IT'S NOT FAIR!!!

As you have noticed I have buttons on the left side of my blog for what I call my "Blog Babies". These are children who are disabled or sick in one way or another and without knowing them in person I have still fallen in love with them (there have been others who have passed away as well and they're button isn't there anymore.). The Hubster laughs at how attached I get to them. I have been known to sob while reading posts about these babies and when one dies I feel as though I lost someone close to me. The Hubster doesn't understand how I can care so much about a baby/family I have never met. I don't know. Maybe I get attached to people too easily or something. Maybe it's because I am a mother and I know how devastated I would be to watch my child suffer or have to let them go if they passed away.There have been some I have had to quit reading about because it was really getting me down. But there are a few, the ones on the left, that I can't let go of. Sometimes I feel angry. Angry that these beautiful children have to suffer. Most days after I check their blogs I just think, "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!! There is beautiful Gwendolyn who can't move anything but her fingers, who is trapped inside her little body due to SMA and will die much sooner than she should. There's darling Jonah who suffers through his skin blistering and peeling off and his Mom has to worry about G-tubes and dehydration when he gets a simple cold. Then there's Piper. What a doll! She's never lived at home. Reagan and Jake have to visit their baby in the hospital if they want to see her and she's almost 3! I cried everyday when my newborn was in the hospital for 10 days! There's blue-eyed Lucy who will go eventually go blind, and sweet Mason's family almost lost him because of a bad heart and then he started rejecting his new heart. Cute Karmindy might have to have another heart surgery this summer and Tiny Maggie has some mystery disease and is going downhill everyday because doctors can't figure out what she has. Sweet little Cora (The Macs) passed away after a 17 day battle with cancer before she was even a year old. Now her parents learn to live each day with her absence while loving her new baby brother.

I know this all sounds depressing and you are all wondering why I even read them. The other day when Gwendolyn almost died I asked myself the same thing. I thought about how, as silly as it seems, I will be devastated when she does go. To watch my own baby girl, close to Gwendolyn's age, run and jump and play is hard sometimes when I think of that beautiful little girl who's mind is just as sharp as Em's, but whose body is so broken. It breaks my heart and I thought that maybe I should just stop reading about such sad situations, then I wouldn't have to be there if/when the end comes for any of them. Then I thought of all the times I have thought of these kids when I am fed up with everything. I have learned so much through "getting to know" these families. They remind me each day to love my kids. To not take their health and abilities for granted. They remind me that it can all change so fast and that in a blink, life happens and I could have to live without one of my babies. They have taught me about courage and strength and finding joy despite the circumstance. I admire their parents so much for the tireless love and effort they have to put into each day just to keep their children entertained, or alive and sometimes, to go on without them.

Here's where there's a problem though and it's something I have struggled with most of my life (long before Blogland even existed). I want to know why. And I'm not just talking about my "Blog Babies". I'm talking about abused children around the world and orphans in Russia, and starving babies in Ethiopia and young girls raped and tortured in Africa and on and on and on... Why them and not my kids or me? How could a loving Father in Heaven allow them to suffer? How could he take these beautiful babies away from families who love them so much after they've already had to watch them decline day by day? How could he allow His children to suffer and starve?

Although this post is in no way meant to be religious I cannot help but bring God into it, seeing as I believe in Him, and thereby my personal beliefs. I am a Latter-Day Saint (Mormon). I believe in the Plan of Salvation. I believe we were sent to earth to get a body and be tested and return to Him. I believe that God loves His children and that families can be together forever, even in the life after this one. I believe in free agency and I believe in miracles. But I still don't understand why, or maybe how, He can let them suffer. I know His own Son suffered more than any of us ever could.  I know that there can be no joy without suffering and I know that miracles can only come when there is faith and situations where a miracle is needed. I know all of this in my head, but my heart still wonders why. Honestly, maybe I'll never really understand on a deep level until I meet my Maker. I'm sure it's one of those things I will just have to have faith about and let my very human mind trust in His higher knowledge. I just wish that all of these families could get their miracles and that none of them would have to suffer in order for those around them to have their lives touched because of them.

I'm probably not making a whole lot of sense. I know my posts are usually lighter and more amusing so I hope I didn't bore you with all my "serious talk" today. If any of you have any enlightenment for me on this subject I'd love to hear it.

Thanks.