The writing I do here usually wells up one of two ways – it gushes out in a burst as I sit down at the keyboard, or it bounces around my brain for a few days like a pinball, picking up form and theme at every flipper and developing into a coherent thought until it flows through my fingers.

This is a pinball post, and the plunger that started it all was an insert in our bulletin at church on Sunday. It talked about how freely God gives to us, and how he asks us to do the same. We are to give of ourselves; our time, our resources, our energy without hesitation and simply because we have been shown how in the perfect example of our heavenly Father. I thought of a favorite phrase, “you can’t out-give God”. The insert elaborated on my phrase, discussing how we receive so much back when we give, and how the circle continues as long as we continue to open ourselves without hesitation. I believe this completely in my faith, and have seen it to be ultimately true in my life time after time.

And then this blog entry began bouncing around in my mind. (If my mind were a pinball machine, what would be the backglass? Flashing lights, buzzers and dings around a pile of books? A slow-moving western pleasure horse? A spinning dauchund? Methinks I might be too boring for backglass, but I digress…) The post I started with was one that has been written a hundred times by others, but I needed to write it too. I needed all of you to hear it from ME. About how I feel like I give so little to my friends, my family, the internets and then I keep getting SO MUCH BACK. I know this isn’t as important as faith and my relationship with God, it’s like comparing a splinter to giving birth, but there are parallels. Because folks? I’m learning I can’t out-give the internets. I learned in one short week that I couldn’t out-give the people in our lives and the network I never knew existed. The CarePage for Joel blew me out of the water. The quantity of people who showed up for us when Joel was in the hospital is staggering. The prayers lifted on our behalf stun me to this day. I gave almost nothing, a few words, a lifetime of friendships and relationships where I could have done so much more and when things fell apart we were absolutely flooded with love. I’ve been trying to flood back ever since, being a better friend, family member, trying to give more – I know I can. I’ll spend the rest of my life giving more because I was shown how by so many I never even knew.

And now the internets. Where I gave a little piece of my heart when her babies were lost, and hers was suddenly gone and hers came and left too quickly. And I said a few words when she hurt and when she was a hero (A baby on the stairs? Really? Still a hero.) and when she made me laugh. A little.  A little time, a little piece of my heart, a little word here and there.
But I can’t out-give the internet. I haven’t made it a secret that this week has been dark. Something crashed, collapsed, disintegrated, and I am struggling in a way that hasn’t happened since I sat in a NICU, bewildered and broken. I was making it work and now I can’t. I’m broken all over again.

And the little bit I have given is pouring back over me in waves. The internets won’t be out-given. This great big ocean isn’t swallowing me up, it’s lifting me in waves, washing cool water over my tearstained face with every comment, every email, every new soul who stops by and says, “I hurt for you”. So whatever it is that I give you here with my trifling words and my insufficient emails, know that what you give me back is so much bigger. And needed. And treasured. It is proof that giving oneself can never be wrong. And that is a joyful thing, even when I am drowning in sorrow.