Delays, Dreams and Destiny

It’s been nearly seven weeks since I’ve written a post. I guess it’s kind of been like a long night of the soul. I just couldn’t bring myself to write for whatever reason. Uninspired, maybe. A little stuck. A lot stuck. Yet, at the same time, going deeper in this spiritual quest I’m on. I’ve been doing some reading, some journaling, a lot of praying. In the meantime, my blog has sat collecting dust. Perhaps Facebook and its bite-sized morsels of the beautifully mundane and funny, and the endless volleying of daily autism news via bulldog autism moms has filled a little bit of a void that this blog initially provided for me.

But I’m not quitting on my blog! Far from it. I’m just realizing more of my place amongst all of the voices of parents crying out for advice, for justice, for hope, for answers in this autism quagmire. Perhaps it’s a lonely niche I’m feeling led to because it’s largely spiritual. (Although www.rhemashope.wordpress.com does it better than anyone I’ve found.)

What Do I Have to Say?

While I do a lot of research, and am up on and in the camp that rues the vaccines, I have nothing more to offer to that discussion, really. Although I cheer on those who are going before government to lobby for our kids, I really can only offer an email here and there to my congressman right now. While I am going the biomedical route for my son, nothing has helped so profoundly that I can shout “eureka” from the rooftops to enlighten other parents to what we discovered. Even though I love ABA and its offshoots, my son is still struggling. And, my son is on the GFCF diet, but quite honestly, I’m not going to be writing any cookbooks–unless heating up gluten-free Dino Nuggets in the toxic microwave counts.

So what is my purpose in all of this? I believe as it unfolds, my voice will emerge with more clarity as it gets boisterously tangled with the messy spiritual side of walking through autism. That sounds so ethereal, but really it’s more earthy than that. It’s real life. It’s here and now. It’s not in a church building. It’s not waiting for the other side of Heaven to make everything okay. It’s not about getting a little lift from reading a daily devotion with your Wheaties. This is real, in-the-trenches Christianity. The kind that’s with you at the playground when your heart starts cracking. The kind that sustains you through a tantrum–yours or your child’s. The kind that kicks your butt out of the Valley of Doubt and Weeping for the fiftieth time. The kind that encourages another heart when yours is downtrodden. The variety that actually believes that God wants our bodies well. It’s not going to be safe. It’s not going to be pretty. But, I believe it will be worth it! You want to come on the ride with me?

Here some “real stuff” that has happened in the past seven weeks around here:

• When we thought our new state insurance costs would be $5,0o0 out of pocket max, they will be $8,000.
• Our son’s primary therapist moved away–we miss her.
• Josiah has regressed it seems–even fewer words, poor attention. It feels like he was better a year ago.
• Josiah has stopped sleeping through the night–I’m up with him 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, generally.
• His therapy center called us in for a parent meeting, concerned about increased sensory-seeking and inability to focus on his tasks, and they are wanting to go to alternative measures for communication like PECS and perhaps an augmentative speech device to hopefully help his speech along.
• We’re trying some new biomed stuff, including trying to fit in chiropractic appointments twice a week. More time, more money. Where are the results?
• We’re supposed to seek out additional speech therapy outside of his center. With both of us working full-time, I’m not sure when.

It all just feels so hard, right? Unlike other things, like New Years resolutions, you can’t quit. You also can’t escape or deny or numb. Sometimes you really want to. But you cannot go backward–you know too much. Where would you go anyway? You wake up every morning with this beautiful and sweet child before you, and you realize the weight of carrying your own life is light in comparison to carrying his. But there are more lives like his, and more families like yours, and that rends your heart too.

Desperate for the Destiny and Destination

There was a time that I thought autism came to shatter our dreams, but I’m becoming more convinced that it is moving us toward our destiny. Sickness is never good–and it is never from God. After hundreds of hours of study and combing through God’s Word, of that I am assured. But my life and this journey is not a mistake. My son’s life was not a mistake. God starts with us every day right where we are–using ALL of where we’ve been. These experiences will not go unused. Will we trust Him enough to lead us through? Will we have the fortitude to go the distance?

I’m afraid that up to this point in battling autism, I have not been able to find the “answers” like some people have in those things that I can control myself. I’m a classic “achiever” and “learner,” and this road has roughed me up pretty bad. If I can MAKE something happen, I will. If I can unearth the holy grail of autism research, I will Google my fingers bloody. If I feel like I’ve failed, I can take it personally and get profoundly frustrated.

Now, I’m desperate. But in a good way. Desperate presses through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. Desperate believes Jesus when he says your child will live, even though people reported that she has died. Desperate craves more of the Lord than “Jesus in a Box” that only pops out when I choose to wind up the handle. When I get desperate, I have seen women come into my life and encourage me beyond belief. When I get desperate, I’ve got to pay closer attention to my marriage. When I get desperate, I stop just hemming and hawing over the latest report on vaccines or the flavor-of-the-day autism cause/cure. I have to go to the Healer for my little Josiah. He’s all I’ve got.

Oh, all of you who are beaten down, broken and battered, are you ready to dream again with me?

When we walk in the valleys, we have a decision to make. Our pain can make us wither, or it can awaken our hearts to be passionately real. Our losses can destroy us, or they can help us grow stronger. Our actions can feed the devil’s victimization of our lives, or they can point us to the Word of God.

