Being a mom is full of ups and downs. It's a daily journey, figuring out how to navigate through different waters each moment. Finding your footing, standing strong, being flexible enough to bend when the winds are heavy and yet at the very same time, not being knocked down.

I've had a lot of jobs, even some careers... working with children with special needs from 3 months to 18 years, teaching 1st graders, guiding teenagers on their path from high school to college, counseling elementary aged students with problems far too big for their little minds...

My heart is with these little ones who need big people to surround them, support them, lift them up and love them. They need one person who will look them in the eye and tell them that everything is going to be ok. To help them maneuver their legs to take a step that may not have happened naturally. To show them it gets a little less scary each time... each time they are touched, each time they try, each time everything in their body is fighting what they want to do. Every child along the way has been my child. I've loved them and made them my absolute focus for that hour, that day, that year. I cried for them and clapped for them. Sometimes I look back on the experiences I've had and know without a shadow of a doubt, it has all prepared me for this moment in my life. I thought it then, I know it now.

For one year, I provided in-home therapy for newborns to age 3 who had mild to severe disability. There is no bias, there is no prejudice. A little baby boy, deaf and blind with two mommies made an impact on me so deep. He, so innocent and so pure, yet starting off his life in darkness. Walking past the stray dogs, stepping over the garbage and into the trailers... never knowing what I might find each day, in each home. A 1 year old boy with down syndrome, born to his mother who also had down syndrome. It can't be hopeless. The world is going to turn their back and pass them by not understanding why a woman with down syndrome would bring a baby into the world. We have to remember a child is always helpless and NEEDS a big person to stand for them. Always. No matter WHAT their circumstance, no matter how they got here, they are here and they need big people who care. Believe me there were mothers, who after reading their reports and realizing their child was in the spot they were in based on drug use or alcohol use during pregnancy was discouraging to me. I am not numb. There are some who would say, "I could never do that." and that's ok. It's true. Not everyone can, but someone has to. Sitting on floors, batting roaches away from infants as I worked with them and fighting back the natural gag reflex from an unexplained stench is not how I would enjoy spending my afternoons, but at the same time when I think of how much I have been blessed, it is the very least we can all do to make their world a little better. My mission field back then was a dark place at times. I remember sitting in my car praying, before entering into homes where the unexpected would meet me. God, help me to help them. I remember a day when I was able to share my beliefs with the two mommies... I remember that day like it was yesterday. They were married. They experienced hardships beyond anything I had experienced in my life. They believed in Jesus and said to me, "We know what the Bible says about homosexuality and we are worried that God will not let us into Heaven one day, but I guess we just hope and pray that He will." as a cross hung on their wall. Their baby boy, deaf and blind will never know the difference. I think about that mission field and I realize that no matter how different we all seem, we were all little once. We all had a big person to stand for us when we couldn't and because of a big person, we are where we are today. I'd like to encourage you to be the big person in a little person's life today who needs you. Right now, those little people are my Landon and my Lincoln. They are my mission field. They are my heart. I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that wherever you are, wherever I am, we can all afford to open up our hearts a little bit more than what feels comfortable and reach out.
Love to you my friends and thanks for reading <3 p="">