What if?

 God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame.

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We only remember 10% of our dreams and I think I remember even less than that. I had a dream yesterday morning that I could remember. I'm usually very pressed to remember them and typically I am able to hold on to only very small glimpses of one.  But this one was different.

We were at church with a very large assemble of people. It seemed to be mostly teenagers and women. I had been there for some time but I was in the lobby, talking and looking into the auditorium from there. Various activities had taken place on stage and a woman was up there getting everyone excited. I walked in to see what the excitement was about and to take a seat. As I was walking through the crowds the girl mentioned something about people who inspire you. I tried to get out of there but the crowd started cheering and the throngs of people pushed me toward the stage. They asked me to come up.

When I get to the front I look out and see that the room is packed. The aisles are full and the crowd is cheering...at me.

When it quiets down I start to speak. But it's supposed to be about inspiration, inspiring people, and I'm not inspiring at all. I'm just a mom. I'm nothing special, and I've never done anything special. Yet the people seem excited to talk to me.

Just then one of the girls in the audience raises her hand and yells, "How does it feel to know you are an inspiration to so many and that so many people look up to you?" I laughed loudly because I had no idea what she was talking about. But then she goes on to ask how I feel about so many people reading my blog.

I'm just stunned at that point and I tell her that I never set out to be an inspiration to anyone. I only started a blog for my own personal enjoyment. It was never meant to be read by anyone other than me. I never intended for any of  'this' to happen.

And then I woke up.

I've thought about the dream, wondering if it means anything at all. Most likely it does not. But then again, what if?

I think about Liam and how little he was when he was born, how abortions are still performed at that gestational age of 23 weeks. And I think that if anyone could change their mind about 'women's choice' because of our story then that would be inspiring.

I think about Liam's disabilities and how I never thought I could do any of this. And I hope that somehow that's inspiring.

I think about my children and how much have learned by having Liam as their brother. They have learned compassion, acceptance, empathy, mercy, and delight. If they can ever pass those on because of the experiences through which they've learned them, then somehow that is inspiring.

I hope Liam, in all of his failures and triumphs, shows that life is a blessing, a precious gift, a miracle to be cherished. And that it is inspiring.

But most of all, what if someone could see Christ in us and through us because of our experiences? Could they come to know Him better? Could they see through my darkness, my failures and see him more clearly? Because I have always felt inadequate, ill-equipped, and unworthy of the challenges put before me over these past few years. I feel like I flounder and have no idea what I am doing. And if I could inspire even one person, that if I could do this through my faith in Christ, then surely they could too, well...that would be inspiring.

Where are the Parents?

This article kind of hit a soft spot for me.
I live such a different life than I did before. And I wonder how many people around me actually understand how it is. For the most part, my kids understand, but sometimes they don't get it either. There was a recent event that one of my kids wanted me to participate in and accommodations would have to be made in order to do so. It was just easier not to do it. I wonder what coaches, school staff and parents of friends think when I'm hardly ever around. Do they think I'm not an involved parent. Do they think I don't care. Do they write me off as a person who makes excuses? It's not by choice. It's definitely not.

Where are the Parents?

By Sue Stuyvesant, Parent

Where are the parents?

They are on the phone to doctors and hospitals and fighting with insurance companies, wading through the red tape in order that their child's medical needs can be properly addressed. They are buried under a mountain of paperwork and medical bills, trying to make sense of a system that seems designed to confuse and intimidate all but the very savvy.

Where are the parents?

They are at home, diapering their 15 year old son, or trying to lift their 100 lb. daughter onto the toilet. They are spending an hour at each meal to feed a child who cannot chew, or laboriously and carefully feeding their child through a g-tube. They are administering medications, changing catheters and switching oxygen tanks.

Where are the parents?

They are sitting, bleary eyed and exhausted, in hospital emergency rooms, waiting for tests results to come back and wondering, "Is this the time when my child doesn't pull through?" They are sitting patiently in hospital rooms as their child recovers from yet another surgery to lengthen hamstrings or straighten backs or repair a faulty internal organ. They are waiting in long lines in county clinics because no insurance company will touch their child.

Where are the parents?

They are sleeping in shifts because their child won't sleep more than 2 or 3 hours a night, and must constantly be watched, lest he do himself, or another member of the family, harm. They are sitting at home with their child because family and friends are either too intimidated or too unwilling to help with child care and the state agencies that are designed to help are suffering cut backs of their own.

Where are the parents?

They are trying to spend time with their non-disabled children, as they try to make up for the extra time and effort that is critical to keeping their disabled child alive. They are struggling to keep a marriage together, because adversity does not always bring you closer. They are working 2 and sometime 3 jobs in order to keep up with the extra expenses. And sometimes they are a single parent struggling to do it all by themselves.

Where are the parents?

They are trying to survive in a society that pays lip service to helping those in need, as long as it doesn't cost them anything. They are trying to patch their broken dreams together so that they might have some sort of normal life for their children and their families.

They are busy, trying to survive.