My Boobs are Shrinking

My boobs are shrinking. In 14 months, I have had to change bra size three times and bras cost a freaking fortune. What do you mean $65.00? For a bra? Who made this? Is the wire gold? I can't afford these bras, BECAUSE I HAVE TO FEED MY BABY EXPENSIVE ORGANIC BABY FOOD BECAUSE I CANNOT MAKE MY OWN. I CANNOT EVEN DO IT. I CAN'T.

I wear the same bra almost every single day, because who can buy a new one and who can stand the cheap ones?

Sometimes I feel so helpless. My boobs are a small example of things I have no control over, but there are days when I have no idea what to do with my pain. At 4:30am, I couldn't sleep, so I read an article in the NY Times about a soldier, dismissed from the special forces, because he beat the crap out of an Afghan commander who had a young boy chained to his bed.

Please tell me what I am supposed to do with that? It's wrong on more than one level. Besides that a young boy is chained in a bedroom as a slave to a power hungry leader whose country's religion and infrastructure and culture supports his decisions, how is a person of integrity dismissed for standing up for the vulnerable? How is a man who has risked his life, given his blood, sweat and tears, dispensable to his leadership when his personal conviction for the treatment of people conflicts with his superiors desire to arm and train Afghan law enforcement to fight the Taliban? It's as if the underlying message is: "Don't do what's right. Do what we tell you. Don't ask. Don't tell. Don't think for yourself. Trust us." 

I feel so helpless.

When the photo of Aylan Kurdi went viral, I wept. I ached for his mother, who also lost her life, and her older son as well. What if photos of my sweet baby boy with his face in the sand, waves lapping into his mouth, housed themselves in news stories and social media feeds and the opinions of people we didn't even know? I am not suggesting we ignore the pain and crises, trafficking and refugees, poverty and greed, but writing this, I feel sick to my stomach about the images. Is there no limit to what we will consume?

Friend, I feel so helpless.

Plus, I've got my own self to deal with. Basically, our life for the last two years is the opening paragraph of Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Persevering through contrasting extremes has been painful, but our priorities are clear and our integrity is intact. Isn't that something a wild world will do for you - clear up some stuff and make you better in the process? For this I am grateful. I have learned that chaos provides wonderful opportunity.

Whatever you say lady. This mess don't look like opportunity to me. (Photo Cred - Mat Fretschel Photography)

I take great comfort in this: Helpless is not hopeless. We may be pressed on every side by trouble, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but we are not driven to despair. We may be hunted down, but God has not and will not abandon us. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. We may be losing our boobs (okay, I am losing my boobs), but we can choose our way forward together; we have hope for a new day.

Take courage, dear heart. Better things are coming.

"Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired." - Mother Teresa