There are few things I can imagine that are as awfully precious as raising a damaged child with extraordinary needs.
It’s a great gift because I have the constant often-as-breath reminder that life is frail and immediate and full of unusual beauty. But it hurts like crazy because it’s full of defeat, loneliness and comparison too.
Look at those other families… look what they do with their time, their resources, and their kids. We don’t do things like that … can’t do things like that.
I wonder if they see we’re different.
I wonder if they care.
In a society full of perfect pins, pristine vistas, and filter upon filter, failure is an ever-choking tide – especially when your life paradigm is just getting everyone to the end of the day alive. A victory of epic proportions.
So what hill is worth dying on anyway?
Where do I need to go when I feel the differences in my family and myself so keenly?
Here: Christ and him crucified. Jesus loving me so much that he died to bring me hope – the real and best kind. This is my life filter – the only lens worth seeing through. Not what others think of me, but what HE thinks of me. Not how others raise their children, but what HIS GRACE in my life mirrors and shows for my own children.
So, pin that hope of love and grace in front of you, and pin yourself to it in the awful and precious alike.
Moment by moment.
September 3
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV
But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15, NLT