and let me know I wasn’t forgotten.

They took care of me with what they had: a prayer, a card sent to our room, a text of encouragement.

This made a world of difference.

It comforted me on the hard days, and energized me in the mundane.

And most of all, it helped me fight back on the lying whispers Satan so quickly fills our blurry minds with when we’re already down.

Some of the greatest, yet easiest to believe, flaming darts that Satan will hurl at us as we’re limping through what unexpectedly and unpleasantly came our way is that we are forgotten and we are alone.

At the end of a long day, after kissing Ace’s puffy little cheek goodnight, I’d start the walk to my car usually on the 7th floor of the hospital parking garage to head to my room in the Ronald McDonald House half a mile away. Leaving my critical baby behind was the hardest part of each night. I was never really sure what condition he’d be in when I came back in the morning.

It was on those nightly walks out of the hospital when the whispers that I was forgotten, that no one cared, that I was invisible played over and over in my mind; blurring the line between lies and reality.

But, then I could pull out my phone and see a text someone had sent earlier that day saying that they were praying for me and thinking of us. Or pick up a card standing on my dresser that someone had mailed to my temporary home reminding me that they cared.

I wasn’t forgotten.

In those moments, I didn’t care how people let me know they cared about me.

I just needed to know they cared at all.

Do you think this man was picky in how he wanted to be cared for? At this point, he would have been relieved that someone even cared enough to notice and use what they had to bind his wounds.

We can be hesitant to care for someone going through something because we have no idea what to say or how to make things better for them.

But, as someone who’s been on the other side of a situation where it was impossible for anyone to know how to respond perfectly:

Don’t let loss of the perfect words stop you from trying.

Just give whatever you have in you to show you care. Remind them they are not forgotten. They are not alone.

You never know what your words and actions mean to someone. You never know what whispered lies they are fighting that your effort to show them you care becomes a shield that they can hold up and use to fight back.

From one of His children to another,

Christi