Are You in the River?

As one of our board members was seeking sponsorship for our first community fundraising event, one business owner handed back our mission statement and said "I can't support you.  I don't even know what this means!"  So in an attempt to make a little more clear our mission...I want to propose this thought....

Every day our children are laying their mission statements before us, and every day they are returned with "I can't support you.  I don't even know what this means!"

I want this to STOP!!!  I, myself, learned at a young age that I wasn't good enough just the way I was...that I must pretend to be something I wasn't to have friends and be accepted.  As a child I wanted to be accepted more than anything.  I wanted to be liked!  I knew I was loved very much by my family...but they were my family!  What was more important was that people that didn't know me would like me.  I have spent my whole life trying to fit in, be liked, be accepted...to the point of truly losing myself many times.  Until the point, while suffering through my son's illness, I was just a fragile shell of a person walking around through life.  It wasn't until recently when I finally had an awakening to this simple statement "It's okay to be me."  that I  found freedom.



I have two little boys.  My seven year old is a precious, sweet, intuitive, and sensitive little being.  This alone makes him unique.  He has lots of friends because he learns names very easily, and truly cares for others.  His mission is full of compassion and love for others.  I want him to be embraced.  I don't want him to be told "Toughen up!" or "Don't be so sensitive!".  These are the very qualities that make him so special and loved.  My five year old is different and doesn't "fit in" immediately because of his outward appearance.  He was born with one side of his face smaller than the other, one ear bigger than the other, and he has scoliosis because he had one of his lungs removed last fall.  His body is covered in scars from more than the 20 surgeries he has endured in his young life.  His mission is full of courage, perseverence, love, and surrender.  Sometimes he gets stares on the playground and grown-ups behind the check out counter ask me in front of him "What's wrong with him?"  Every time this happens he experiences rejection.  He experiences the statement in his heart "I can't support you. I don't know what you are!"

When will we stop staring at each other with our heads trying to make everything fit into categoreies, and start looking at one another from our hearts?  When will we start saying "Wow!  Look at you?  Look how different and unique you are!  Aren't you amazing?!  I bet your story is unbelievable!  Can I hear it?"

The River of Community Wholeness is flowing, but it has a lot of boulders in its path.  These boulders have stood their ground for a very, very long time...centuries....and they do not move.  But the River is finding it's way around them.  We want to find a way to accept our children's mission statements with love, and read them aloud in all their beauty, and marvel in them, stating "I support you.  You are not like me, but I marvel in you, and I will learn from you, and I will become more whole because of the unique way you see the world."

Right now the River in our community is flowing, but it is small...suffering from drought.  Are you willing to pour yourself into the river to make it flow more powerfully?  It is a very vulnerable feeling to crack yourself open and let your soul flow out, but the freedom you gain is amazing!  The shear force of the river will lift you up and carry you if you allow it the freedom to flow.

So are you in the River?  Are you a boulder blocking it's path?  Are you on the bank?  Not sure you want to surrender to its power?  Or are you in it?  Floating on your back, surrendering to all its twists and turns and power...allowing it to carry you to healing.

Here's the thing about being on the bank...it limits your sight and view.  And being a boulder in the river?  Well, life rushes by you while you stay there strong in your belief that you have control.  But if you are floating in the river, the River will take you places that you never see from the speeding highway.  It takes you places so beautiful you can't even imagine they are there.  They are hidden just waiting for you to notice as you  float by on your way to the source.

Angie Cross