Don’t Give Up

Above us and around us—and sometimes even inside of us—thunderstorms are building.

Sometimes these storms may come from behind the closed doors of your doctor’s office, or on the other end of the phone line…or from your child with special needs.

I’ve spent almost 16-years years as a parent to a child with special needs.  More years than some of you. Not nearly as many as others who are reading this.

Being a parent on the special needs journey is proving true the words of Jesus that begin:

“In this world you will have trouble …” (Jn.16:33)

Will.

Not “might.”

Will.

Reading those words, you might be inclined to want to keep your doors locked, take your phone off the hook, and pull the covers up over your head in order to avoid the “trouble” that special needs will bring to your doorstep.

I’ve wanted to do that too.

But like you…I know that I cannot.

By embracing the special needs journey we find ourselves drafted into a battle:

• A battle to help our children make positive progress.
• A battle to keep our marriages from becoming too stressed.
• A battle to find the time to do ALL the things that need to get done … and that’s just today’s things.

And battles are exhausting—especially long ones. That’s why you’re often weary.

Most soldiers who experience the fierceness of combat want to get out of it.

That’s why you feel urges to escape or surrender. That’s why there are times you’re tempted to give up.

But don’t give up.

Don’t give up when you feel that deep soul weariness from long battles with persistent weaknesses.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9).

Don’t give up when your long prayed-for prayers have not yet been answered.

“And he told them [the parable of the persistent widow] to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.” (Luke 18:1).

Don’t give up when the fragmenting effect of multiple pressures seems relentless.

“But as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger…” (2 Corinthians 6:4-5).

Don’t give up when the field the Lord has assigned you to is hard and the harvest does not look promising:

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9)

Don’t give up when waiting on God seems endless.

“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:30-31)

Don’t…give…up.

—Michael Woods

PS:  God bless you and thank you for all that you do as a parent to a child with special needs.

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michael

Director Special Friends Ministry at First Baptist Orlando

Christ-follower, husband, dad, choco-holic, and peanut-butter lover! Mike is passionate about faith and special needs. He's happily married to his lovely wife Linda and is the father of three wonderful boys, all three of whom are on the autism spectrum (yes, all three!).

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