There’s this commercial, a car commercial. It’s not new, and who knows what car it is, but they pile in a family of seven, to go to the youngest daughter’s dance recital, and next to her is her teen brother. Anyway, I couldn’t tell you why, but this commercial always hurts me. I hadn’t seen it in a long time, I thought it out of circulation – should be a new model car out by now – and then I saw it and it hit me, like it always does, like a ton of bricks.
I can’t explain what it is in that commercial, but after a long, defeated week, I ended up spending the hours after date night crying in my bed over – and this is horrible, I know – not having neurotypical kids.
It’s awful. It’s despicable, and while I’m blaming that ad for bringing on the mindset, the thoughts carried forward about the things I’ll “miss” with them. Now really and for true, this is all ok. It is. But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, despite my fevered prayers for forgiveness, encouraging myself to stop, and my self-loathing at the lowness of this emotion, I caved and grieved.
But writing this, I’m reminded that this week was hard for the kids. Not regular old hard, but the kind of hard like in-your-wildest-dreams-you’d-never-think-that-could-happen hard. THAT kind of hard. So bad that I turned to my group with a vague prayer request, which if you know what a blabbermouth I am, you’d be shocked. So bad that BEFORE I could even muster up the strength to contact my friends, I had to use my concordance in the back of my Bible – yes, I’m about to go all biblical on your ass! There, after a dozen searches among tears and before my coffee, I found this:
Direct your children onto the right path,
and when they are older, they will not leave it. ~Prov 22:6, NLT
And I’ve been working hard to do that, to get that one priority right, even if I completely suck at potty training and summer home schooling and doing the food restrictions right, that one thing I can try to do as faithfully. Later that morning, my friend shared this one:
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. ~Isaiah 41:10, NLT
That was back on Wednesday, and all that help and still that stupid commercial set up house of cards in my heart.
But I’m here to to tell you that now, it’s alright. It’s not perfect, there were some things that happened today that were distressing, but there were triumphs too. Like this:
That’s my kids, sound asleep, in the same bed, after reading to them together and praying over them together and them playing together and requesting to stay together. And then sleeping and staying asleep together.
Did I mention, together?
Which has happened exactly NEVER. Yes, tonight was the first “sleep over” ever for our girls. And while I’m not exactly breaking out any camping gear in our backyard soon, I feel like this is a step, a little step, and my heart does this little flitter flutter thing, because I know that if they have God, and if they have each other, and if they have love, they can conquer a whole heck of a lot.
And no stupid “happy family” in an SUV ad can take that away.
My gift to you this morning:
