2014 -- The Year of "P" Words

As I’m reflecting back on 2014, I see a year saturated with countless prayers, petitions, pleadings, and praises. 2014 immediately found our 15-year-old having 2 major surgeries (again). In February we came home from the hospital and began preparations to put our house on the market. Our house went under contract after less than a day on the market and at an astounding price. In May we moved to an apartment because our new home wasn't done being built. In July we moved into our new home. By the end of October our son was no longer depending on pain medication to make it through every single day. In November I finally completed the pursuit of my Bachelor's of Ministry, my husband got his name on a patent, and a teacher randomly emailed us to let us know what a propitious youngster our 13-year-old is.  Phew! 2014 was also the year both boys were back in public school instead of homeschooling. They handled the transition excellently and are thriving. These are the highlights of my year; Not intended for boasting about what I've done, but rather, what God has done.

My prayers, petitions, pleadings, and praises were fulfilled as God’s Providence became fully alive within my family. I watched Him be the Great Physician to my son. I watched Him be the all-Powerful Provider, Protector, and Preserver of not only my son’s life, but to family life as a whole. I got to see Him at work as the Prince of Peace when He stilled my anxious heart in the midst of the uncertainties and trials. I have had a phenomenal year! Not because it was void of pain or persecution or because every prayer was answered with a “yes”, not because every trial came with a pardon; but because I have emerged from it all as a stronger, wiser, and more faith-filled individual. Every year of my entire life will be filled with ups and downs so it isn't accurate for me to pit those two against each other in hopes that the good outweighs the bad. No, instead, I will say that I had a priceless year because it was filled with some terrible things and some amazing things that equated to immeasurable personal growth. Forward motion is the goal. God is good all the time.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Love, 

Cynthia

10 Reasons To Adopt A Special Needs Child

I found that keeping this list to 10 reasons is..well…impossible. So my 10 reasons are only going to focus on you…the adoptive parent. Not what you can bring a child but more what a child can bring you. Please note that I in no way, shape, or form believe adoption to be about what a child can do for you. A most important piece in adoption is what you can provide a child. But the rewards that come from parenting a special needs child are like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. My 12 year old is my “handi-absolutely-capable” son, then I have a younger son that is ”not special needs” and I am also a birthmother. So, I can offer my knowledge from many perspectives. I find it rewarding to parent both my children, but my older son (Kasey) has brought the perspective that often gets lost on parents of healthy children who sometimes take their children’s lives for granted.
As an adoptive parent, I’m sure you have a plethora of love and life to give. Let me tell you, if you adopt a special needs child, you will get more of these things than you ever could offer. So, enough of that…let’s get to the list:
1) Do you want life on a whole new level?

This is a picture of my boys giving end of life care to our 15 year old dog, Shep. When we took him to the vet for euthanasia it was Kasey, me, and my husband. My husband and I both cried. Kasey held it together through the whole thing and pet our dog to the final breath. Later when we went to my parents home in the country to bury him, Kasey lifted Shep’s ear before we put him in his grave and told him “goodbye Shep” –still never shedding a tear. I asked him if he was sad that Shep had passed and he said yes. “So, why haven’t you cried?” I asked. “Because Shep is in heaven and I will see him again.” Cut and dried, plain and simple. Eternal perspective. The same perspective that caused him to excitedly wave goodbye towards the casket of my grandma when she passed. I am always the bawling mess and he consistently gives me the right perspective on things.
2) Do you want to feel alive?

That scar right down the middle of his chest is from open heart surgery when he was 15 months old. He had a hole in his heart the size of a quarter. The doctors said that up to that point even having a bowel movement could have given him a heart attack. He had drainage tubes, wires, stitches, a monitor stuck in his carotid artery to measure pressures, he was black and blue and yet in just a few days he was standing in his hospital bed shaking the crib. It was like “Yeah, I just had open heart surgery, so what?!?!” I wish I could say I handled everything well then but the truth is, I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone and he was suffering more than anyone I had ever known. I was lost and looking for something to drown my pain. In so many ways I wanted to be the turtle with her head in the sand. I felt alive alright. But not in a good way. Yet, looking back on his times of greatest infirmity, he still lived. He still showed care for others. He handled everything given to him with grace. He never seemed to lose sight of life. In all emotions we are reminded that we are still alive. Parenting special needs children isn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but around every turn you WILL feel alive. You WILL be reminded in sickness and health of what is important — and **that** is living.
3) Ever wondered what it would be like to entertain an angel?

Enough said.
4) Need a reason to smile?

A special needs child will give you oodles every single day — and they won’t be smiles cracked from everyday triggers. They are unique!
5) Want acceptance for just who you are?

So do they I hate comparing them to dogs, but honestly, it seems the only ones with the natural, absolutely pure, God-instilled, deeply rooted gift of unconditional love is special needs children and dogs. I love them both!
6) Want to feel God’s love in a tangible way?

