No matter how bad things may seem, they can always be worse. And no matter how bad you think your life is, there is somebody that has it worse off than you.
Please take a moment and reread those first two sentences. Now stop and think about those sentences for a minute. I think we’ve all had moments when something bad happened and we’ve wondered “can it get any worse than this?” I know I have had plenty of those moments. I have also had plenty of times that I’ve said my life sucks. After James was born, I felt both of these things.
When you or your significant other is pregnant, you picture what life is going to be like after your child is born. You wonder what they will be like, or which one of you they will look like. You wonder if they will be into sports and cars like you were. You picture them running around in your back yard or playing in the sandbox. And then BAM, you realize that they will probably never be able to do the things you did as a kid.
I’ll admit that I was pretty devastated when James was born. Everything that I pictured in my head…gone. All of the hopes and dreams I had for him…gone. “No matter how bad things may seem, they can always be worse.” James will probably never be able to play sports, run around the back yard, ride a bike, or do any of the things a normal kid will do. But you know what? He’s alive. Sure, he will more than likely need medical care for the rest of his life, but he is alive. There are many babies that don’t make it through the pregnancy. Did you know that 10 to 15 percent of pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage (baby dies in in the womb before 20 weeks of pregnancy)? Or that around 24,000 babies are stillborn (loss of a baby after 20 weeks of pregnancy) every year in the United States?
“No matter how bad you think your life is, there is somebody that has it worse off than you.” I don’t think I need to tell you that our lives have been pretty rough since James was born. There have been a lot of ups and downs. Some days it feels like more downs than ups. We’re learning to take one day at a time, one problem at a time. Sometimes it is overwhelming. Sometimes we just want to break down and cry. And sometimes we do. But we know that there are people out there that have it worse off than us. Just as an example, I know that there are children out there that have a terminal illness. I could not imagine being a parent of a child that was dying. If you are asking yourself, “well, how do you get worse than watching your child die”, at least they had a chance to hold their child before they died. Stacy and I didn’t get that chance when we lost our first son, Jackson. He had Trisomy 18 and passed away before he was born.
So you see, no matter how bad things may seem, they can always be worse, and no matter how bad you think your life is, there is somebody that has it worse off than you. Remember that.