How To Take Action Against Injustice

 

We live in a world where injustice (or perceptions of it) is always in front of our faces, 24/7, flooding our veins with the adrenaline of a fighter with nothing to fight. Even before the internet (oh shush, you young whippersnappers) one of my pet peeves was the well-laid-out and long articles detailing a major problem, that ended with no way for me to contribute to a solution. Today we have our social media accounts to go gripe to, and the amount of shares and likes we receive count as the amount of difference we make in the world. But deep down, we know better.

There’s very little, it seems, that we can do about so many things, while so many things seem to be piling up. Yes, I see that injustice! What can I do? Tell me where to go. I’m ready. But no, we’re little peons with pocketknives for swords.

 

It may surprise you to know that Jesus’ times were full of injustices, too. I mean, slightly surprising. Because Jesus didn’t really talk about it, per say. But where humans exist, atrocities abound, and 33 A.D. was no different. There was sex-trafficking, rape, murder, and infanticide, and the unjustly accused dying. Jesus lived in an occupied country. And while those around him tried to trap him into talking politics on several occasions, He didn’t go for it. He did, however, address it.

 

Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.

…

Luke 6:20-22 (read also 23-26)

 

Jesus came to change hearts, not minds. We should do likewise. Starting with ourselves.

 

But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you… Luke 6:27-28 (read also the rest of the chapter)

 

“Oh, clickbait!” you say. “I wanted a way to take action!” I know. I’m telling you, be patient.

 

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I command? Luke 6:46

 

Jesus came to change hearts, not minds. Arguing on the internet or across the Thanksgiving table with Uncle Joe may be a favorite pastime for some people, but it’s spinning on a hamster wheel, even if you score a few points or some likes. What does it do? Change the heart, and the rest will follow. We have to start with our heart to make it ready, malleable, presentable. That can only be done through constant prayer and connection with our Lord and Savior.

 

Then, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” Ecclesiastes 9:10

 

We see all the big out there, and want to do big and change big, and stomp all over the small things that are front of us to do. Take care of your family, be kind, pray, get involved with local things.

 

You see, we are coming apart at the seams because we’re the seams. For some of us, whatever little thing in front of us doesn’t seem big enough, and it can get ignored for the desire of a nobler cause. Something falls apart that wasn’t supposed to.

 

So yes, that’s it. I know it seems unsatisfying to some. Read, pray, love, do what’s in front of you, this day, to do. Turn off the internet more often. Goodnight.

 

 

Don't miss: I Cordially Invite You To Sin Against Me

 

You’re just going to have to come see for yourself

“Ugh, I can’t explain it. You’re just going to have to come see for yourself.” Words we’ve said or had said to us several times in our lives when explanations fail and nothing but the experience will do.

This is how life should be lived. Not always balanced out in ledgers with pros and cons and risk management but with leaps of faith and “why not’s”.

I think about this now, after reading something once again that tells me that stress for a parent of a child with Autism stays at high alert pretty much forever. OK sure I’m 9 months post-diagnosis and still find myself saying “He wasn’t diagnosed very long ago,” for the mere fact that I feel like I’ve barely processed it yet. But is it too much to let me hope that it gets… easier? Even though I can’t see how right now?

I am however going through a divorce and recovering from various other not-directly-related-but-somewhat-related blows, so I may be a little sensitive to it all right now.

But I’m digressing slightly. Only slightly. The thing is, in times like this, I can’t help but think about my mindset when I decided to have a baby. I was 32, and life before then had been anything but calm and drama-free. I had in my early 20’s been told my chances of getting pregnant were basically nil. So I went through the whole process of grieving and accepting that I wasn’t going to have a child. Later I found I could get pregnant by the fact that I did, then miscarried. Then divorced. And went through a whole different but same process of accepting that being a mom wasn’t going to be in my future. Came to embrace it even. Being child-free meant being free to do other things.

So when I did meet, fall in love, and get married to someone who had a strong preference for having children, I was still on the fence about it. I’d say when it happened I was 60-40 and “If we’re going to do it we might as well do it now.”

It was the way things looked on paper that had me trepidatious. The costs and sacrifices being weighed with the ghost of an idea of loving someone so much they’d be worth the costs and sacrifices. I was never much a of coo-er over babies that didn’t belong to me somehow. I didn’t melt over other people’s children and wish I had one too. I just saw dirty diapers and snotty noses and screaming tantrums.

And these are the things I think of now. What I’d had on that “paper” was nothing – nothing – compared to the true costs and sacrifices. And if I would have known, I would have said NO. No way. Even had the rest been put on paper – his beautiful smiles, witty personality, what it feels like when he says “I love you, Mommy,” - I would have mistrusted myself for the sentimental twit I can be sometimes. No trustworthy message could have come with that price tag that I would have believed “and you’ll find it all worth it.”

I would have said “I think I’ll take option B and take my childless self to Hawaii now, which I may never see with option A.”

I would have never known the person I missed out on, the indescribable thing that goes beyond dirty diapers and snotty noses and germy race-car shopping carts. Beyond high needs and Autism and endless worry. Beyond every sacrifice I’ve made and thing I’ve lost that I would have never believed worth it.

I would have never known what I’d lost and that makes me thank God - THANK GOD that I didn’t know what I was sacrificing. 

The funny thing is, on paper many people would have said to me “If that’s the way you feel, you probably shouldn’t have children.” And it’s true that many probably shouldn’t, and do anyway. But you just never know sometimes what a person’s made of until they get there. Wherever there is for them.

I laugh because I’m only relating my own story and not trying to convince anyone to have children. Though I do think about those who have had abortions because they didn’t think they could pay the price demanded for a special needs child. The ones who did see it on paper. The ones who couldn’t imagine that the thing they sacrificed to preserve their own way of life would have, in just a few months, been the thing they would have gladly died for.

What would I say to someone who's on that fence? “The love, the joy, the anguish; it’s indescribable. It’s like- it’s like… You’re just going to have to come see for yourself. But it’s so worth it.”