If you are lucky enough to get a hug or kiss from a special needs child you can very readily assume that God is just passing His love for you through a child. They embody God’s love and affection for you.
7) “Normal” kids reach hearts. Special needs kids penetrate them.

Everyone remembers Kasey. Everyone loves him. Even if they haven’t met him, he captures their attention. And the best thing about it is, it doesn’t go to his head. He’s just the same to anyone and everyone.
8) Do you struggle with feeling sorry for yourself?

You won’t. They will teach you courage, perseverance, patience, grace, and standing firm in your own life’s plan.
9) Need someone to bring you out of your shell?

So did my younger son, Noah, and I. Sometimes Kasey is to us as a parent is to a child — embarrassing. To us who really value being unnoticed on a day to day basis…yeah that never happens with Kasey…we had to learn to stand out and be proud.  He will drop a beatbox rap or bust into a full fledged all-out YMCA rendition in any aisle of any grocery store at any time. This picture is of Kasey bringing Noah out of his shell and actually trying the school talent show. It’s a memory Noah still talks about to this day. I have no doubt Noah would not have had the guts without his brother by his side.
10) Everyday is an adventure!

Yep…that’s Kasey…After eyeing the fingernail polish sitting on the table, he thought it would be funny to paint his nails. Then, I talked him into a make-over, a dress, and a pose.
Luke 6:38 says, “Give, and it will be given unto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
In giving your love and parenting to a special needs child, you truly are getting multitudes more than you can ever give. I promise.
I wish I lived as abundantly, as joyfully, as simply, as boldly, as attentively, as lovingly as my special needs child.
I wish I could melt, penetrate, and soothe hearts the way my special needs child does.
I wish I understood God’s love and undying devotion the way my special needs child does.
I wish I held unswervingly to my faith the way my special needs child does.
I wish I possessed the massive amount of spiritual gifts my special needs child does.
I wish my intellectual capabilities were severely over-shadowed by my intuitive, soul softening, kind and caring ways.
Some reason that a life labeled “special needs” is best ended in utero because quality of life will be diminished. I only wish my quality of life resembled my son’s. I have yet to meet a special needs person who struggles have burdened them so greatly they would have preferred their parents to abort them. Just ask them.

Integrity...It's What's For Dinner

My 9-year-old to me: Can I lose just a little bit of integrity and only pay Kasey (brother) 50 cents for the backrub he gave me instead of the $1.25 I told him?
 Haven’t we all hit those integrity crossroads at some point? Moments after he said this to me, I began having flashbacks of recent incidences where I had that choice to make also. Can I say I took the high road? Not every time. And sometimes it’s not the low road you should worry about as much as the middle road. The low road is like where you fall competely on your face — integrity (or lack thereof) in the open for all to see. The middle road is where compromise happens, no one necessarily sees it; it’s not as bad as _____, yet you still missed the “right” mark and you feel it inside. Take that road enough, though, and your internal compass will start to change with it. When we can do wrong things and not feel that icky feeling inside, we should check to see where North points on our compass.  

 Thinking about the roads we travel in life and the choices we are faced with everyday, integrity is so important, yet we seem to be finding it less and less in this world. We reward politicians, sports figures, etc, etc, for less than optimal behavior. We look up to these people and often times, so do our children. So, what can we expect but that our children model what they see, even from us?

 I have had my moments where I’ve compromised my integrity because I’ve felt justified. I’ve built my argument, reasoned it out with God as to why it was necessary, and stooped to levels set by others out of my raging desire to defend myself. The level of integrity I require from myself is extremely high but sometimes, I feel like I have to come out with my claws showing when I feel threatened. 

It truly is just a series of little compromises beginning in our minds. The thinking that, “Well, I’m entitled” or “they deserve it” or “God wants me to have it” or “they should be held accountable”, and the list goes on and on. As soon as I begin to think those thoughts, my actions are not far behind. Often times immediately after I have justified my lack of integrity, I almost feel euphoric. Yet I know that the sting of regret over allowing myself to get caught up in such a low-level of thinking and behaving is not far behind.

 Why can’t the right decision be easier to make? And why can’t it have a better pay off? So many times, the right decisions go unnoticed and are mostly anti-climactic. Generally, it doesn’t come with the pat on the back or the climax in the story. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve ventured so far in life, yet I share so many similarities with a 9-year-old boy (or for that matter even a 3-year-old with a toy). In my son’s case, wanting to hold on to his hard earned money was a good, healthy quality. But is it still a good quality if we have to cheat others to hang on to it? Do I need to lower my level of integrity just to defend myself to other humans? God knows and I know. That should  be good enough for me.

 Even if the payoff is only having peace of mind with no outward signs of the high level of integrity you have just claimed for yourself, it’s still worth it. Nothing on the outside matters unless we are true to who we are and who God says we are as His children. You are your own reward. Looking in the mirror and loving what you see is priceless. Live exceptionally because you deserve it. The gift of Integrity is already in you, you just have to habitually tap in to it.

