Every one of us needs a moment to refresh our soul. I’m thankful God showed me one more scripture that reminds me it is okay to rest.
Some days I just want the world to stop so I can catch my breath. Some days I just feel tired and want a moment of peace. I know God wants me to rest and take care of myself, but it also seems there is so much to do.
The story of Mary and Martha has been used often to remind us all of the importance of not allowing chores to distract us from an opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet. Countless times, I have read the verse in Matthew 11:28 that says, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (NLT).” There are numerous books out there about how to embrace the concept of the Sabbath and God’s plan for finding true rest in our lives. All of these are wonderful reminders to me.
However, I think God must have realized his message was not getting through to my stubborn head, and I needed one more example to cling to.
In today’s sermon, we looked at the scripture in Mark 4: 35-41 where Jesus calms the storm. I have read this story so many times in my life, but today one verse stood out boldly to me. Verse 38 says, “Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion (NLT).”
Jesus took a nap in the middle of a huge storm!
I needed to hear that today. It seems the storms of life are often swirling around me, and it feels as if that must demand my constant attention. But it doesn’t. Even when we are in the midst of chaos and have a long list of “urgent” things to do, sometimes it is okay to take a break from it.
So today I took a nap. Yes, I had many things I should have or could have done. But I put them aside and rested, and later during the day I was able to more easily (and happily) conquer those tasks on my list.
I pray you, too, occasionally take a moment to take a nap and allow Jesus that sweet moment to refresh your soul!
Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by our responsibilities. The story of Jesus feeding the 5000 reminds us to offer what we have to Jesus, and allow him to work the miracles in our lives.
Today I just feel overwhelmed…overwhelmed by the weight of all my responsibilities, wondering if I’m doing all I need to do, questioning my choices, and concerned about the future. Some days I wake up and live in a more robot-like state, doing the day’s tasks without thinking too deeply about it, on autopilot. Usually, I can push down all those negative thoughts, stuffing them way back in my mind where I only vaguely notice them, so I am able to get through the day joyfully and peacefully. But this morning, my thoughts are racing, and I feel a heavy weight in my soul as I begin the day.
Personally, I am especially worried about my children today. Yesterday I gave my daughter a reading assessment, and it opened my eyes to the depth of her struggles. It’s not that I didn’t already know she has profound reading problems; she’s is about 5 years below grade level in her reading. But watching her take the assessment, I became more acutely aware of each type of challenge she faces. She probably has dyslexia and may have some hearing issues. And this is just the beginning. My 2 special needs kids have so many difficulties I can’t begin to list them. When some parents are worried about whether or not their kids will get into college, I’m wondering if mine will ever be able to live independently, have a job, or drive a car. All of this weighs heavily on my heart, and I feel such a huge responsibility in trying to address all these challenges.
Of course, the point of this post is not for me to describe all my specific problems. The point is that we all have things like this that overwhelm us…financial strains, health problems, emotional struggles, and so forth. It is easy to look at whatever lies in front of us and feel ill-equipped, inadequate, and completely incapable of tackling the situation. We need miracles, and we know we can’t perform miracles…at least not on our own.
When I feel this way, I try to stop myself and listen to the voice of Jesus. I hear him gently comfort me and whisper encouragement in my ear. And I recall the story of him feeding the 5000. In Matthew 14:13-21, Jesus tells his disciples to give the crowds something to eat. Yes, he did give them the responsibility of taking care of the people, just like he gives us responsibilities in our lives. He didn’t just say, I’ll do it all. Jesus does expect something of us and wants our active participation. But exactly what is our part? What does he expect of us?
The disciples respond by saying, “We have here only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.” The disciples can’t offer much, but they bring what they have. They know what they have is meager and, frankly, doesn’t even come close to meeting the crowd’s food demands. But they bring it anyway. They offer what they have.
Then Jesus says, “Bring them here to me,” and he is the one that performs the miracle and feeds the 5000. This is what Jesus says to us, “Bring me what you have. I know how to use what you have to work miracles.”
How do I face today with so much weighing on my heart and such responsibility in front of me? I look around and find my “loaves and fishes.” One day it may be that all I have to offer is simply my willingness and enthusiasm. Another day it may be that I can find a specific task to accomplish. Personally, today I am going to research a specialized reading curriculum for my daughter. I can’t solve all her reading problems today, but I can do this one thing. Oftentimes our “loaves and fishes” seem so inadequate we almost feel ridiculous offering them up. I’m sure the disciples felt the same, offering only 5 loaves and 2 fish for 5000 people. But Jesus didn’t say, “Well, that won’t work. Throw those out, and I’ll cook up something great.” Instead, he told them to bring them to him. Jesus wants us to humbly offer what we have to him, actively doing our part and trusting him to do the rest.
