Insignificant

I started praying Monday for a little girl I've never met before. This is not some uncommon phenomenon--I have done this before. But I feel strangely connected to this child. She was born on Thursday last week, with a rare (though I now know 2 children who suffer from this) condition called CDH--Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia--and as I type, she is undergoing surgery to repair the condition. Her parents are avid bloggers, so I feel like I've entered into their lives, though I've never spoken to them before.

My friend Stacy has a child who continues to battle her way through CDH and the lasting complications from that issue. My cousin has a child with Apert's Syndrome. I have three friends whose children have Down's Syndrome, I babysit a little girl with CP, I have other friends who fear their son is Autistic, friends who aren't sure what label to put on their son, and acquaintances who just found out their son has Guillain-Barre Syndrome. With every friend who announces her pregnancy, I find myself worrying (needlessly, of course). What else can we come up with? Horrible!! I worry right through the first ultrasound! As a mother, you expect yourself to worry about your own children, and I find myself worrying about all of them!

Really makes the issues I deal with on a daily basis seem very insignificant. Pitiful. My garden needs planting. My house needs a thorough deep-cleaning. My children need to play outside more and watch TV less. I need to lose 15 pounds and get my CM calendar planned. My closet needs cleaning and I need to hoe out the kids' spring clothes. I should be putting together actual stories, and I need to finish a quilt, a shrug, and an afghan I've been working on. How small. My children are perfect. My husband has a job. The trucks run, there's food in the fridge, we have clothes and cable and cell phones. I need to be thankful...desperately thankful.