A few years ago I attended a National Day of Prayer service
in Mattoon. There were several people there from various area churches attended and when
the opportunity arose to share an experience of answered prayer, I did.
10 years ago we believed our oldest daughter was hearing
impaired. A smoke detector could be tested just a few feet from her and she
wouldn’t flinch, startle or even look at it. You could call her name and she
wouldn’t respond. Potential hearing loss
didn’t really throw me. We just get hearing aids, right? Or maybe cochlear
implants? Or learn sign language—I could do that. We’ll just adapt. But testing
at the hospital revealed that her hearing was fine.
My baby was always different from other babies. She never
put the rattle in her mouth or sucked on her hand. She never wanted snuggled,
did not have interest in me and probably would have been perfectly happy if a
complete stranger would have kidnapped her from my cart at the grocery store
and she never saw me again. She was quiet and rarely cried. In fact, when
giving her a bottle, I easily could remove it from her mouth, lay her down on a
blanket in order to go get a burp cloth and expect that she would not even
fuss.
When she was almost three years old, we traveled to
Springfield to see a neurologist, who finally gave her a diagnosis of MR with
autistic tendencies; we were devastated. At the time, all I could hear was
disturbing phrases from the doctor, such as: “will never reach a cognitive
ability beyond a 6 year old, will never be able to live on her own, will never
grasp abstract concepts, such as algebra.”
Greg asked at one point, should we have the elders pray over
her? We looked at our toddler, sitting quietly on the floor, stroking the
carpet. The question loomed, what would we be praying for? For her to look at
us, for her to return affection, for a different personality? Somehow it felt
similar to asking God to stop something as trivial as my father’s hair loss.
What kind of an outcome were we looking for? We ultimately decided not to have her
prayed over by the elders, but we started to pray for God to make us the
parents she needed. We felt peace that our role was to accept, listen and
learn.
When I shared this story, a woman approached me, with great
animation. “You are her parents! It is your duty to have the elders pray for
her! I wish my congregation was here—we could anoint her with oil and pray over
her and she would be healed today.” I listened quietly and after a few minutes
did my best to politely end the conversation and leave to go home.
What is my role as her mother supposed to be? I don’t want
to wish for my children to be anyone else, but who God has determined them to
be. I am to guide, help and groom, but the ultimate direction of their
personalities and much of their ability has already been determined.
Psalm 139: 13-16, one of my favorite Psalms, reads:
For you formed my
inward parts; you wove me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks to
you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, and my
soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in
secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; your eyes have seen
my unformed substance, and in your book were all written the days that were
ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
God’s actions and creation of life is so purposeful. It
isn’t random. A child with special needs is not a mistake or a part of nature
gone awry. There are aspects of Brenna’s personality that would be forever
missing if she were a typically developing child. Her uninhibited enthusiasm
might not exist. Her love of animals and special way of looking deep into a
horse’s eyes and truly understanding it, might not be. Her slower gait, her way
of observing and taking things in would be lost in a rush to keep up with
everyone else.
I believe that one of the largest misconceptions I encounter
regularly comes from those who say that God only gives children with special
needs to special people. He doesn’t. He gives them to normal people, below average
people, impatient people, flawed people, people who weren’t sure they were
ready to have a baby yet, people who lose their temper and sometimes yell. He
gives these special children to people who feel completely inadequate.
Then he equips them.
He surrounds them with a community of support. He gives them friends who
aren’t too tired to listen, or share some of the load. He gives them a church
who won’t judge their parenting, who won’t frown or get angry when their child
can’t sit through service quietly or drops the hymnal.
He gives them you.
Mother’s Day is about celebrating every woman who impacts
the life of a child. It just isn’t about the mom who can bake the best, sew the
best, keep the neatest house. It isn’t about the woman who has given birth
without medication or even given birth at all. It is about the woman who is
nurturing. The woman who is teaching Sunday School. The woman who lets her
little neighbors come over to play, even when it is inconvenient. The woman who
mentors. The woman who keeps going.
God bless you this Mother’s Day.
