thoughts

It's been an emotional couple of days.  There's really no way to describe all I'm feeling...but I'll try.

Like those Hallmark commercials where the son comes home early at Christmas and surprises his mom with a card hidden in the tree, and she turns around and there he is.

Like an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition where this family---who's been through so much---is weepy and happy and overwhelmed by kindness, and then Ty gives all the kids scholarships.  And then John Mayer shows up to sing for them.

That kind of covers the positive end:  surprising, unconditional, unexplainable joy.

But it's mixed with another set of emotions.  

In many ways this trip is making me think about the BIG issues:

the systems in place that cause poverty

the injustice in the disparity of wealth on earth

the fact that I can't possibly help everyone, but that shouldn't stop me from doing what I can

Humbled and helpless and hopeful all at the same time.

But what helps, really, is knowing that in the moment I have a little kid in my arms, and I'm making him laugh with silly songs he doesn't understand, and he's making me laugh by repeating everything I say ["holla" was a particularly good one], I'm nowhere else but in that moment looking in his little eyes, and nothing else matters but LOVE.

It really is the greatest thing.