The Road Not Chosen

It's The Little Things

After you've been parenting a special needs child for a few years a life rhythm seems to develop. Experience teaches you the best way to help your child. They become more of a known entity to you. In most situations you can tell how they are going to react and what you need to do to help them, if need be.

It isn't always the big, dramatic situations that take the highest toll on you & your child. Sometimes it can be as simple as a haircut, trimming nails or removing a bandage that causes tears to flow and little fists to pump the air in anger and fear. You take a deep breath and wade into the conflict, praying for God to give you the wisdom and insight to get done what needs to be done.

Evan's surgical bandage had to come off today. A large, thick, heavily taped bandage. For two hours he tried to muster the courage to take it off, talking to himself softly, encouraging himself that he could pull it off. He did not want our help, he wanted to do it himself.

Finally, Harold got him in the tub, to see if it would soak off. No, this was super tape, able to resist the warm, soapy water. Blood began to seep from beneath the bandage. Afraid that the incision sites had come open, Harold got Evan out of the tub, knowing the bandage had to come off quickly to see where the blood was coming from.

Evan fought, cried, terrified. Harold also cried to see his son in such anguish. They prayed together for God to come and help them. Then, with a quick movement, Evan suddenly grabbed a corner of the bandage and yanked. Out came hair, skin rose in red welts, but the bandage came off. The blood? It was from inside the thick bandage and released into the water when the bandage got wet. The wounds were scabbed & safe. They will heal faster, I'm afraid, than the heart of the father who had to get his son through this. Oh, and Evan? He is happy and peaceful, proud that he took the bandage off himself, not seeming to be upset by the mornings events.

Makes You Wonder

Found this on the Nearing Zero site. Gotta love a site with humorous science cartoons!

Surgery Update

We had a lovely sushi dinner last night after getting into the city where the hospital is. Evan & Harold had a nice swim & we went to bed early. After getting up and getting to the hospital at 5:45am, Evan went into surgery at 8am. Couldn't we have slept just a little longer people?!? He came through fine, it took over an hour. They weren't able to remove the piece of cartilage, which is quite large & attached to some tendons. They even tried to break it up ultrasonically. He will have to go back for a surgery where they actually cut him open to get that piece out. He will have that in about a month & it will require a couple days in the hospital and a longer recovery.

They were able to repair a small tear in his cartilage & the doc said the large piece of cartilage that needs to be remived probably grew from a small piece that broke off when the cartridge tore originally, whenever that was.

The good news is that his hip joint shows no sign of wear, so a hip replacement is a long way off. Speaking of off, I'm going to take a nap. Evan is snuggled in here at the hotel, contentedly watching cartoons & eating jello. He's quite the trooper!

Thanks to all for your prayers & thoughts.

Crunch Time

It's Tuesday, "In Other Words" day at Christian Women Online. I so wanted to write something about this week's quote:

"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few." ~Anne Lindbergh ~

Why didn't I? Well, Evan's hip surgery is Friday, it's a payroll week at work, there was a Parent's Meeting last night to get everyone on the same page for school, so... Who has time to be creative? I might have some quiet time this weekend while Evan is recovering so I may well write two "In Other Words" for next week. If you get a chance, scoot on over and see what the other ladies have to say.

For My Friends Who Are Like Me

           

Forgetfulness

                           

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.         Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate

It's Friday! Let's Party!

YOUR LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL (LIVE) (Hillsong)

Video Code provided by VideoCodeZone.Com

In Other Words

"When life whacks you so hard your head flies off, sew it back on and keep going." ~ Mary Pierce ~

There is this perception among some people that those of us who have special needs children are super parents. Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s special needs parent! Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall mounds of paperwork in a single bound. Right. That’s me.

I will now admit to a terrible personal failing: I only pretend to be that parent. I am an expert at looking brave, seemingly composed and capable in the face of sometimes overwhelming circumstances. Taking on incompetent medical personnel without breaking a sweat seems to others like something I was born able to do.

There are times when I am prideful enough to believe I can do it. Alone. That is when I usually get blindsided, knocked almost into next Tuesday, as my grandma used to say. And yes, my head does fly off. But I cannot sew it back on myself. I’d like to think I was capable of such a feat, but God in His mercy keeps me from doing it all myself.

