Today’s post is a short one. I just wanted to share with you a part of my journal entry from March 23rd, the middle of quarantine. It’s been on my mind a lot with what Paul and I have recently been walking through, so I felt compelled to share it.
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“It’s after 11pm. We’re all still up. Brasher hears Paul and I talking about the book of Job and he sits down on my lap and listens to the whole conversation. Then Win and August start making noise. Paul goes downstairs. Brasher and I are left alone.
He says…
“Mom, you tell me that I’m creative. You tell me that it’s special the way I think. Well, here’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Isn’t it crazy that I have a life? That in my body I have a life? And I have choices? And that I can choose to do things? And that God gave ME an actual life and that my life can be used to do things?”
And then he said… “that I have a life that can change the world?”
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For a moment longer, he leaned against me in silence. I sat very still and breathed in his words. Then he followed the others downstairs. I jumped up and ran to my room to grab my journal and record everything.
In one night, Footstone is helping produce the Child Advocacy Center’s annual fundraising event online. Every year we create a video that shows the mighty impact this organization has on children in our community. Paul and I have been walking the line between heartache and hope as we’ve worked on this project. It will go live tomorrow night.
I’ve been listening to a new song on repeat. I’ve attached it here for you. Listen to it when you can shut out the world for just a second. I hear this song and think how desperately I want all children to feel safe. To meet a child the same age as your own, and know they have been abused can break you. OR… it can fuel you. We are working to make their pain powerless. We are striving to set them free. We will give them hope. We will give them permission to dream again.
But I also hear this song and think of you… I believe confidently that you’re reading this post right now for a reason. So I speak these words directly to you. May your past be powerless. May you see His heart through your younger eyes. May you hear His voice through the rain and wind, and may you know it’s safe to be a child again.
You have a life. A life that can be used to do things. A life that can change the world.