This week, I travel across the country to She Speaks, to press into my dream of writing a book. In the program, we’ll each share our story. This is part of mine – and I’m excited to share it with you, my fellow parents-in-the-trenches of special needs.
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“Curiosity is …another name for Hope.” ~Augustus William Hare
It’s probably why I’ve always been a curious person… I’ve always craved hope.
Raised in a single parent home with a mom with a disability, I worried constantly: Would we have what we need? Would we have enough food for school lunches? Would she remember to pick me up from school? Would I need to lie about what she struggled with again?
That messes with your mind, friends.
I thought after years of therapy, I was okay. Then my husband and I brought home two foster kids. Our future daughters. Sisters who needed a family. Six months after their adoption finalized, they were both diagnosed with the same condition as my mom.
My world collapsed. Another lifetime in a home with this SAME challenge? REALLY, GOD?!
I wanted to run. To scream and break all the dishes in my kitchen cabinet. (I did a little of all that!) But mostly, I pulled inward. I just couldn’t do it again – this life with an emotional juggernaut in my home.
Fortunately, my curiosity – and the hope it brings – came back for me on one of my darkest nights. You see, I’ve always loved to find treasures in the shadows of well-known Bible verses. One of my favorites is John 3:17.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
That night, after a full day dealing with my girls intense special needs, I lay still on my bed, hiding in the dark. I grieved my life – the family that was NOT what I’d wanted. The words of this shadow verse pressed in on me as tears streamed hot from my eyes.
I could almost hear His voice: This time, you are not helpless.
I choked. Wept. Curled up like an infant. I had been helpless as a child against my nemesis – the disability my mom battled so long. I became a rescuer, a liar, a perfectionist… trying so hard to manage and pin down the whirlwind. To raise my own mother. I could never do it.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
93 times in scripture the word “to save” means save as we’d recognize it… to save from danger, destruction, etc. But it many other places it also means to help, heal, restore… make whole.
For me that night, the verse read “…but so the world, through Him, might BE HEALED.”
Now, I have 4 kids… I’m an expert in boo-boos and band-aids. To heal a wound requires 2 things: cleaning it out (read: OUCH) and protecting it as it becomes whole again. Internal healing isn’t as straightforward. It hurts and protects all at once!
I wrestled with the thought again: With THEM you are not helpless.
Yes I am! I protested.
But then the truth pressed on me so hard I could almost feel it as I lay there: Let me show you how to be strong in ME in this. You are not the child this time. You are a woman whose life is in the hands of Almighty God, Addonai, who will both care for and fiercely protect you as you raise your girls. This time you are ok. This time, you are safe.
That moment, a former object of curiosity – a shadow verse – ushered in the biggest do-over of my life. In decades of counseling and learning to live whole I’d still floundered and felt helpless. To heal from this one I had to enter it again. He’d brought me face-to-face with the challenge I feared most so He could redeem it all.
You may or may not share my faith, but perhaps you’ve experienced a moment like this in your own journey as a special needs parent. When was it for you – that moment you knew that no matter how hard it was, it was somehow all going to be okay?
Hugs,