Find Your Cause & Be An Advocate

"The hill you die upon."

I read that tonight in an article. At first I was confused. I'm not sure I love the delivery of the message, but as I continued reading, I realized it was a statement very applicable to my life right now.

You know how people say to pick your battles? Which issues do you believe are worth fighting over? In my marriage, friendships, and family relationships I let a lot of stuff slide… "like water on a duck's back," as my dad would say. But there are some things that I've realized I am waaaay too passionate about to let go of. Those are the issues I'm willing to fight about. Those are the hills I'm willing to do battle on and die on if necessary. No matter how tough the opposition, I will stand my ground.

Adoption is one of those issues.

I can't talk about this (or apparently type about this) without getting tears in my eyes. I educated myself about abortion oh, less than a year ago (maybe a year ago) and sobbed myself to sleep for a few nights. I'm not going to argue against it, but I will promote another option that I believe will get you a first class ticket to heaven. It hurts my heart to think of all the babies in this country being aborted every year and although I have the heart to love and adopt some of those children, I don't have enough love in my heart to adopt all of them. BUT! I DO believe there is enough love in this country to love all of them. So I will promote adoption to every person I talk to. Whether that's giving an unplanned or unwanted baby up for adoption or promoting adoption to each couple that wants to talk about family planning, you're gonna hear it from me and that's a soap box I'll never apologize for getting on. ;)

Autism, Down Syndrome, and other genetic/developmental mental or physical disorders are another.

I have never had direct experience with mentally or physically handicapped children or adults, but it seems everyone else in my life has. My best friend worked at a special needs preschool for years, my husband worked with special needs adults during college, and his whole family has been involved one way or another with mentally or physically handicapped individuals. When my husband's fraternity was starting out at USU, they were inspired to choose RODS as their philanthropy. RODS, Racing for Orphans with Down Syndrome, is an organization that raises money for families looking to adopt children with Down Syndrome from countries all over the world. (Children in second and third world countries that are born with mental disabilities are usually abandoned at birth and grow up in an orphanage so overwhelmed with special needs children that they are neglected and usually die at a very young age. If that's not enough to soften your heart then there's no hope for you. *wink*) When Jarvis and I were engaged I let him know that adoption was a passion of mine and that I had a goal to adopt one or more children into our family. He was 100% on board with it and asked that at least one of them come from the RODS organization. That was the beginning of our beautiful "dream family." Autism is also dear to my heart and I get heated when it's used as a reason not to vaccinate, as if having a child with autism is the worst possible thing that could happen to a child, worse than polio, measles, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella, mumps, tetanus, etc. I seriously could kill over an ignorant statement like that. (God, help me love my enemies.) I have caught on to the wonderful, loving spirit that mentally disabled children bring into their families and when my aunt announced that my cousin was diagnosed with mild/moderate autism, I was not at all surprised when my initial reaction was "How lucky. Their family has just been so, so blessed." Physically handicapped children also have some of the sweetest and most loving spirits. I have a cousin whose daughter has Spina Bifida and watching the emotional and physical struggles can be heartbreaking, but watching the triumphs is the most inspiring thing I've ever experienced. I would never wish that on anyone. It's up to God to give that trial/blessing to someone because He knows who has the strength to handle it. But boy, it sure seems like the blessings out-weigh the struggles sometimes. Through my experience watching family members, it's probably one of the most beautiful things one could experience in life, to associate with the mentally and physically handicapped. What a blessing!

And apparently, Agriculture is another cause I've become passionate about. (I can thank Jarvis and the Farm Bureau, specifically the Young Farmers and Ranchers organization, for that one.)

Where does our food come from? Farmers. Livestock. Production. And what would we do without it?… STARVE. So it blows my mind how our society (government and citizens) is smothering and fighting against the industry! The average farmer is over 50 years old and I don't know if you've noticed, but there aren't very many children hoping to grow up to be farmers or ranchers one day. Farmers are the only people that buy their supplies at retail cost, sell at wholesale, and pay the cost of shipping both ways. And then you have companies like Chipotle and Subway striking fear into people's hearts about safe food production procedures. Farming is a lose-lose-lose business and that needs to change. Between the years 2000 and 2050, our population will double and we will need to produce as much food as we did from the BEGINNING OF TIME up to the year 2000. We will not survive if our society keeps attacking farmers and ranchers for producing food in the safest and most cost effective way. And we won't survive unless people learn to get involved and become hobby farmers. Farm Bureau is a great organization that supports the career and hobby farmers and it promotes "agvocacy" to community and state leaders. People need to know about the issues facing the 21st century farmer and how they can help keep the industry alive. I knew nothing about Ag 2 years ago. And now I do. It's a great industry to be a part of so if you have any questions about how to get involved, text me!! I'd love to help you.

I've realized over the last year or so that I believe in being an advocate. That supporting a cause dear to my heart will be an incredible life work and one of the most satisfying uses of my time and my talents. Besides raising a large, loving family, I can't imagine anything more important.

So I've recently added to my list of priorities:

"being an active advocate for the issues I'm passionate about."

I'm so glad that these issues came to me in my younger years.

It'll be great to look back on my life when I'm super old and be proud of the things I fought for.