This is not a political post. Theoretically, I think I could have been alive in any era and still feel this way.
I’m also aware that this sentiment has a tendency to come across as self-righteous. I hope it doesn’t. I’m aware that I have my own problems and issues that need work.
But man. What is lacking cannot be counted.
It’s the homeless. It’s the two children riding in the back of a beat up car from the 1980’s, both parents in front who are obese and smoking. It’s the child with no friends. It’s the single mother who is working 60 hours a week at Waffle House. It’s the stray dog crossing the highway.
I don’t know how to emotionally remove myself from it. I don’t feel virtuous focusing on such things, but I feel less so by trying to willfully ignore them.
As some of you have read, there’s a significant chance I’m going to be a father in about 8 months. I think about my own childhood. Being different in a small town. Not having many friends. The loneliness and isolation that comes from your parents worrying about you but not understanding you well enough to actually help.
I was tough. I had to be. That’s how I survived. That’s how I made something of myself.
Will my kid have that same toughness, though? On one hand, I don’t want them to have to be. But I know if I don’t, the world will make them pay for it.
It’s so hard to follow Christ. I know there is no other way. But when you seek the mind of Christ, you realize the amount of suffering everyone goes through just by being alive. Your empathy levels go through the roof. Sometimes it feels like I’m about to be crushed under the weight of it.
I’m also aware that this sentiment has a tendency to come across as self-righteous. I hope it doesn’t. I’m aware that I have my own problems and issues that need work.
But man. What is lacking cannot be counted.
It’s the homeless. It’s the two children riding in the back of a beat up car from the 1980’s, both parents in front who are obese and smoking. It’s the child with no friends. It’s the single mother who is working 60 hours a week at Waffle House. It’s the stray dog crossing the highway.
I don’t know how to emotionally remove myself from it. I don’t feel virtuous focusing on such things, but I feel less so by trying to willfully ignore them.
As some of you have read, there’s a significant chance I’m going to be a father in about 8 months. I think about my own childhood. Being different in a small town. Not having many friends. The loneliness and isolation that comes from your parents worrying about you but not understanding you well enough to actually help.
I was tough. I had to be. That’s how I survived. That’s how I made something of myself.
Will my kid have that same toughness, though? On one hand, I don’t want them to have to be. But I know if I don’t, the world will make them pay for it.
It’s so hard to follow Christ. I know there is no other way. But when you seek the mind of Christ, you realize the amount of suffering everyone goes through just by being alive. Your empathy levels go through the roof. Sometimes it feels like I’m about to be crushed under the weight of it.
