Reality Check

I took the kids to beavers tonight, I have an impending cold, the kind that teases you for days before it really lets loose and parties in your head until you think it might actually blow your head up... I had a great coffee chat with a friend while the kids were in beavers and then I took the kids home and rushed them to bed so I could have time to myself... to feel sorry for myself with a kleenex in one hand and a warm lemon drink in the other. To 'entertain' myself I flipped on Netflix and picked a film called Blood Brother...

REALITY CHECK: I have first world problems.

This film is based on a true story about a guy named Rocky who went travelling as a tourist to India. While there he went to an orphanage and stay for a while getting to know the kids, after a set time he leaves to finish his travels but they all seem empty to him compared to those kids he'd left behind. He was faced with a decision. Adopt one? Forget them all? Become a part of their family and move to India.

These kids all have HIV/AIDS. He serves them with such love, unimaginable love, sacrificial love. There is one portion of the film that takes you through him caring over a sick child in hospital who he was sure was going to die. He worked tirelessly to make that child as comfortable as possible, to give him a 'special' death. The boy however lives to the amazement of all. He credits God, the doctors credit him.

I was so moved by the love in this film... especially in the world climate we are living in right now. There is so little love like this left it seems. Everyone is always 'picking a side' or being offended by a group, or hating based on bias, or killing in the name of religion, terrorizing millions of men, women and children... it's such a dark time.

Strokes me that we could all use a little bit more of this particular kind of love... it's the kind of love that moves people to change, the kind of love that offers hope, the kind of love that breaks down barriers and as in the case of that young boy... it's the kind of love that can save lives. It's the love that faces fear but does it anyway, it's the kind of love that is honest, painful, awe inspiring.

I see the suffering of the children living there; I think of our Hospital stays and the many comforts I miss as a result... and I am truly humbled. What we have seen, what we have gone through is absolutely NOTHING. It is, while hard and often scary, a first world problem. We walk around the streets of the cities we live in and we pass a millions blessings that we no longer see, maybe we never saw them to begin with because it's our way of life... Running water, nurses who cover us when we need a coffee, heck... even coffee makes the list of the thousands of things we take for granted every single day. Electricity? Wifi? Car? Ambulances when tragedy strikes? The list is endless, and we sit in our warm homes and complain about politics or how offended we are by Starbucks red cups...

I hope; I hope that one day someone can say that I loved well, that I was able to show love, that I will serve and serve sacrificially. That is my prayer, that I will choose love or selfishness.

I urge you to take the time to watch this film... BLOOD BROTHER... (on netflix) it was worth the hour something I spent for the eye opening.