"Know Thyself"

"Focus on your life and your teaching. Continue to do what I’ve told you. If you do this, you will save yourself and those who hear you."

~ 1 Timothy 4:16, GW ~

There is an ancient Greek adage that is also consistent with biblical teaching:  "Know Thyself".  From the time Adam disobeyed God through the letters Paul wrote to various churches, we see the topic of self-awareness addressed in God's word.  While it may sound like a bunch of psychological fluff, this concept can end up being a very helpful tool to parents raising children with special needs. 

Self-knowledge can be incredibly important in helping a parent to cope with the daily demands of caring for a child with any sort of diagnosis.  I make no secret of the fact that I am a huge fan of the Boundaries books by Drs Henry Cloud and John Townsend.  One lesson they teach in their book is that we all have limitations.  Knowing where those limitations lay is key to keeping others from pushing us too far.  Personal awareness keeps us functioning at healthy level without others or circumstances continually exerting inappropriate control over us.

Some areas of life where a parent might really want to know themselves, especially when they are responsible for a child with unique abilities can include understanding:

1. What is acceptable and unacceptable in the context of my personal faith?
2. What are my expectations of medical treatment?
3. How do I feel physically, spiritually and emotionally after having a school IEP or 504 meeting?
4. What are the things that make me particularly cranky?
5. When do I reach my tipping point?
6. Where do I feel closest to God?
7. What types of things refresh me when I feel depleted?
8. Which situations with my child(ren) are the biggest stressors on my marriage?
9. How do I best identify resources?
10. What helps me the most when I am in a crisis?

These may seem like relatively inane questions in the big scheme of life, but in fact, they are truly powerful reflections.  For example, my child recently faced an unexpected hospitalization.  Knowing that I am particularly vulnerable and exhausted after any hospitalization, I was able to cancel all meetings or responsibilities for the next 48 hours after a discharge, so I was able to adequately recover.  I allow myself that period of time in order to return back to a functional state, otherwise, I am at great risk for losing my temper, making poor decisions or taking on more than I can handle.  I usually also run a lighter schedule for the next month after a hospital stay to allow more wiggle time for follow-up doctor's appointments, family emotional recovery or even catching up with household chores and projects.

The point is, we do neither ourselves nor our family's much good if we are not keenly aware of what our limitations are, and how to adapt to those natural limitations.  Continuing to drive ourselves in an unreasonable way after major stress points in raising our children will only serve to multiply our problems and decrease our effectiveness.  Following through with that neighborhood party the weekend after a hospital discharge may not be a good option for you.  Hosting Bible study at your house the evening after (or before) an IEP might be a recipe for family conflict.  Be sensitive to such things is critical.  These are healthy insights that help us thrive in spite of the additional challenges our family may face.

Of course, God's word does remind us that, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9, NIV).  This makes input from others important too.  Filter what others say, but note if you see a pattern to anything friends, family or coworkers are saying to you.  If many of them note that you seem overly tired at a given time, pay attention to when that occurs.  It is certainly not uncommon for personal pride to set in and for we silly humans to think we are capable when we are actually depleted.  Feedback from those who have proven themselves most trustworthy in our lives can be invaluable in gaining self-awareness.

Let me close our time together by saying that I write to you from a place of personal recovery.  I am always in peril of biting off more than I can chew.  What I have learned is that we are all vulnerable to overdoing it now and again, even when we have established good boundaries.  Being ever-mindful of the importance of self-knowledge will help us work our way back to a place of personal well-being when we stumble. 

PRAY:  Lord, You know me even better than I know myself.  Reveal to me those places where I need to make room to recover from the challenges that face me in parenting a child with special needs.  Help me to face my weaknesses with courage.  Go before me in repairing any damage I may do in my clumsiness, and teach me to alter my habits so that I heal rather than hurt in the days ahead.

Photo Image Courtesy of 123RF

For The Dad Who Takes No Delight In Father’s Day

~ by guest blogger, John P. Knight ~

 

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13, ESV)

 

If you’re a man reading this blog, you’re probably a dad of a child with a disability.  And if you’re like most of us dads, you didn’t choose this life. I’m guessing it is harder than anything you’ve ever experienced before.

You’re not alone.

I remember feeling alone, especially in those early months.  Nobody understood what it was really like, it seemed.  A social worker invited us to a parent meeting and that was even worse – they understood, but they were all so sad or angry or resigned to life. We didn’t go back to that parent group.