True dreamers will take their anger to the foot of the cross where they will find a heart big enough to hold their pain. They will begin to understand who God is and what He thinks about them.–Jill Austin, Dancing With Destiny

In the Weeds (or, Lessons from My Lawn)

Some weeds from my lawn

My husband and I are not really the most adept home owners. Aside from the most basic of maintenence duties, we’re fairly clueless when it comes to home improvement projects or how to troubleshoot issues–and our lawn is no exception. Let’s put it this way, everytime my husband has to go out to mow, rake or shovel, he makes some exasperated remark like, “I think I was made to live in a luxury apartment where I wouldn’t have to deal with this stuff.” And, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law had pity on me and planted some “hearty–you barely need to do anything with them” plants out front so our home didn’t look abandoned due to the lack of landscaping.  

Having a kid with autism has added an extra level of difficulty to our upkeep–not just the dearth of free time to increase our curb-side appeal, but also the fact that environmental toxins from pesticides can contribute to the toxic load in these little guys. These toxins mess with their brains even more. So, as I started researching, it was apparent that the chemicals that we paid to have on our lawn for the last couple of years would be a no-no this year. We have this wetland, prairie grass buffer running along the backyard bounds of our subdivision, so you never know what can be spread from that area, but we thought we’d take our chances and go au natural. I know what you’re thinking… “Oh bless their poor naive hearts!”

AMONG THORNS AND THISTLES

As summer started out, I remember commenting to my husband, “See, we probably wasted money in previous years on our TruGreen treatments. The lawn looks just as good now as it did then.” Yeah, so things changed as the summer marched on and the rain went on strike. In the last few weeks the weeds have sprouted up absolutely everwhere. Thanks, Adam… you just had to get more knowledge back in the Garden of Eden, and now we have to deal with your punishment of cultivating among the “thorns and thistles.” Well, we finally located a company that did organic, non-toxic lawncare, but they wouldn’t be coming out for a couple of weeks, and we had some intruders that were downright dangerous and had to be addressed NOW.

We were out playing in the yard the other night, and we saw some weeds that freaked us out. Like, “Little Shop of Horrors” kind of things–all spikey and intimidating. If our precious Josiah were to fall on one of those evil lawn-mines, we would be in big trouble. So, off we went to Target to try to find some sort of tool and some heavy duty gloves to get ahold of them. With my trusty new garden knife in hand, I decided to go out for about 20 minutes and take care of our problem. Twenty minutes turned into two hours, two blisters and a full bag of weeds, but I did have some time to think while I was out there. Some life lessons and spiritual epiphanies sprouted from my extreme weeding experience!

LESSONS FROM MY LAWN

Start out well and sustain it. Preventative care and nourishment will make for an inviting lush lawn for family and others to enjoy. Making sure that weeds can’t take root is easier than dealing with them after they pop up. But, in life, how often do I just try to coast on an infusion of energy but neglect daily maintenance for myself as I deal with other worries and cares, and everyone else’s demands of me? This leaves me parched and when my defenses are down, that’s when little seeds of chaos get spread.

Weeds steal resources. At first, you may notice a few weeds here and there. No big deal. You can live with them, but if they are still not addressed, they multiply fast. And, they come in all sorts of varieties. Some even look kind of like flowers. But don’t be deceived. They’re still weeds, and they will steal the nutrients from the grass. The very soil starts breaking down because of the energy that goes to feeding the greedy weeds. Even ants move in and build resorts under their shade. In my life, I often feel like my energy gets sapped because my mind and resources are being diverted to negativity, fear, pride, bitterness and hurt, rather than being focused on fruits of the Spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and kindness.

Don’t always take a weed at face value. Weeds are not only ugly nuisances, but they can be dangerous enough to pierce the skin or penetrate a shoe, and must be rooted up–not just cut off above the surface, only to come back quickly. Surprisingly, some of the biggest, ugliest weeds above the surface can actually have quite shallow roots. Some of the smaller weeds can actually have very prominent roots. There was one grand-daddy thorny weed I popped off that was literally the size of a dinner plate, but it barely had any root. There was one fairly harmless looking weed I grabbed, and I would’ve sworn there was a turnip under the ground I was pulling up. Sometimes people never see the depth of my own issues because there is more hidden than people know.

The weeding knife is needed for the prickly jobs. I wonder if God, the Master Gardener, sees the same variety of weeds in me that sometimes need a hard core weeding tool to pluck up so I can be restored to the potential he sees in me. Some of the big, ugly, thorny circumstances may flare up quickly, but really don’t have deep roots. They can be plucked out and will quickly wither. Whereas, there are some things in me that are character issues or hurts that have turned into roots of bitterness that run deep. It takes more muscle to get those out. The pulling through leaves the ground with a hole–that gets your attention!–and new seeds really should be spread there to keep it from being barren. Is it possible that if I let God get rid of that junk, he will get to work planting something in me that is much more healthy and beautiful? He won’t leave me with just a big empty hole.

After the weeds are gone, you have to return health to the soil. There are still a lot of weeds in our lawn, even though the scary ones are gone. If we don’t get the organic lawncare service out here, even over the winter when the grass dies and the snow covers the ground, the problems won’t really be gone. The weeds indicate a potential soil problem, and unless we try to fix it now, by the time next spring rolls around, we’ll have to till the ground up and start over completely.

These days, I’m asking God to restore my soil–under the surface, deep in the places where only he and I see and know of. Then, healthy things will grow. Right now, I feel a lot of chaos, issues everywhere, and have an overwhelmed, parched spirit. I’m looking forward to spending a couple weeks off of work in the second half of September. My mommy is coming to visit, and the task before us is to get before God and be nourished by his Word so that my joy may be full again.

 Psalm 65:9-10

 You care for the land and water it;
       you enrich it abundantly…

You drench its furrows
       and level its ridges;
       you soften it with showers
       and bless its crops.