Every once in a while, Facebook serves to alter the course, or at least the attitude of a person's life. Tonight, I think that may have happened to me. By chance, I was scrolling through the status updates and came across one from a MOPS friend about a little 2 year old girl, Layla Grace, who is going through her final days in her battle against cancer, barring a miracle from God. Within moments, I was in tears. Granted, it doesn't take much, but this was different. I was being given a window view of someones pain while they said goodbye to their daughter. I came back a little later after I had calmed down and read a past post about regret... and I realized that I am an incredibly selfish and unaware person. I'm not saying I'm a bad person, and I'm not looking for someone to tell me, "No you aren't." Across the hall from me sleep two beautiful and healthy little boys who would make any mother beam with pride to call them her sons. And I spend too much of the day wishing they would be quiet, or let me get the dishes done, or stop fighting, or pick up their sippy cup, or the list goes on and on, but you get the point. And I don't realize that at any moment, God could call them home and that would be it. There would be no more time to mediate an argument or celebrate milestones or blow bubbles or watch as they set their determination on mastering the art of climbing up the wall of an inflatible bounce house.
It's not just my kids that I have this attitude with... it's everything. I have been walking through life in a dream. I have big plans, but I don't follow through. Why? It's not because I can't. It's because I am blind to the gifts I have. I have wall-papered over the pain and joy in my life. I have refused to embrace it while I have professed to be growing as a person. And yet, when push comes to shove, I step aside.
Bad things happen to good people. It's nothing personal. And good things happen to bad people. Again, it's nothing personal. We have free will. Like with the boys, I often give them a choice. It's not always a good choice, but they always have a choice. I have a choice. I can embrace the good and the not so good in my life and live as though every moment had meaning, or I can waste the finite time I have been given and fill it with regret and wishes.
While I have never met Layla Grace, she has opened my eyes and changed my heart, and if she is called Home, I hope it will give her family some small happiness to know that in such a short time, their precious little girl has changed the world.
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