The Poop Cleats

We rented our house in Colorado out for a year and a half while we were in Phoenix, Arizona. What we came back to was, well, less than ideal. We have now been back in the house for a year and most of the fix-up projects are getting closer to being done. At the moment, it is my bathroom linoleum bugging me.
When I clean my linoleum floors, I get down on all fours because it soothes my OCD better than if I had used a mop. **Every once in a while I will use my Shark** So every week for the last year, while on all fours in my bathroom, I have to laugh because you see, there are cleat marks on the linoleum in front of the toilet. There are no cleat marks anywhere else, just in front of the toilet. Of course my imagination ran away with me the very first time I noticed them and now I never clean that spot without an image popping into my head.
What image do you get?
The image I get is…well, I think the “poop cleats” (as I lovingly call them), gave someone some bracing for a very messy job!

 This week while finally sharing my “humor” with my husband, I realized the parallel this story has to real-life and thus, “Poop cleats, you have to dig in to get the work done” was born!
Sometimes life gets so hard. Sometimes we need a brace to stand against the trials. Sometimes life feels like nothing more than a messy job. And almost always, no matter how we come out of the bathroom — uh, I mean, the trials — there are still lasting marks to keep us from completely forgetting where we used to be.
Who of us wouldn’t want to avoid trials? Try as we may, they have a way of finding us anyway. Once the trial is at our doorstep, we still sometimes have a tendency to practice avoidance yet all the while knowing the problem isn’t going anywhere. It will linger. What if – just like the character in my mental image did – we really just made a plan and dug in, stayed focused and braced ourselves for the storm? All the while telling ourselves it would be over in no time and we would be healthier (and lighter!!) for it.
“Life’s A Garden, Dig It” Joe Dirt

The Firecracker De-Fuser

About 6 weeks ago, my husband and I embarked on a new and temporary adventure. We offered to let my grandpa live with us for what appears to be his final season of life. This would be why my blog has gone lifeless and barren of late. This would also be why my house is messier, my leg hair is growing hair of it’s own, and my dog ran off to find a new forever family. And to top it all off, just a few weeks after gramps came into our home, it was also the start of our new homeschool year — with an entirely new and different curriculum and approach.
**Sidenote: let me explain my personality in one word: Firecracker. Listen to this song if you need more explanation.

The first time I heard about the above song was when my mom and cousin caught it on the radio one day and laughed because they both immediately thought of me. Aside from the fact it’s talking about a romp in the hay, the firecracker premise fits none-the-less.**
So, given the fact that I explode easily and have now found stress and time constraints to be a constant any and every day….I haven’t been totally pleasant. Those who don’t know me well and have seen me probably thought I’ve been just pleasantly peachy. Those who know me well and who I love most out of any in the world have seen the fiery, short-fused bawl baby that I really am. You can probably guess who that would be…
God bless…my husband. He catches 97.8% of the flack. I do not and have never handled stress well. Which cracks me up given the life I’ve had. You’d think I would be a professional stress squasher by now! Yeah, not so much.
Here’s the difference between my husband and every other man I’ve ever known ~ Since nearly the very beginning of our relationship, he has had the uncanny ability to see beyond my tangible, face value emotion to the heart of my issue. He has always searched out the “Why” of my behavior. It’s as if he has stared at and studied the abstract portrait that is my past so in depth that he can now recognize the hues that filter and color my current life experiences.
I had a hard time understanding unconditional love and an even harder time understanding that there would ever be someone who really had the ability to do this. My husband helps me to understand what it looks like to live out unconditional love. He sees the walls I put up and why. He sees my buttons and why they are my buttons. He sees how my sometimes self-sabotaging ways serve as a protection mechanism. He just gets me. Sometimes he gets me before I get me!
Then I got to thinking — Isn’t that how our Father God gets us? He can see the “why” in our actions — Isn’t that why He can love us unconditionally? Our “why’s” reside in the heart and that’s exactly where he looks. He sees our life’s painting and the color palette we filter life through. And though I should always be striving to die to my fleshly emotions, when the firecracker in me explodes, He is there to remind me of His grace and unconditional love. And honestly, that is what my husband does for me too. He reminds me of his unconditional love and extends grace to me unfailingly.
I always wanted to understand unconditional love as it applies to Christ but never could grasp it. I still don’t think I have a full grasp on that reality, but thanks to my kind, caring, and patient husband, I do understand it better and I try to learn from his example. So much prayer went in to my husband before I ever even knew him and God provided in abundance. Thank you Eric for loving me enough to search out the “why’s” in me. I am blessed to be walking this life with you by my side.
**Another side note — mushy is SO not my thing, HOWEVER, God placed this on my heart and I thought I would share it. I know many others are blessed with earthly examples of unconditional love that we sometimes mistreat or take for granted. Don’t.**