I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33 (emphasis mine) I woke up to get ready to help my church with their online campus and I got my phone and walked downstairs. It was Sunday morning, June 12. It was about 9:15am. I had gone to sleep the night before around 11:30pm and had no … [Read more...]
Spectrum Overload
Last time I wrote about the rainy days. I know we all have them. Well, today, was one in a long sequence of rainy days. Symptoms Raging Just in case I'm tempted to forget that life is complex, my son reminds me by becoming obsessed with flushing the wipes down the toilet. Now, we live in an old farm house. Very old. The plumbing is old. Very old. It doesn't handle the flushing of normal … [Read more...]
How to Peacefully Raise and Release Your Special-Needs Child
I just texted these words to my 23-year old daughter who has autism. “Hi. I haven’t talked to you in a week. How are things?” Katie lives across town in a little house by herself. She loves it. It seems to be working for the whole family, but such a casual interaction with my child seems strange. It would be normal for a typical family, but I feel like I'm missing something. Reacting like a … [Read more...]
Thankful for the Disability Trenches
Nobody is thankful for the disability trenches. No thank you for wiping rear ends way past the expected age range or getting hair pulled out during a meltdown. I don't see the praises for IEPs that haven't really changed in years because the level of learning is pretty much the same year after year. And no Hallelujah for when high school is finished for the virtually unemployable. We only hear … [Read more...]
A Rain Day
For the first 20 years of my life, rain was something to be avoided. Not that rain wasn't a good thing, it just wasn't something human beings engaged. If the weather report said we were going to have rain all day, it was a day off from school. No, the schools didn't close, but it was as if they did, for both students and staff are likely to be missing. And this was warm rain, since the average … [Read more...]
“Fear Is a Lie From the Pit of Hell”
Those words were so unexpected that they knocked me off my feet. And, yet, I knew exactly what he meant. Without hesitation, I wrote them into my iPhone. I didn’t want to forget what Joel Houston, leader of the Christian band Hillsong UNITED, had just said. In sharing stories over the years with many, many parents of children with a disability, I’ve learned that fear is the one thing that holds … [Read more...]