Sunday Ponderings . . .

 

As most of you know, I have been re-reading the book "Even This," by Emily Belle Freeman. I am getting even more out of it this time around than I did the first time around.  Her books make you think and ponder and feel.  I love them.  

Last night I was reading about how she and her son had been invited to take a multiple question test regarding how they had coped with his having had Type 1 Diabetes, as a part of a research study from the University of Utah. The study was following adolescents with the disease and their families.  The University was studying how having the disease affected the children who have it and their families. 

She says in this chapter that taking the test was relatively easy and that she felt she would finish it quickly, but then comes to a question that caused her to stop short, a question that she didn't know if she could answer or not.  

"If you knew it meant you would have to give up all of the learning, would you choose to never have had your child diagnosed with diabetes learning challenges?"  (I chose to strike through diabetes and replace it with learning challenges.) 

 

Last night as I re-read this question it stopped me short.  My oldest daughter is developmentally challenged.  We did not find out she had learning and developmental challenges until we went to register her for school. She had turned 5 that year.  We knew she had speech problems, but  we had always thought they were down to the fact she had suffered a lot with hearing problems due to chronic ear infections. The school nurse suggested we have her speech assessed and the speech therapist suggested we needed a full assessment. 

This is the point where you start to realize that your child might be broken, and its a hard place to be.

We took her for two days of testing at the Children's Psychiatric Research Institute in London, Ontario and several weeks later sat down to listen to the results of the testing, read out to us by a Doctor.  Part way through his spiel  I hear the word "retarded"  . . .  and I never heard another word. 

Not. 

One. 

Word.  

I felt shock run through my body just as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over me. 

I was so not ready for this.  I hate that word.  Its such a nasty word, but it is the word they used back then.

I got angry. I was sad.  I felt broken.  I felt lost. I felt abandoned. I was in shock.  My beautiful daughter who I had so many hopes and dreams for was gone and in her place was another child who would have to struggle with everything, every  . . .  little  . . .  thing  . . .  for the rest of her life.  At that point in time I would have given everything I had, and everything I was . . . just to have my little girl back . . .  unbroken.  I did not want her to have to struggle.  I did not want to have to struggle. At that moment life felt very dark. 

I was in mourning.

 

 

At that moment in time, if someone had offered me the chance to take it all away . . . to just make her "normal," to give her a normal life . . .  no matter the cost, I would have gladly paid it.  What followed was years and years of therapy, learning, growing, becoming.

So my answer to that question then, would have been a definitive yes. My mother's heart would have saved us all of the pain, etc. that would follow.

Forty three years later . . .  my answer now is no.  A definitive no.  And I will tell you why.  

Its because of the "learning."  What doesn't break you builds you.  My daughter is one of the happiest people on earth.  Yes, she struggles. She has struggled with all kinds of things, but she is also one of the happiest people on earth.  Despite her difficulties she has learned to find the secret to a happy life and that is to find joy in small and simple things, in the mundane, in the ordinary.

Despite her limitations she had achieved more than many people do, and she is wise beyond her years. She is a kind woman. A compassionate woman.  A caring woman.  A giving woman. An understanding woman.  She is accomplished and she is smart and intuitive and wise. Maybe not in the things that most people think should matter . . .  but in the things that DO matter. And I am so very proud of her. 

And no, I would not give up the learning . . .  the journey . . .  the growth that has enabled her to become her and for me to become me.  And the faith and hope and trust that has brought us to where we are. 

 

Broken-ness is how the light gets in.  I look back and think of all the wonderful things in life, we both would have missed had she not been "broken."  She has never been "handicapped," but always "handi-capable," and I am so very proud of her.  Although many in life have often been quite mean spirited towards her, she has never been mean in return. She is kind. Kind. Kind.  And understanding, often beyond her years and capabilities.  And she is forgiving.   She is also stubborn and determined.  Sometimes she is so much like my mother that its scary.

The privilege of  having her in my life, of having been able to raise this wonderful woman has been a great blessing to me and continues to be a great blessing. I have learned and become in ways I never would have done otherwise, and I am so very grateful that my Heavenly Father entrusted me with her care, with the blessing and the gift that is her.  So, no  . . . .  I would not change a thing. I am not willing to give any of it up.  It IS in the deepest places of hurt that we are able to forge the deepest bonds of trust.  Emily is right.

"Deep calleth unto deep."

~Psalm 42:7

The brokenness is a part of who we both are and who we've both become, and I love us just as we are.

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

 *.˛.Be joyful in hope,

Patient in affliction,

Faithful in prayer,

~Romans 12:12•。★★ 。* 。

IN the kitchen today, Mary Berry's Blueberry Muffins.  Delicious!

Have a wonderful Sunday.  Be blessed.  Don't forget.

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And I do too!