'i could never do what you are doing.'

the statement above is said often to the parents of a child with special needs.  i hear it a lot.  let me share my most honest response to this comment.
today shilo had an appointment with an audiologist.  we had high hopes of getting her bone conduction hearing aids today, or at very least this week.  instead i heard conflicting thoughts with what the audiologist who did her initial hearing screens told us.  an hour and a half later we walked out of the audiologist office with a hungry little girl who still can't hear.
so tonight, i'm standing in the kitchen, looking forward to our upcoming vacation.  i had hoped.  i had dreamed.  i had envisioned two little girls in the back seat, both hearing the music we are playing in the car.  a whole week, together as a family, where shilo gets to hear us talking, and we get to enjoy the fact that she can hear.
we will go on vacation, and shilo will hear none of it.  so i stood in the kitchen.  alone.  crying.  my thought: i can't do this.  ironic, huh.  me, the one who is doing it, she often feels like she can't do it.  it's too much.  the emotional pain is unreal.  the aching for my daughters is beyond words.  the appointments. wear. me. out.  the fighting for things that i shouldn't have to fight for, sitting in hospital rooms, and the day in and day out things people don't even realize take place, i can't do it.
but you know what happens.  i do it.  i don't do it because i'm super human.  i don't do it because i somehow operate at a level of amazing you can't even imagine.  i do it because she's my daughter.  i do it because my love for her far outweighs my exhaustion.  and i do it because it needs to be done.
perhaps, some days, i have to die to myself more than you do.  this doesn't make me super mom.  it just does a much better job at pointing out my ugly selfish heart that has been living for itself for so long.  it also shows how amazingly one can operate when trying to walk by the grace of God.
so the next time you are talking to a parent and you think about saying 'i could never do what you are doing,' don't say it.  because you could do it.  you would do it.  and you would stand in the kitchen at the end of the long days, and cry, and say, i can't do this.

'Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.' Phillipians 4:13  (the message)