Special Forces Moms

Mother’s Day is set aside to honor the women in our lives who birth us, adopt us, nurture, protect and empower us, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health. They do it because they love us. They do it because it’s what moms do.

This Mother's Day, I want to give a shout out to a specific category of moms; the Navy Seals and Green Berets of mother troops, those who were most likely drafted into a line of duty they didn't sign up for or expect, those who are in continuous boot camp and on the job training, secretly wondering if they're qualified to carry out their mission.  Mothers of children born with disabilities and/or critical medical conditions - the "Special Moms”.

No question that a mom loves her special kid, like a mama bear loves her cub, and once that child is permanently entangled in her heart she wouldn't trade him/her for anything. She may have moments when she wishes her child wasn’t so ill or limited or challenging. She might have days when she prays for less stress, worry and exhaustion. She could have fleeting dreams of packing a bag and running far away, farther than Calgon could ever take her, but she doesn't, because she knows she has been given a job to do, a unique assignment that could possibly end sooner than her broken heart can imagine or last a lifetime, with no leave of absence in sight.

Once she comprehends the blessing hidden in the uniquely wrapped treasure that is her child, the special mom gains wisdom beyond measure and learns the importance of letting go and clinging to Jesus. She matures with understanding of mysteries others are not privileged to recognize or appreciate.  In this brief pilgrimage through life with her child, she begins to shine like the jewel God created her to be: cut, polished and beautiful.

So here’s some well deserved kudos to all the overtime moms, those who ever have or are dispensing endless care and love for a very unique kid; some, long past the point of when full time mothering should end. You know who are.  You know what you do and so does God. He has sufficient wisdom, grace and endurance when the task is more than you can bear, when you feel overwhelmed and obscure. He promises His strength and grace will be perfected in both your own and your child’s weakness and frailty. Throughout a lifetime bursting with significant things to be done, every small detail you attend to, every sacrifice and sleepless night matters.

Special Forces Moms everywhere – thanks for the remarkable job you do. I pray you are infused with extra peace, joy, strength and blessed with a few quiet moments to relax, catch your breath and contemplate how important and amazing you really are, to your special needs child of course (whether he discerns it or not), to your family, but most of all to God.

Look up and be aware of God’s delight as you persevere in the unusual assignment you’ve been given. Allow the warmth of His smile to shine into the depths of your weary soul. Soak in His unending love and be revived as the power of Christ rests upon you.

HOOAH! and Happy Mother’s Day! :)

1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Potter's Assistant

I wrote this in the Fall of 2007 after our son, David, packed up and left for college. For all parents soon facing graduation and a child leaving home, this one's for you. Six years later, I guess I can say, you sort of get used to them being gone, but you never stop missing them if they don't return close to home.

There is an empty place in our home today and also in my heart.  David packed up his belongings and we took him six hundred and forty miles away from us to begin a new life at college.  

After years of loving, holding, comforting, teaching, playing, training, giving, worrying and caring we took our child, who is one no longer, to a strange place full of strange people then drove away and left him there, watching him wave good-bye in the rear view mirror as we pointed our car towards home.   

It is a very hard thing to do, this letting go, so bitter-sweet.  But the bird has left the nest and the butterfly has emerged from the chrysalis.  Time can not be reversed but can only go forward from here.

How am I supposed to feel?  I'm really not sure. I am so conflicted with happiness for David and this new opportunity for growth and adventure, then sadness for how much I already miss him.  

We drive home immersed in empty silence in a car that just a few hours ago was packed full of our son.  I walk into my house and his bedroom door is closed, the room dark and quiet.  No clothes piled on the floor, no rumpled blankets on the bed, no email and cell phone competing for attention, no music blaring from the stereo speakers or from one of the several guitars that once lined the walls, no crazy auburn curls emerging from all that chaos with a random joke, smile or hug.  

It is eerily silent here and I feel immensely sad and lonely for this one who has brought so much joy to my days.  There are others here in my home that I love just as much but they can not take his place.  Not the easy, happy place that he always resides in.  They can not fill the vacant space that his leaving has made inside of me because they each have a different spot in my heart. 

If I truly believe that everything I have comes from God then I understand that this son was only loaned to us for a time.  God entrusts us with a child and we are allowed to call him or her our own.  We are expected to be good stewards of this life and assist God in making something useful of it. 

