I had a different post all typed up and ready to send today.  But, I'm going wayyyy out on a limb here and writing something more raw.  More vulnerable.  I'll send out the other post on Monday.

Today, I learned of a fellow BSF leader (unknown to me) who's baby girl is fighting for her life in a Children's ICU in SoCal.   Prayer requests are going out and God's Big Family is responding.  Me?  I'm a wreck.

Rowen, their curly-headed little girl, was sick with a "cold" two weeks ago, but it turns out it wasn't a cold.  She's got a really horrible heart issue.  Things are precarious.  As of today, she is intubated.  But like my experience, they do not yet have the sedation amounts adjusted correctly so she's alert and agitated, trying to communicate and not understanding what's going on.  Being a toddler doesn't help.It's all too much for me.  The memories of my own terror in ICU.  The emotions as a mom with a scary sick kid.  Memories of my own baby in the hospital fighting to breathe.  I'm feeling the stress of it in my bones.  I ache.

My friend, Megan, is also fighting for her life.  She's at a Lyme clinic a couple hours from home.  The crummy Lyme bugs have been playing havoc in her nervous system for the past several years.  Now, with these new intense treatments, the little buggers are going at it even harder.  For Megan, like me, nights are the worst.  We text each other, when she can, and I read her words but my mind gets confused.  She's saying the same words I said myself back in February and March.  It's scary. It's too personal. My mind won't stop circling between Megan's fears and my own.  I cry a lot.

Other friends, Craig and Jen, are fighting too.  Craig has lymphoma.  And six children.  They fight with faith.  But again, their battle feels like my own.

I know this is empathy.  But it's on a level I have never felt before.  And it's crushing me.  I feel their wounds deeply.  I want it to stop.  To feel compassion...Yes.  Concern...Yes.  To pray with hope and leave it in God's hands.  To be able to walk away.  But I can't.

Some trials in life change us.  They leave scars.  Scars that don't fade.  But maybe they shouldn't.  Maybe they become reminders of battles we've fought and battles we were willing to fight for others.  Maybe we move forward through life more apprehensively.  More scared.  But we keep moving forward.These emotions scare me.  They are more than I can handle.  But I trust that this is part of being alive.  With a God who is in control and can see how it all ends.  Who isn't ignoring the pain.  The scars.  I move forward with Him at my side.