In about one hour from now, one of mine and my son’s favorite artists will be getting on stage for a concert in my hometown. The wheel chair accessible tickets my mom purchased for us to enjoy are being used by someone else. Someone else will enjoy the concert and hear the beautiful music that my son and I sing along to in the car. And that is life.

I have missed a great deal of events in my lifetime as a special needs mother. I missed the opportunity to stand beside my best friend as her bridesmaid at her wedding because I was pregnant and needed to be close enough to the hospital in case the baby came sooner than we planned and needed the Level III NICU. I missed attending the wedding of another childhood friend because my son had already been born and was two months in to his seven month stay in that Level III NICU. I’ve missed countless birthday parties, sporting events, dinners, you name it….I probably flaked out on it. It’s not you, it’s me.

More recently, I have just this week canceled an upcoming weekend at Spina Bifida Family Camp, tonight’s concert in my hometown, and most likely we’ll be completely reworking a family vacation we have saved for and planned for over the last 18 months. But none of those events are my number one priority. Serving Hayden and making sure he is healthy and safe is the job I have been called to.

I know caring for Hayden, and my other boys, is my calling. That is not something I have any doubt about at all. I know it’s a calling because God has equipped me for that purpose. The old me, before Hayden, would never have been able to endure and manage the life I lead now. That is how I know it is divinely appointed and orchestrated by God. He equipped me to fulfill His purpose and to use this life and Hayden’s precious life as a beautiful platform to share His love for Hayden, for me, for you. The old me would have loved to roll over, play dead and offer to the world every pity card I could dig out of my back pocket. “Is this fair?” “Why me?” “I don’t deserve this!” “What kind of life is this for Hayden?”

But God made a new me. By offering up His son, Jesus. Jesus went through something not fair that He didn’t deserve so that Hayden and the entire world could have a beautiful life. Jesus bore all of our sins so that we could be made new. And I completely trust in that gift. My number one priority is serving Hayden and my children. The most important thing I could ever do for my children is show them the One who gives life its purpose.

I hope that tonight, in Longview, Texas, Francesca Battistelli sings the words that bring me to tears every time I listen to them.

“Now I’m filled by a love that calls me to action
I was empty before, now I’m drawn to compassion
And to give myself away