Those were dark days, made even darker when I realized the doctors and specialists and educators thought dads were mostly there as a checkbook and an insurance card.

And Father’s Day?  All those happy images of dads playing ball with their sons or fishing or just enjoying each other’s company certainly didn’t apply to my situation.

But God gave me a gift that I wasn’t asking for.  His name was Karl. 

He wasn’t a dad of a disabled child; he was ‘just’ a godly man.  There was nothing I could do or say that could stop him from having a positive regard for me, and I certainly tried to stop him.  He confounded me with his confidence in this horrible God who had done such a cruel thing to me as to give me a child with multiple disabilities.  He confused me with his love for me and for my family.  His entire family behaved the same way.

His hope in God was so unshakable in the face of all my contrary evidence that I wanted to be in his presence.

Then God crushed me by giving me a glimpse of my sin.  For the first time I knew that my son’s disabilities were not my primary problem – my sin was killing me and would keep me from God for eternity.

But for Jesus.

In faith I grabbed hold of Jesus as my righteousness and desperately wanted to know more about him.  In hindsight, I can see that it was all part of God’s plan to use my son to change me, to help me see that my sad, small, proud life was leading me to wasting my life here and an eternity of pain forever.

God also opened my eyes to all the men around me who loved me.  My father had been the first to really understand the value of my son.  My pastors never gave up on my when I had entirely rejected God and his people.

I met other men who shared just two things with me – they parented a child with a disability and they believed Jesus was their source of hope and joy.  All the other differences between us melted away.  Economics, ethnicity, educational background, geography, age – none of it mattered in light of our common experience of being held by God in Christ and living this life of disability.

Something even stranger happened.  These ‘as sorrowful yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10)’ men who had been at this longer than I have seemed to know that my sadness at yet another hard circumstance was not permanent or evidence of doubt, and they would encourage me.  They also had been given insight into when sin, like bitterness or anxiety, was starting to take root, and they would exhort me and equip me to fight even as they fought for me.

And the fierce, frightening passions of young dads new to disability didn’t frighten me.  I know the flames they are walking through, and I know the Savior who can help them is very big and very strong.

Maybe the strangest thing of all – joy rises out of the depths of the sorrows related to disability.  New, masculine affections emerge that make both laughter and tears come quickly.  The pain is real and the joy is real. We know our King does all things well, even in the hardest of circumstances.

God has promised to supply every need of ours (Philippian 4:19) and in my life that has frequently been other godly men.

If you’re trying to do this life of disability alone, please stop, for your own sake as well as for your child with a disability, your other children, and your children’s mother.  Ask God to help you find godly men who will walk with you and help you. If you’ve been disappointed in how some men have behaved toward you, if you have felt abandoned even by your church, remember that only God is perfect and only he will never disappoint you.  Trust him to supply what you need.

And someday we’ll truly understand that this hard life was just a precursor to something beyond our imaginations:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, ESV)

 

PRAY:  Lord, for the dad who takes no delight in Father’s Day today because of his child’s disability, please awaken him to the reality of your incredible goodness and mercy and strength.  Give him a man who will encourage and exhort and love him as Jesus taught us to love.  For the dad who lives in the joy of his new birth in Christ, give him eyes to see the man who needs a masculine, hope-filled, God-centered brother, and then equip him with the wisdom to truly help in ways that give life and hope.  Please, Father, show your awesome capacities to provide peace where there is no peace, and hope where despair has reigned too long, for the sake of your great name and the hope of those you call from death to life.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

John Knight is married to Dianne and together they parent their four children: Paul, Hannah, Daniel, and Johnny. Paul lives with multiple disabilities including blindness, autism, cognitive impairments and a seizure disorder. John is Director of Donor Partnerships at Desiring God and occasionally contributes to their blog on issues of disability. He also blogs on disability, the Bible, and the church at The Works of God.

Photo Image Courtesy of: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Normal? What Is This Normal You Speak Of?

What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.

~ Ecclesiastes 1:9, NIV ~ 

Year ago, four of us gals from the neighborhood sat together enjoying dinner and sipping wine.  We chatted about the latest goings-on around us.  How were we decorating our homes?  What was the next trip one of them was taking?  How were the kids doing?

I shared news of another mom with whom we were all acquainted, and the current trials which she was enduring.  I connected with this mom to support her.  The others sat stunned as I described what this acquaintance faced.

"Why don't you ever hang around with anyone normal?", one of the women queried.  

"Normal?", I said.  "Who is normal?"

