Are you my mother?

When I was little I read this Dr. Seuss book called Are You My Mother?. I'm sure you've all read it, but it was about this little bird that hatched from its nest and went around asking bulldozers, dogs and other objects (animate and inanimate alike) if they were its mother. It was looking for a place to belong, a group to be in, and identity to form.

I've been feeling a lot like this little bird recently. I feel like such a stupid child for wandering around looking for a place or an identity because I think that this happens every time a major change happens in my life. I feel rocked to the core and God has to strip me of everything in order to make me realize that my core being is truly in Him. Unfortunately my head knowledge is always a few steps ahead of my heart, and so there is still a great amount of processing and heart searching that needs to go on before I can reach the inevitable conclusion that I always reach at the end of this journey that I am so often on...

I think I often find myself wishing I was someone else or somewhere else. I wish I didn't have to wrestle with hard issues or that I wasn't as passionate about things as I am. I wish I knew and was confident in my role as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister or as a friend. I'm tired, but I know that if I didn't wrestle I wouldn't be satisfied with my place in life. But wrestling is hard...and I know I'll go away with a limp (see Genesis 32)...and sometimes I'm okay with that..other times I wish I could just go away unchanged.

So much of my world has been rocked, and I feel like a lot of my naivety about how the world works is gone...for better of for worse. I hate saying that, too, because it means that I have to admit how naive I was, and, if I'm truthful, probably still am. I'm afraid because in admitting that I seem more at risk for becoming paralyzed in cynicism and anger, and part of me wishes that was allowed. It is so hard to see others, and perhaps even yourself, take one step forward and two steps back in understanding the complexity of life...

Not only that but my view of the world has gone from being frustrated about the way things are "out there" to the way things are "right here".

Right here where addictions to drugs and alcohol and sex seem to conquer any thoughts that there might be someone out there who really loves and cares for you.

Right here where I can walk by a brothel where the women within are currently going through hell on my way to a McDonald's every Tuesday for a meeting with a client who went through hell a couple of years ago.

Right here where evil seems to conquer good.

Right here where Johns pass starving and homeless men and women on the streets in order to spend their "hard earned money" on sex with someone they don't even know, causing her harm that they will never see.

I find myself frustrated and confused. Isn't love supposed to conquer all...isn't good supposed to conquer evil...

But when it comes down to it it doesn't matter how much I love our clients...that crack addiction and the fact that they have never been told that they are worth it rings louder and truer in their ears. The fact that her uncle pimped her out and addicted her to crack when she was a little girl or the fact that her boyfriend made her have sex with his friends in order to have a place to sleep at night is going to speak louder to them than my words of encouragement and love...

Kate says we're planting seeds that we probably won't get to see bloom. And part of me believes her. The other part of me breaks inside because nobody has ever given them these seeds before...

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people...
Galatians 6:9-10a