A song to make you cry

“How can you say there are too many children? that is like saying there are too many flowers in the garden of God.”

I listened to this song about ten times by watching the youtube video. I was crying, of course.

Danielle Rose is a familiar singer//song writer to me through my Godmother, of all people. Danielle is about my age, I’m sure we have friends in common through the small Catholic world. But I hadn’t heard of her until my Godmother gave me her music where she’s singing the rosary when I was in law school. My Godmother, God rest her soul, was an incredibly sassy and saintly woman. I miss her warmth no-BS approach to life and still listen to that sung rosary and think of her.

When I found out Danielle had gone to China to spread the word about this incredible group of people caring for abandoned disabled babies & children, my heart flooded with that warm love feeling. I’ve followed the work at Little Flower Projects for a few years now and their newsfeed on Facebook arrests my heart and my day when I see images of these beautiful babies and kids, being different, being loved. Being handicapped in China is a huge social stigma and abandoning your child who is is common, according to what I’ve read and heard from medical worker friends who’ve been there. Sigh.

I’d like to think our wonderful culture which is inclusive and offers so many medical treatments and opportunities is vastly different. Then I look at how many of us moms are erroneously warned our baby in utero is disabled and should be aborted, or how many of us moms feel we simply can’t handle it if our child is correctly diagnosed with some genetic disorder in utero, and are encouraged by those around us to not carry the baby to term.

I know I struggle with being afraid of one of my child being disabled, or chronically ill, or having a genetic disorder, or getting leukemia, or being permanently injured. What if we all believed that each child is a gift? Regardless of level of health? What about accepting our children for who they are and not who we want them to be? Another challenge for me and probably many of us.

Her line, which is a Blessed Mother Teresa quote, really resonates with me today: “Whoever receives a child in my name, receives Me.” May I be truly open to receiving the kids I have been given and hopefully will be given. Regardless of any of their unique attributes and personalities and life choices.