"Well, like people like US!", the neighbor shot back.

It didn't take many more months with a complicated friend like me and my family for the neighbors to all decide that we were not worthy of their company.  Our son's health crises were not "normal".  Our youngest daughter's behaviors were not "normal".  My husband's trials of being "right-sized" multiple times in 5 years were not "normal".  We were too complicated and uncomfortable for them to be around.  It took too much work, in their minds, to be our friends.

Yet, "there is nothing new under the sun."  These neighbors failed to realize that we are certainly not the only family to live through these difficulties, and even worse.  And truthfully, there is no life without challenges or struggles.  While others may be uncomfortable with our adversity, we may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with theirs.  But life goes on and it is richer when we support one another through these times.

While there are so many times our family has craved that sense of "normalcy", where hospital stays, financial crises, and social struggles aren't wearing us down, we know we're probably chasing after something that doesn't exist.  Instead, in our efforts to cope with things that only God is strong enough to bear we joke, "Normal?  What is this normal you speak of?"  

"Normal is just a setting on your dryer!" quips Christian author and speaker, Patsy Clairmont.  

She is probably right.  Besides, our family has decided that "normal" is probably rather boring.

PRAY:  Lord, because we do not walk the "normal" road, help our hearts to always be sensitive to the challenges and difficulties of life, which everyone eventually faces.  May the compassion You have poured on us overflow to others.

I Miss the Flowers

Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.

~ Song of Songs 2:12, NIV ~

Digging in the dirt is therapy for me.

Perhaps it became habitual under the strict demands of my mother when I was a girl.  Pulling weeds and gardening were an unenviable part of my regular chores.  Oh, how angry I was at being expected to unearth every blade of grass from that white crushed stone driveway with a simple, two-pronged weed pulling tool.  Other kids were out having fun while I was expected to get back in the family vegetable bed weeding or harvesting.  I swore I would never have a garden when I became an adult, just so I wouldn't have to spend another minute on my knees doing that thankless work.

Of course, adulthood often finds us in a different place than we imagine when we're young.  My adult relationship to the garden proved that to be true.  While I dreaded thoughts of the work in my youth, I craved the beautiful flowers and rich produce that only come from tending ones own garden.  Every year possible in my adulthood, I have planned and planted a lovely assortment of flowers to cheer throughout the warm weather months.  The assortment of shapes and colors feed my soul.  I couldn't imagine a year without flowers -- Until last year.

The amount of work required to remove all of the weeds, plant all of the beds, water, tend and maintain them was more than I could handle after just seeing a child through a hospitalization.  I barely had time to deal with all of the enormous stress involved with a child who was once fully ambulatory, but who now had to attend a month of school in a wheelchair with additional precautions.  We had a homecare doctor visiting us once a week to maintain our son's PICC line who was also trying to coax him into learning to self-infuse.  With life centered around our son's health, there wasn't time for much else.  The flower beds sat fallow.

Sadly, this year wasn't much different.  This time it was our youngest daughter's turn to have a hospitalization and medical struggles.  If the sleeplessness of being up with her round the clock didn't preclude planting flowers this spring, the cost of her medical bills certainly did.  As a passenger comforting my child through the multiple drives to and from the hospital, I gazed longingly out the car window at homes coming alive with floral color thinking to myself, I miss the flowers.  

Times like these nag at our hearts as parents of children with special needs.  We can almost adapt to the fact that others are going on dates, and shopping trips, and vacations that we can never take.  But then those differences are suddenly punctuated by something that might seem quite ordinary to others -- like flowers, and isolation wounds the heart.  In my saddest, loneliest hours, I find I miss so much.  

Still, the Creator is calling me to tend much more than a garden that blooms today and fades tomorrow.  I am beckoned to that selfless love of nurturing these three remarkable human beings.  God has blessed me richly with the great honor of parenting these kids.  Each has a unique, vivacious personality that is all their own, which needs to be fertilized, encouraged and weeded around.  And I thank the Lord that I have a close, warm bond with each of them.  How many private smiles I get as I watch them flourish and grow season after season.  

I may be lonely in the darkest hours of tending my precious garden of children, but at least that soil is filled with the closeness of common experience, love and a heavenward focus.  Hope blooms here.  There are so many who would give anything to be able to say that.  Even flowers. 

PRAY:  Lord, create in me a heart that is thankful for what I have rather than dissatisfied by what I do not have.  Every perfect gift is from You.  Make me worthy of each blessing you see fit to pour out on me.