Overwhelmed

The past month and a half has been absolutely crazy. Midterms, weddings, trips out of town, family events, birthdays, football games, and not to mention that little thing called graduate school, has me busy every minute of every day. 

However, I must admit that the sardine-packed schedule is not the only reason I haven't posted a real entry in about a month. There have been several times when I've sat down to write - mainly wanting to write about my practicum and the heavy things I come home with every day - but just haven't had the energy, or the desire to put these things into words. I think part of it is because putting it in words requires processing, and it requires me to sit here and not only talk about it, but really internalize it and think about it over and again. The reality is, when we're faced with problems that seem so incredibly large, it's much easier to "pretend" to process it and then resume our busy lives, rather than really let it take its full potential effect on our hearts.

Let me clarify - I LOVE my practicum. Love it. Love it so much that I think this might be the path I want to focus my career upon. But it's rough. So many of these children have to walk through life with none of the guidance or protection that children should have. No child of 11 should have to choose between buying a backpack or a shirt, joining a gang or getting beat to a pulp daily, or between playing outside or getting shot. They should not be able to speak matter-of-factly about the drug dealer who lives next door, their pregnancy scare, or the step-dad who abused them for years as a little girl. They should not have to think drunk parents, low expectations, dead siblings, or an education system that sets them up to fail are normal. They should not be walking through life undervalued, unwanted, or forgotten. But they are. 

It's so easy to forget that they are kids. It's too easy for society to label them "delinquents" or "hoodlums." But they're not, they're children. If I didn't have parents cheering me on every day, friends and family to tell me I could go to the moon if I wanted, or teachers who saw something and helped cultivate it, I wouldn't have succeeded. So why can we expect them to do the same? To just "get over" the obstacles that no child should even know exist? We can't. 

It's hard not to let these things get the best of us, to let ourselves think that there's no hope. These problems are big, and it's hard to think about them everyday, and I honestly don't know how people do it who don't have the promise of God's hope in mind every day when they go to work. But instead of pretending it doesn't affect us, we have to let it in, and we have to let it change us. And all we can do is pray, and all we can do is act, chipping away at the sadness and poking little holes in the darkness to let some light through for these kids. If enough of us do, maybe we can help, and maybe they can be kids again.