Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1) These are the first words I read in my devotional book this morning as I sit on the beach, alone, disappointment hanging over me like a big, black cloud. I watch the waves ebb and flow, leaving rainbow-flecked foam in their wake. I want to give thanks to the Lord, but disappointment makes thanksgiving almost … [Read more...]
Loving our kids as we love ourselves?
People look at you and say, “I don’t know how you do it,” and you aren’t quite sure what they are talking about. You just did what was necessary. You learned about sensory integration, drug interactions, reflex integration, nutritional therapies, coffee enemas, methylation, verbal behavior training, brain gym, and a host of other things, just to help your child take one step forward... (excerpt … [Read more...]
The Sprinkled Blessings of Living with Autism
One snowy Saturday my fourteen-year-old son Joel and I bundled up to visit Janet, a friend just home from the hospital. Eight short weeks before, Janet had a stare-down with death and won. Joel didn’t really know Janet. She was an old friend of mine who lived out of town during much of his childhood. When she moved back to Cincinnati, we only saw each other once or twice a year. And yet, “Let’s … [Read more...]
Praise: God’s Antidote to Discouragement
Did you know there's an antidote to discouragement? And it works almost immediately, if we can only remember to pull it out of our spiritual tool kits and use it! What is it? Praise! Some of you may be thinking, Really? You don't know what our family is facing on a daily basis! I get it. Sometimes I feel like my prayers for healing within my family (autism, bipolar disorder, traumatic … [Read more...]
The White Noise of Disability
It’s my birthday. What do I want, you ask? A little peace and quiet. That’s all. I want the fighting to stop, and the doors to stop slamming, and the dogs to stop barking, and the hollering for “can you bring me up a whatever” to just cease for a blasted minute, because kids are loud, and ours are louder. They are a next-level kind of loud. The loud of special needs and mental illness that … [Read more...]
Help in a Flash
To every stranger that steps in, especially in such unexpected ways…Thank you! Max and I aren’t planning to go anywhere, exactly. It’s more that we’re planning to go everywhere. But now a days the criteria for doing so has changed. When I was a kid you could pack up your woodcarving tools, wheel them onto a 747, and whittle a spear mid-flight. But things are different now. The world is different … [Read more...]