“Two and one half years.
That’s the amount of time I have left until my son turns 18. Every time I think about it, terror grips my heart.”
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Understanding
My Christian Friends Who Have Left Church
I have seen your heartache. I know the person you are. You are people I dearly love, who I know have hearts of gold.
My heart cries out for you because of what you have been through!
This one has a child who is transgender.
Another was sexually assaulted by a man in authority and then told she deserved it.
Yet another, questions the very existence of God because of the many trials that they have gone through because why would a loving God put her through that?
Another just never felt close to God and no matter what he does, he feels nothing.
Oh, how my heart bleeds for you all!
I see your pain and anguish.
I don’t purport to know all the answers. I wish I did. I’ve had my own path to walk with things I have had to plead for help and understanding.
My path hasn’t been yours.
But with everything I have been through, with the answers I have found, this is what I know:
God knows the answers.
And even more than that, he understands.
I think one day when we are able to have a conversation in person with him, he’s going to clear up a lot of confusion for all of us. He’s going to know that one person dealt with life long depression which made it extremely difficult to feel his presence. He’s going to take that into account.
He’s knows the horrific experiences you went through and the effect they had on you. That you were blamed and told you deserved it. That for your own health you had to separate yourself from the church. I believe he has compassion and love for you and he’s going to understand that you did the very best you could.
Sometimes we get so caught up as Christians on things we think we are supposed to do, that we forget the core principal of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.
We forget that those who have made different choices than we have, deserve love and respect.
We want to grade someone else’s sins greater than our own, and regard them as less worthy. But we don’t get to make that call. Only God does.
So when all is said and done, and judgement is given, I think we’ll see a lot more of those people who left the church, unable to walk our traditional ways, with God. Even if I’m wrong, God says to love him and love others, so I’ll keep walking that path and keep reaching my hand out to you in friendship.
Just because you left the church doesn’t mean God, nor I have to leave you.
So we’ll be right here loving you.
Holding a Job and Being a Parent of Special Needs Child is Often Incompatible
“The first story I’ll tell you is that of a single mom. She recently discovered that her daughter had serious medical issues. All of her sick leave and vacation now go to time off for medical appointments. She has enough for this year, but next year, she will likely burn through that quickly. Vacations will now be a thing of the past while she desperately tries to balance working, being a mom, and the care of her sick child. She is lucky. She has worked with the company she works for, for over a year and therefore is eligible for the government program of FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act). This act protects her job and ensures she gets time off- though unpaid, to care for her child.”
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God Knows I Have A Lot To Learn
“HR wasn’t anything I was looking to get into, and I definitely wasn’t looking at manufacturing for a job. But every job that would have been perfect for me, that I could bring a lot of skills and knowledge to the job, or that would help in my continuing education? None of them worked out.
Instead, God brought me into a factory.”
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Making Lemonade Out of Lemons
My husband is away right now studying to become a EMT for his work. Something that normally takes 6 months to do, his job is squeezing it into 2 months. That’s a lot of medical info to learn in a short time.
The night before his first test we were on the phone and we did a couple of his practice tests together.
I discovered something.
I knew most of the answers or could reason them out. I’m pretty sure I could have passed his first test without studying at all.
Earlier in the week I was out to lunch with friends and one of the woman’s sons has recently had to have an ultrasound on his thyroid. Another woman’s child had to have X-rays on her torso. We were talking over their children’s results, and I was explaining some of the things.
I’m no doctor or nurse. I don’t begin to claim to give any medical recommendations. However after so many years, and hours upon hours in doctor’s offices, therapist’s offices, and testing facilities I’ve found I have picked up quite a bit.
If your child has to undergo X-rays weekly, then biweekly, and then monthly for an extended period of time, you’re going to start knowing what to look for. Because my son had had so many X-rays as a small child of his trunk with his gastro intestinal problems, I knew what I was looking at when we xrayed him to see how bad his scoliosis was recent. I didn’t know what the percentage of curvature was, but I knew where to look and what was what on the x-ray.
So I’m going to call all of this hard-won knowledge “lemonade”. All those lemons of medical issues for myself, and my family, has brought knowledge I can put to good use. Both for myself and others. I really believe that all knowledge gained can be put to good use.
Am I Allowed to Fail As A Mother?
As a mother,
As a person,
Am I allowed to fail?
Just once?
Only in one area?
Only on Tuesdays?
What are the rules?
Can someone please tell me?
I thought when we made it successfully through a school year last year, we were okay, despite the masks. This year, we made it 2 weeks into the school year before the High School shut down to quarantine all students.
Meanwhile, I’m back at work for the first time in 12 years and I’m getting emails from teachers complaining because my child isn’t logging on to the Zoom classes. He hasn’t had access to the internet except for school all week, but he doesn’t seem to care.
This week I have failed as a mother.
My child hasn’t gotten dressed and showered on time. Some days, I’m not sure he showered. His version of an essay is one sentence with zero punctuation this week. I’ve only looked at his work a couple times to check that he has done it. I work all day and have been working overtime to deal with our company’s response to COVID, and that is taxing. I’m single parenting because my husband’s away for a few months with this job undergoing training that is extremely stressful for him.
And so, I failed as a mother this week.
My kids have raided the fridge, wandered around in clothes that I’m not sure when they were last washed, with my son skipping school assignments he will have to make up later. Meanwhile, I’m getting upset texts from teachers and I might have bought all the Snickers bars from the vending machine at work.
This week, I failed as a mother.
But there’s always next week.
The Hard Work of Living With Anxiety
“Right now I am in a class for Psychological Pharmacology and I have never worked harder on any class in my life. I am not doing well. It’s my last semester so I can’t drop the class if I want to graduate. Last week I spent 6-8 hours a day studying and going to class just for this class. It’s affecting my work for my other classes.
And it’s affecting me.”
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Fear About Being Admitted to a Psych Unit
“Mental health is a scary issue for many people. There is so much stigma attached to many of the diagnoses. Adults frequently are afraid that they will lose their jobs if anyone finds out. This leads to not getting help, and not being able to talk to anyone about their mental health isolating them from the world. Which in turn, can lead to more mental health issues like depression and anxiety. ”
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COVID Is Changing The World For Families Like Mine In A Good Way
“. . .there is one bright spot in this COVID world that should have all of us with special needs family members rejoicing.”
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Hear Me Scream! We Are Different Despite Our Diagnoses
“. . .when we are talking to people with disabilities, we need to understand that just because we know they have one diagnosis, it does not mean that you understand what their unique issues and experiences are.”
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