I first suspected I had ADHD as a teenager, but finding the right professional to take me seriously was much harder than I expected. Previous attempts only ended in frustration and tears.
Enjoying the holidays with a food allergy sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? After all, eating together is an integral component of the holiday season. I looked forward to making our traditional holiday foods until I was diagnosed with a dairy allergy in 2012. What was to enjoy about the holidays when the foods associated with it were off limits to me?
It was a short, ten-minute drive from the hotel to the residential facility. I maintained composure while I navigated the busy public roads, and then residential streets. I had a whole range of emotions racing through my body, mind and spirit as we pulled into the campus. This was not just a pleasure drive or a routine errand, this was a significant milestone in the life of my son and our family.
While Halloween is a fun time of year for many children, it can be a really difficult time for some, including many children with additional/special needs. For them it can be a confusing, anxiety-inducing, or even utterly terrifying time. But it doesn’t have to be like that. If we stop for a moment to think about the things they might find hard and how to put things in place to help them, children with special needs can safely join in the fun, too. So what are some of the things about Halloween that children with additional needs can find hard?
“While we’ve had many years of travel speaking together on marriage, discipleship, and other topics, we are seldom alone and ‘just us’”Joe & Cindi Ferrini write on the struggle of never truly being along as special needs parents, and the importance of making time “just for us.”
This text was the first in a long thread to lighten my spirit. The thread began the day before when a couple in our church small group sent devastating news about the death of their grand-baby. We responded with pandemic-style support—text messages—and then the response from a mother in our small group who had lost a baby many years ago.
It’s a question many Christian parents of a child with special needs or a disability ask, and it’s a question that can be really hard to answer, especially when the child in question has limited communication. But perhaps there are clues that we can piece together: things that Jesus did, or understanding the ways our child responds to God. In exploring this, it might stretch and grow our own understanding and faith in God, too.
I began writing this series, Post Tenebras Lux, for the purpose of offering the only thing I have to give those who are weary, grieving, and hopeless, including myself: hope. I have learned that when someone is processing through grief and trials, it is good to let them say whatever it is they need to say without offering immediate answers. This song feels very much like a therapeutic biblical counseling session, where the celebrant is asking the congregation questions of how they feel and what they desire.
I thought a lot about Jack, whether he had gained anything at all from his time at Spring Harvest, whether he had been impacted by any of the spiritual program in his sessions. Had he just been child-minded, busying himself with his Jenga wooden blocks, or had something more than that reached him? A few weeks later, I got the answer to my questions.
This morning, as I planned for the day, I saw that my son’s physical therapist would be coming to the house this afternoon. This morning there was a moment when I felt like a failure, but that feeling quickly passed. I remembered how several years back, that feeling often lingered with me for days at a time, but not anymore.
