The doctor stretched out her arm and drew circles on top of circles on the whiteboard, an illustration of how she viewed my unborn baby’s predicament: a presumed diagnosis of a stroke in utero. I sat there feeling like a child failing miserably at a particular subject in school, but the subject I was failing in was pregnancy.
Taking the focus off myself and putting it on others has always lifted me from the deepest, darkest depths of despair. In 2004, Ted, Rocco, and I visited veterans at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. We went from room to room, visiting severely injured soldiers. The sights were worse than any Hollywood movie could depict. Ted played his guitar and entertained the troops in a rehab room. A young man who had suffered serious burns all over his body was strapped onto a bed. He moaned while his limbs were stretched to encourage new skin to grow.
Hurt people hurt people. I’ve heard that demotivational phrase a number of times as people discuss that struggles can be generational, that trauma can be passed along, and that people who are victims of abuse might abuse others.
What if it’s true that God chooses the least qualified, least likely people to do the most extraordinary things? What if you just might be one of those people? Maybe you have a thought you can’t get out of your head or a deep care for something or someone in particular that you can’t shake. Maybe you feel like God might even be asking you to do something about it, but in your head, you’re thinking, “Yeah, but that would be crazy! I’m just …”
As the baby of the family, I grew up thinking the world revolved around me. It helped that I was this cute, stringy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with the biggest grin and the most hilarious laugh. It’s true—I even received “The Most Hilarious Laugh” award from my kindergarten teacher. My mom called me her sunshine because I could light up the room and bring joy, which helped her forget the hardship of being married to an alcoholic.