Today, if you are feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath and rest in Jesus. Look around and see what “loaves and fish” you can offer to him. Don’t worry about whether it seems like enough. But believe in miracles and trust in God’s perfect power, plan, and provision. The Lord knows just what to do with what you have to offer!
I have always heard about the five stages of grief–denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Until recently, I never realized I have personally experienced all these same stages of grief regarding the diagnosis of my son’s disability. So I have decided to describe some of the emotions I have felt on my own journey. For those of you who are parenting a special needs child or maybe just know someone who is, I hope it gives you a little insight into the complexity of all the feelings that go along with this special path many are on.
Denial…When James was young, I knew he was delayed but I had a hard time admitting that he had a real disability. He had difficulty walking, talking, and eating, and we had been told he had a genetic deletion. But he was young and nobody knew much about this deletion anyway. I knew things were challenging, but I could never really admit that we were past the level of just a learning disability or a mild delay and had moved into the realm of a life-time, permanent disability. I remember being surprised when a stranger, who had noticed the difficulty I was having with James, walked up to me and handed me a card for a mother’s day out program geared toward kids with special needs. This woman knew that my son was “different”, but I still was in denial.
Anger…The desperation of trying to find a solution to all of James’s challenges just caused frustration. Nothing was working. Nobody had much information to give us. My anger often was focused on everyone else. Why would nobody help us? Sometimes it was focused on my son. I thought he just needed to try harder. Other times I was angry that I had to deal with this at all. Why? Why me? Why couldn’t I have a “normal” life with “normal” kids? [And yes, I realize it’s terrible to say this but I believe it’s important to be authentic about the not-s0-Godly emotions we have.] Why couldn’t I have the life everyone else had? Looking back, it’s almost embarrassing to think about the anger I felt toward so many people, including my son, but I also recognize it was part of my growing process.
Bargaining…This is where my feistiness kicked in. Ok, so James has this disability, but I bet we can do something about it. Surely with the right therapy and with time, he can improve and catch up. I thought, “This is just temporary. There must be a way to fix this. There must be something I can do!” Honestly, I think I went back and forth between anger and bargaining, or maybe I experienced them at the same time. During this season, I was always busy trying to find solutions. I wore myself out working, and when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about what I should try next. My mind never stopped. This was a place of constant striving and then disappointment when my expectations were not met.
Depression…After so much striving, I moved into this dark place and stayed here a while. Exhausted, overwhelmed, disappointed, and frustrated, I struggled each day to just keep moving forward. What was the point? I tried so many things with seemingly little progress. When progress is so slow it is hard to even see it, and I often got bored and hopeless teaching the same thing over and over with no success. I cannot tell you how many years I spent trying to teach James his alphabet using every possible method, and he still does not know but 1 or 2 letters. During this season, I did finally go to counseling. I didn’t know how to define what I was feeling, but my therapist looked at me after only a few minutes of my first session and asked, “How long have you been depressed?” I had described my life to her as if I were swimming in the ocean trying to tread water and holding everyone else’s head above water at the same time, so tired and unsure how much longer I could survive. Fortunately, through counseling, support from others, and truly seeking God in my pain, I moved on to a much better place.
Acceptance…I’m so thankful to be here. Please don’t misunderstand this final place in the journey. It’s not all rose gardens and picnics. It’s still hard and overwhelming at times. But I have learned to just embrace what is, let go of things that will never be, and still save some hope for miracles. I give myself and James a lot of grace. I take it one day at a time, doing what I can do and then laughing when things don’t work. I have accepted that my life with James will look different than life does for many others. Occasionally, I cycle back to one of the other stages and linger there a bit. Fortunately, God often pricks my heart a bit and helps guide me back to this better place.
A few years ago I read an essay called “Welcome to Holland”. It is a well-known description of what it’s like to find out your child has a disability. When I read it the first time, tears welled up in my eyes because someone had finally put into words so much of what I felt. It’s not a perfect description; it tends to lean toward a more beautiful image of the experience, omitting all the truly ugly emotions you feel. However, it certainly helps put it all in perspective, and it’s worth a read.
As I continue on this journey as the mother of a special needs child, I realize I’m on a path that very few of my friends and family have ever traveled themselves. Sometimes it is lonely. Sometimes it is just hard. Sometimes there are perfect moments of delight where God shows me just how much He is with me and helping me on this journey. These are the moments I try to cherish.
For any of you who are walking down this same road, know that you are not alone in your grief, you are not alone in your struggles, and you are not alone on your journey. I pray you remember to reach out to others and most importantly, reach out to your Heavenly Father, who will equip you, comfort you, and strengthen you beyond what you can imagine. May God bless you on your journey!
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by teaching your child some important skill, such as how to read or how to ride a bike? Does your child struggle to master skills that seem to come so easily to others, such as brushing their teeth or putting on clothes? One simple concept has made a huge impact on how I have been able to help my special needs kids make progress.