Along comes my friend. Noticing that something is missing from me, she starts to look about until she finds the lost part. Picking it up, dusting it off, she takes out needle and thread made strong by the Word of God. Stitch by sometimes painful stitch, she patiently sews me back together. For good measure she pours oil over my head and it soaks into my skin, bringing healing and peace and joy.

Then and only then can I keep going in the strength that comes not from my own efforts, but strength that comes from being kept whole by the love and faithfulness of my friends and an Almighty God.

The Spirit of the Lord is on Me; because Jehovah has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to appoint to those who mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the mantle of praise for the spirit of heaviness; so that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:1 -3)

*This entry is part of the “In Other Words” meme sponsored every Tuesday by Christian Women Online. Please click the link below for more information and links to other entries.

Not Holding My Breath

I am a huge fan of "Clicked", on MSNBC's website. Will browses the web for a living (how can I get that job?!) and posts several times a week on what he has found there. Today's Clicked has a list of Christian women's blogs as compiled at Christian Women Online, and my blog is on their blogroll. Any guesses on what, if any, impact this will have on visitors to my site? Should be interesting. I'll be watching my stats out of curiosity....

Congratulations to Darlene Schacht and the ladies at CWO. What a great bit of press to have! The attention is well deserved as CWO is one of the best designed & well written websites for Christian women that I have ever seen. Go over and check it out if you haven't yet.

Come Visit Me

"Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself ." - Audrey Giorgi

Interesting quote, isn’t it? I certainly feel like I live at such a pace sometimes that I forget who I am. As the wife of a pastor, mother of a special needs teenager, and working mom, my days are often spent working my way through a “to-do list”. It’s payday & time to get the checks out as quickly as possible. Oh, wait, I need to find someone to watch Evan so Harold & I can go meet with somebody tonight. But wait, that means I’ll have to figure out when to get that laundry done. Guess I’ll throw it in before I leave for work, come home at lunch and put it in the dryer, and fold it before dinner. Rats! No milk, so I need to go to the store after work….

And it goes on and on. If I live like this for an extended season of time, my energy starts to ebb. Crankiness becomes my default mood. Caffeine consumption hits new levels. And soon I am really no better than a hamster on a treadmill and we all know how spiritual and productive they are!

What to do when my life resembles this? I put on the brakes before I smash into the wall I am rapidly approaching. If that means taking a morning off work so I can sit on the deck and watch the squirrels chase the blue jays, so be it! Call it a “mental health” day or an “I’m going to be sick soon if I don’t stop” day. Personal experience tells me that at some point if I don’t take care of myself it will be impossible for me to be of any real help to those around me.

A friend told me once that sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is nothing. It is in those moments of stillness that God comes and speaks. He tells me who I am and who He wants me to be. Softly the words come: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. “ (Jer. 29:11) That’s right! I almost forgot! My Father in Heaven loves me and has made provision for my life. It’s because He loves me and I stand before Him pure and spotless. Not because of my deeds and all the busyness of my life, but because I accepted the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

So won’t you excuse me? I have a date with myself for some iced tea and deck sitting. Talk to you soon!

Waste Some Time

Ooooh. I have found the most interesting waste of time. I use the Firefox browser (much more secure than Internet Explorer) and they have an add-in for your toolbar called "StumbleUpon!" This is a site where you register, tell them your interests and they direct you to various websites. If they send you to a site you don't like you click on a little thumbs down icon. This helps refine the choices. It has an adult content filter also, which is nice. I have spent too much time in the last couple of days doing this. However, the upside is that I have found a lot of really good sites for literature and bible study. Give it a shot and see what you think, You can access it from any browser, by the way.

Another wonderful waste of time for those of you who like to write is a site called OneWord. It gives you one word and 60 seconds to write anything containing the word. Wow, that really cleared out some cobwebs for me! It was a blast. There is also Poetc which gives you the chance to tack 10 words in 60 seconds onto an ongoing poem. (Caution: may contain some random profanity, I'm guessing!)

Let's see, there's also Famous Quotes which I can never get enough of, the Web Gallery of Art, which contains over 15,400 European paintings, and last but not least, Mr. Picasso Head, which let's those of us with no discernible artistic talent feel like we really could have been famous after all!

Have a great weekend!