When I saw it lying there in the middle of the living room floor, it stopped me in my tracks.
I staggered backwards a few steps and stood there. Stunned. As if words themselves seemed to escape me. Not even my thoughts could continue their trajectory.
Blazoned across the floor like a rude awakening, I couldn't help denying it any longer.
It's like when the love of your life begins to slip from your fingers and you begin to wonder:
Is it real anymore?
I mean--
It stood there, towering over me like a toppling avalanche about to bury me in a torrent, carrying me parsecs from everything I knew and held dear. It cried out to me with deafening demands. Mocking me, as if to say: go ahead. Try. Just try.
It was counting on me to succeed. As if I was strong enough. And I felt the pressure and need to be filled with more resolve than ever before.
Would I take the call?
Would I embrace the diaper that lay before me?
Here I was, left with nothing. Except for a desire that I could somehow disappear... no, I wanted to find myself launched into the cosmos, finding adventure before me at every turn. And instead, before me lay a diaper.
Smelly. Gut-wrenching. Awful.
A cloth diaper that needed to be washed.
And my hands were about to find themselves plunged into this mess. A mess that would only attach itself to me in a way that would never relinquish its grip.
Standing there before me was the haunting question, it comes as a beat under my feet, a rhythm down the street, the question that's begging an answer, and I want to arrest a steady stream of blank-faced spectators who would applaud my valiant efforts if only they existed.
But I was alone.
If only my imaginary audience would have been by my side. I wanted to inquire whether any of them knew. I wanted to run the streets in an attempt to accumulate an audience of my own. I wanted to run past people on park benches, peer into windows, and creep into people's living rooms and ask everyone: Why — why must I change this diaper?
Do you find yourself beaten down and unable to advance when faced with a task which towers over you?
In these cases, nothing is more important than to reach to a higher power and be filled with His love.
Love empowers.
Love decides.
What you're in love with gives you the strength to continue.
You can only change the diaper of the one you love.
When you change a diaper, you express love which in some small way reflects the incredible love which our Creator showered on us. And in the process of changing this diaper, you will fall in love with Him all over again. Fall in love with Him, above all others, along with the baby whose diaper you are changing. Fall in love with His great love and you will find yourself being held safely in His arms. And that diaper will find itself in the sink.
Fall in love with the One who gives you each and every day anew. Who gives you another breath to take. Who fills the sky with wonder and delight.
You have to fall in love because this is the only way to find the strength to continue.
Because — Love empowers.
And love isn't about having a crowd to cheer you on through those moments of facing a dirty diaper. It's about the sacrifice. It's about sacrificing for someone.
Love decides everything — which is another way of saying, sacrifice is the essence of life.
"and the life was the light of men"
Jesus expressed His love through His sacrifice.
We often speak of falling into love. Love is messy. But only after we allow ourselves to fall can we truly rise.
Go fall in love with His incredible grace. Go fall in love with the one One who has loved you to death... and back to life again... because the world is filled with diapers which must be changed. Our world needs change... but who is willing to step forward and be the catalyst which will set into motion the change that will shake the foundations of our world and bring healing to soiled souls?
Go out into the world. Read the news. Look at all of your friends who post on Facebook and appear as if their lives are neater than yours. And realize that they, too, have dirty diapers. And they need someone who is willing to come alongside them and provide change.
Real, lasting, meaningful change.
Fall in love. Stay in love. Sacrifice. Give of yourself.
Change.
Only when we arrive at this point will we ever reach our truest potential.