"Well, I just don't want you to overwhelm yourself." This is my most frequently heard statement from the medical/therapy workers when they hear of the program we are embarking upon for Mikah. Overwhelmed?! I have been overwhelmed since he was 2 weeks old and "popped" his hernia on Valentine's Day! That was about 20 months ago.
I found it extremely overwhelming to take him to therapy outside of our home 4 days a week at a different time each day thus defeating the thought of even trying to have naps or a schedule. And then to sit and watch for 45 minutes while they made him scream and cry most of the time to the point of vomiting on himself in his car seat on the way and then trying to stop on Broad St. to make sure he was okay. Not to mention that his tube feedings had to be at a different time each day and there was no hope for really working on his oral eating skills...Yes, I am overwhelmed.
We haven't even started to discuss the emotional and spiritual battles that go on in my mind and heart on a daily basis.
But then isn't every mother overwhelmed? The grass is never greener on the side and I would never want to trade "her" problems for my own. No one else's problems are better to have than your own. God picked me to have these problems. He knew that eventually I would get over myself and stand up under them and that some day I will look down on them and smile. With his help. The verses in Psalm 40:1-2 have been especially important to me since I have found myself is this pit and yes it has been a pit but every day it is looking more and more like a beautiful green valley and some day I am sure it will be a mountain, tall and strong and firm that I shout my praises from.
Psalm 40:1-2
I waited patiently for the Lord;
He turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
Back to the question of am I overwhelmed? Yes. Now the question, that some how seems more important, "Is it worth it?" If I was one that used profanity, I might have been prone to use some very explicit words and attacked the persons that have asked me that. This is MY SON that we are talking about! This precious, beautiful gift entrusted to me from God! He is most definitely WORTH IT! He was born into this family on purpose, not by accident and he is my charge for as long as God sees fit to loan him to me. He will always be worth it. Even on the days when we are both frustrated or on the days when he hasn't slept and so neither has anyone in the house, the days when we are at loss to know what to do for him, he will always be worth it. He is one of the wounded ones and, as Glenn Doman put it so eloquently in our class, in our family we DON'T leave the wounded behind. He may not have been wounded from a gunshot or a fall or from neglect or drugs or any number of other things and we may not know why he was wounded but wounded he is and we will not leave him behind. We will dedicate ourselves to helping him heal as much as God sees fit and we will pray that God receives all the glory for his recovery and the energy we had to expend to help him recover.
Some people may keep on wondering and asking, "Is it worth it?" to those people I will still say yes it is worth it. Do you know why? Because last night while I was out attending an amazing Mom to Mom Round Table Discussion at New Life Gahanna my husband called and left a message on our cell phone, Mikah got up on all fours and LIFTED HIS HEAD UP!! That is worth it! For my little boy to have learned in less than one week of not ideal, sporadic patterning to lift his head up when on his belly, that is most definitely worth it. And that is just the beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment