Keeping the Crazy Out

Perhaps blinders would be a good solution to the crazy that swirls around us every day. I wonder how we stay focused on anything when the crazy of this world threatens at every moment to derail us from our goals. Certainly, the crazy is very good at keeping us from knowing what our purpose in life is.

For many years I knew my purpose was to raise a son and daughter who loved God and loved others. I've done my best to - in the words of Jen Hatmaker – “over love and over value” my children their entire lives. I unabashedly affirm this way of parenting, because why ever would we want our children to feel anything less then absolutely and completely loved and valued!

Then my children grew into amazing adults and their dad and I were left on our own to figure out what our next purpose in life might be. Well, it took God about a nano second to drop that purpose into our laps, and I'm so grateful. I get to be every day friends with Congolese refugees living in Boise. I get to love them and share my life, share my home, teach them to read, talk about God with them, play games with them, teach a dozen kids how to swim, mentor the older ones into college and just plain love them. It’s not complicated, but it is busy and I do sleep well at night.

Still, every day life attempts to pull me off course. The crazy of this world is constantly at war with what I know to be my purpose.  Sometimes I read the news or scroll through Twitter or Facebook and I'm overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. There is such hate, such poverty, such fear, such violence.

And if that weren’t enough, there is the ridiculousness that is politics today. The truth no longer matters much. All that matters is my opinion, and if I keep saying it often enough, you will start to believe it. How fun. Except no.

Sometimes I sit in frustrated despair wondering what is the point. Everything is so awful. People are so horrible to each other. Life is a hamster wheel spinning and spinning and going nowhere. We are all so broken.

It is when the crazy threatens to overwhelm me, that I remind myself to stay focused. Face forward, always moving into my purpose. Do not be distracted by the crazy. This is what keeps me from being overwhelmed by the evil and stupidity this world daily throws at us. I keep my eyes on David and Simbi and Beatrice and Kamana and Justin and Celestin and James and Fabrice and Gedeon and Giselle and so many, many others whose lives I can really change, whose lives I have seen change. I keep doing the next thing. And then the next thing. And then the next thing.

And I carry on. Because I can change this world.