Break it down! Take that skill your child needs to learn and think of it not as one skill but as several small, manageable skills. I recognize that this is not a new idea; adults use this method all the time to tackle big jobs, such as organizing a house or planning an event. It seems obvious to do this when the task is clearly complex and multi-step. But what about teaching your child how to eat with a spoon or put on their pants? These tasks seem so simple that we often think of them as just one-step skills. But for a child with disabilities or delays, these skills really require much more than you might initially see.
For example, most kids by the time they are a few years old can climb a small 4 step ladder into a pool. In fact, most kids do not actually have to be taught how to do this. They just figure it out on their own. But not my James. For him, even at 11 years old, it seemed like an insurmountable task. He is not really physically disabled. He can walk up stairs and use his arms just fine. But he struggles with coordination, balance, and many fine and gross motor skills. So when we bought an above-ground pool last summer, it was quite an endeavor teaching him how to get in and out by himself.
This is the type of ladder we had in our pool.
In order to teach the skill, I first climbed up and down the ladder by myself and paid attention to each step in the process–where I put my hands, where I put my feet, and the exact order I did each part. Then I took him through each step one by one. It was amazing how quickly that helped. Instead of James focusing on getting off the ladder, he was just focusing on the very next move, such as putting one foot on the first step. Breaking it down made it less overwhelming for him, more doable, and it helped me be able to coach him through it with less frustration.
Try it with almost anything you do in your daily life without thinking. Break it down into tiny skills and you will see the task in a completely different manner. When you pick up a pencil, you must reach out your hand, open your hand, grasp the pen, and pull your hand back to you. If your child does not fully comprehend each one of those steps, they will not be able to master it.
This concept helped me analyze how best to approach teaching James how to read. Most curriculum starts with letter recognition, but I had to dig deeper to think about what steps would come before that. I found a resource called ASD Pre-Speaking. This program helped me realize that some other skills must be tackled first, such as holding information in memory, remembering a sequence from left to right, and comprehending simple oral instructions. ASD Pre-Speaking had four types of activities that addressed these skills. Working through the program helped me recognize more clearly just how difficult certain tasks were to James, such as looking at a card with 3 colors and then pointing to those colors in order. We worked for months on this and he improved but still struggled. So we took a break from this and I re-evaluated how I might need to break things down even further. The result of using this program was not that James learned to read, but it gave me new insight into a whole world of other skills that I must teach him in order to even begin actual reading curriculum.
So if you are hitting a brick wall with teaching your child a particular concept or skill, take a moment to reflect on that skill and then break it down into smaller parts. See the task from your child’s perspective; which parts of it are easy and which are hard. Make smaller, more specific goals. I promise it will relieve some of your stress. You’ll start seeing progress. Your eyes will be opened to the strengths and weaknesses of your child. Ultimately, both you and your child will benefit from the more realistic, appropriate approach to learning that will result from breaking it down!
Sometimes I look back at my year and wonder what I have accomplished. What did I teach my children? Am I challenging them the way I should? Am I meeting their needs? I see all the other homeschool kids their age doing amazing things–winning sports recognitions, performing in the local theater, skipping grade levels–and my kids are just struggling to read and write and still can’t ride a bike.
You see, with their rare genetic condition, my 2 youngest are so delayed in all areas that learning even simple things is a struggle. When you have kids that just can’t seem to keep up, it is easy to get discouraged and doubt yourself. Sometimes it feels like we are moving and moving but never getting anywhere. When we are in that season, it is hard to keep my resolve and be motivated to continue in this homeschool journey. The Enemy uses these slow seasons to attack my will, confuse my vision, and squash my enthusiasm.
So what do I do to combat this? How do I keep moving forward even when it feels pointless? I try to look for those small moments of progress. I force myself to pay attention to the little things, and God always delights me with something beautiful.
My son, James, has severe communication difficulties, still struggling at the age of 13 to even speak in sentences or be understood by anyone not very familiar with his special language. We work every day on speech therapy, and many days I see no change. But then it will happen. I remember one day noticing how he used a pronoun for the first time, saying “yours mommy,” as we discussed going to visit my mom later that day. I remember the first time James expressed that he was scared about something. Never before had he been able to communicate emotion to me. I was so excited he could tell me his feelings I almost forgot to deal with his fear in the situation. I try to listen for these moments when James will say something new and that is when God ministers to my heart and says, “Keep going, my sweet daughter. You’re doing a good job. Just keep being faithful and I will work the miracle.”
Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.” Isn’t that the truth! The only way I can keep my joy in this difficult journey is by keeping my eyes only on Christ, never comparing myself, my kids, or my life to others, but rather focusing on the path God has designed for us. Instead of looking at what is not happening or what my kids can’t do, I must be consistently seeking to find the little moments of progress and make those become big reasons to celebrate. Only then can I experience the joy God intends for me to have as I help my kids grow one moment at a time.
Growing By Surprise 