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seoulsearch if you had to say what is the most profound thing that you have learned caring for the children that God has placed around you? Forgive me if its too personal and feel free to answer with any question you would like instead.
Hi Sean!
I am honored by your question, thank you so much!
You know what's going to sound strange coming after my other thread -- when it comes to boots-to-the-ground work, I'm actually much better with adults than with kids. Some people have a natural gift with children -- my siblings all have it. But it's not something that comes natural to me. I can care for and love on kids for a short amount of time, but I'm better acting as a support to those who are called to kids full-time.
Rather, my calling seems to be with people who have been through extreme things. For about an 8 year stretch, I was very active in writing, and sometimes visiting, prison inmates and military veterans. Now I am not in anyway trying to compare the two (and I apologize profusely to anyone who may be offended by me mentioning both together, ) but the theme is that they've both lived through very intense situations. I have stopped for now (feeling God has told me not to anymore because of safety,) but I would gladly go back to it if possible.
I used to work in various rooms of the children's church but I'm not someone who can read the same stories to kids umpteen times in a row -- and keep my sanity. I told God, "Please, send me back to the prisons!"
A CC friend said, "You're still called to other people's kids -- it's just that you come in after they're all grown up."
My friend Lee told me that she and her other adopted friends joke about their "flat heads." Kids who have spent extended time in orphanages often experience a "flattening" of the back of their heads due to laying in cribs unattended for so long. Orphanages with babies are known to uncannily quiet, because the babies have learned that no one will come when they cry.
An inmate and I were corresponding about this, and about how it's been documented that babies can die without enough touch and human interaction.
This inmate wrote back with something I will never forget:
"Grown men die too -- just in other ways."
It's something I think about and pray over often.
One of my favorite things about interacting with people here on the forum is that I'm always hoping that maybe it's making someone (including me) a little less lonely, if even for a moment.
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