Worth Everything

Mike joked awhile ago that, after I am gone, he is going to publish all of my unpublished blog posts -- kind of like when they find unpublished work from some famous author and send it off to the press.

Unfortunately those posts would not likely be in high demand (as they primarily include the dregs of my writing), and Mike’s plans to get rich off of my untimely demise would, unfortunately, fall far short.

But! Occasionally I sift back through the pages of unshared material and find some small forgotten gem. Like this little beginning of a post I started about three years ago:

I called my parents' the other day to ask about some trivial thing, but after our initial hellos, my dad said, “Your mother and I were just looking at a picture of you three little girls in the hallway here. I said to her, 'Wouldn't you give up anything in the world! Wouldn't you give up your whole life just to watch those little girls and protect them and keep them safe?'”

And then I wrote a bit about how I got a little choked up and forgot why I’d called to begin with because . . . that is exactly what my dad did do! He gave his whole life to us. And also because, I suppose, it feels rather marvelous to know someone in the universe found YOU – simply getting to raise you – worth everything they could ever give.

But coming across it at this particular time was especially touching for me as I am in the very thick of wrestling with the sacrifices demanded by this big family – the talents I can’t develop, the time I don’t have, and most of all, the things I fear I am not doing for or giving to my children because I am spread so thin. Something about my own dad’s voice calling to me from the other side – assuring me that while surely he had these same fears as his family grew, in the end, he pronounced us – bringing us here and raising us – worth giving up everything -- even his whole life – for.

It reminds me of the words that kept floating through my mind after Hans was born – almost as it they were being said to me with reassuring promise by someone who could see all: Worth everything. Worth every possible inconvenience.

There is something powerful, and spiritual, in thinking those thoughts – in feeling that way – about, not just my family at large, but each one individually. There is a scripture I love that talks about how Christ’s works and miracles wouldn’t cease so long as there was one man on the face of the earth for him to save. To be able to feel that – how that could be true and how one soul is worth everything and worth every sacrifice – in my own small sphere, is a really amazing thing.