So the formation begins with a parent’s persistent love and training, shaping and influencing through the years, spinning by as swiftly as the potter's wheel. We give our imperfect best to mold goodness, character, and purpose until the time when we finally take our hands off, when we must let go and see what becomes of this life we were once immersed in.

The clay is formed now and our child is responsible to make wise choices and become all that God has purposed for him.   My job is finished.  My eyes are no longer close by to see, nor my words instantly available to warn him of the trouble one poor decision can produce.  My ears are no longer attentively tuned to the lure of the world that surrounds him.  My hands are no longer the main influence shaping him. Now, in his own heart and mind, he must see, hear and understand the decisions that create an ongoing success of a life fit for The Potter’s use. 

I pray we did something right in teaching him what he needs to know.  I think we did, but only time will tell the end of the story.  I can only hope that all of the treasure tucked away in this wonderful earthen vessel of our son will display the excellency of the power of God, and not so much of us and our human limitations and frailty.  

As time marches forward and the story continues to be written, I trust that the wonder of seeing David’s life and purpose unfold will fill my very being with a greater joy, replacing all the emptiness my heart feels today. And even in this conflicting sadness, I thank God for the privilege of being His willing and humble assistant through these fleeting years.  

 I wouldn’t trade one moment of it for anything at all.

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you our potter; and we all are the work of your hand.”  Isaiah 64:8

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2Corinthians 4:7

Heaven Is Here

My dear friend Thelma came to stay with us for a few nights. She needed a quiet retreat to get some work done on several projects; the second, third and fourth books in her “God’s Lil People” series for kids, and another unusual book which I am really excited about! 

Since I’ve known Thelma, she has had a passion for exposing children to the miraculous and supernatural power of a living God. She and her husband, Lou, live with their oldest daughter, son-in-law and their three children in a sprawling house on several acres in Kissimmee, Florida. The oldest granddaughter, who is now ten, has been regularly visiting Heaven in her dreams at night for the past six years or so. When the family finally realized this, Thelma began chronicling Rachel’s experiences in the morning after she wakes up. Rachel recites and Grama writes with a fury. 

I just spent a good part of the last few days reading Rachel’s journeys to Heaven (since 2009); her descriptions of what she sees there, rooms and levels, healing grass, mountains that move then explode into waterfalls that flow with healing water to us on earth,  her personally assigned angels named Promise and Laughy, who take her places throughout Heaven, explain things to her and give her a birthday party, people she meets, such as her dad’s parents, who she never knew on earth because they died before she was born, and best of all her wonderful conversations with Jesus whom she often meets in their special “Love Tree” where they climb up to just sit and talk. According to Rachel, the Love Tree has large, beautiful rose-like flowers all over it, you can eat them and they taste really wonderful.

It is an adventure full of joy, beauty, love and trust with simple, yet profound revelation of doctrine, theology and scripture, things that Rachel is still too young to understand, but are very evident in her conversations and discoveries. It is also an unveiling of the wondrous heart of God for all His children, who sparkle like diamonds on earth when Rachel and Jesus look at us from Heaven. 

The most awesome surprise in Rachel’s dreams is that Heaven is already on earth and we spend so much time mired in our natural and physical, temporary realities, we aren’t even aware of it. We don’t understand what being, “Seated in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6) really means or what, “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) can do for us nor do we totally grasp the concept of, “On earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). We don't realize that we are already living in the Eternal and this life is just a chapter in the never ending adventure.

The past decade of my life, God has been speaking to my own heart about how complicated I make Him, how I want to do what He has already done and how I attempt to reason instead of trust. Like Rachel says, your spirit where Jesus already lives, should always ‘pump up’ to your mind. Your mind should never ‘pump down’ to your spirit. How I long to live in that place where my mind is servant to God's spirit within me!

To be privileged to read Rachel’s encounters and have my own understanding further enlightened and my heart set free inside a simple, yet deeper level of truth, is a great joy and honor. I feel as if I’m floating in another realm just thinking of it! I can’t give it all away, but I’m incredibly thankful that I have been asked to be a part of this project-layout, design, editing-whatever way I can help, I am thrilled to do so.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these,” (Mark:10:14) As Rachel teaches us about the Kingdom of God in Heaven and it's connection to earth, I’m more than willing to follow along and learn of Him, whom my soul loves and longs for above all else.

Mark 10:13-16   People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them