It all began with a rush to the emergency room after school. I called friends from the car asking them to notify our church. I prayed that my triage at home was incorrect, that I was just being overly concerned. Unfortunately, testing revealed that my worries were well-founded. My son was having a life-threatening internal bleed in his hip area. He was hospitalized while a plan was formulated for … [Read more...]
Walking By Faith
A few weeks ago, we attended a friend’s wedding and had some time before the reception began. We drove by a park that I knew like the back of my hand. It was a place that only we knew, though it looked different now. It was a place where, on that warm and humid June evening more than three decades ago, my soul mate (Jan) and I swayed on those park swings. Planning our future together, forever. A … [Read more...]
Every Child Welcome: Cooking Up Special Needs Inclusion
Katie Wetherbee and I first met at a special needs ministry conference around 2010. She made a beeline to my book table and introduced herself. I attended Katie’s workshop and loved what she had to say. Before the end of the conference, we exchanged email addresses. We quickly became good friends. Maybe because we had a lot in common. We were both the parents of kids with special needs. We … [Read more...]
Stringing Others Along: Kantian or Christian?
Once, when our boys were young, I remember sitting at a table with my husband talking to a very wise Christian friend who was a School Psychologist. We were discussing how to encourage some positive improvements in our son's behavior. He pulled out a piece of string and put it on the table. "How can you move this string?" he asked. Then he showed us, "Well, if you push it, it will move forward—but … [Read more...]