As we journey together “let us think of ways to motivate one another in acts of love and good works”(Hebrews 10:24 NLT)

Hi all,
Sorry for the absence but we took a week of vacation! It was wonderful!
And now that we are back and mostly recouped from our insanely long trip back. I am renewed and refreshed!

This was out first vacation in FOUR years. Over the last few years we have spent two weeks in spring in Michigan for hubby’s Th.M. program. Last may he graduated so we didn’t need to go out there! That was half school and half vacation!

The last full vacation we took was to Tennessee and Kentucky before my husband accepted the call to the church he now pastors back in February of 2009!

On this trip we got to spend time with my aunt and uncle in South Carolina and on the return trip we got to see my brother for a few minutes. While in Florida we got to spend time with hubby’s brother HT and sister -in -law L. And our new (and only) niece Ducky (that’s her nickname)

Isn’t she sweet! hubby and I fought over her and the kids all loved her to bits! We enjoyed the sun and warmth of southern Florida!

We as a family we rested…well that is until we headed home from South Carolina! What should have taken us 13 hours ended up taking us 26! The traffic we hit was unbelievable and we even avoided the DC /Baltimore area!

All in all it was a real blessing. We miss everyone!
I look forward to jumping in with both feet over the coming weeks!

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This is the very first installment of a series i mentioned on Facebook a little while ago entitled Why we do what we do. We get many questions about why we choose certain things.

Today as i am nearing the end of my reading through the book of Philippians i was reminded of the reason we opt out of regular media.

It says :

Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Everything thing we consume media wise is put into our minds we will recount them. We need to be sure not to put something in that does not fit these requirements. It is setting ourselves up for failure otherwise!

It’s far too easy for our kids to see something they aren’t supposed to. We let our kids watch movies and some TV shows that we pre-pick

We are called to be good stewards of all we have and that includes our children. We need to make sure their minds and hearts and eyes are protected at all costs. Let’s face it today’s media lacks in the pure quotient. Hubby and I also need to focus on these things as well because our hearts could become numb to sin, and that would affect our ministry!

Remember focusing on right things is a commandment of God…..garbage in garbage out fits perfectly into the Bible!

BLESSINGS,

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Chapter 9- when the World Presses in
Yet again another chapter that hits right at home!

I think at one time or another we have all experienced loss…..matter of fact I have experienced loss many times. A year ago our family experienced a year full of loss. In my adult years I have lost both grandmothers, many friends, and aunts and uncles, and church family.

But going back farther, as a teenager I experienced deep loss. Loss of what I initially believed defined who I was. At thirteen I was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration. I was told I was the youngest kid in the U.S. to have it at the time. At that moment in my life, I wasn’t really phased. I had that all too familiar invincible mentality. No worries I would have eye surgery and everything would be all good. Fast forward three years later. I was one month away from turning 16. I was so excited to get my driver’s license. My dad and I had even spotted car I really wanted….a little cobalt blue something. But then i started to notice things were changing, it was getting to the point where I couldn’t see notes on the board….I was terrified. But this time I wasn’t invincible, and everything began to unravel! There were eye doctor visits and at the end of one such the doctor asked me to really consider my options…..i could either have surgery and run the risk of making my eyes weaker, or possibly not being able to see at all, or not have the surgery, let the scar tissue become attached and have it stabilize. I prayed very hard and with peace that even I still don’t understand today, i chose no surgery. Everyone around me thought I was giving up. But what I was really chosing to do was to embrace what I still had. I thought it was a bad choice to risk what I still had.which coincidentally is quite a bit. I had people telling me i wasn’t trusting God enough. That He could heal me if I just believed enough. Here’s the thing what if God doesn’t want to heal you? What if by you having some sort of affliction brings Him more glory.

I won’t lie it was probably the darkest time in my life. Thoughts flashed through my head of not being good enough. Friends, I pretty much had none. They were ok as long as everything was going great but for the most part kids were cruel, and I was different. That usually makes for a bad mix!

Fast forward 17 years. I have been blind for over half of my life now. It hasn’t been all roses but I am married to an amazing guy. I have four amazing kids and a church family who loves us. I am living out my calling as a pastor’s wife. Those things are my bright spots but if you have been following my blog you know the last few months have been nothing short of a trial. And yet again It has been required of me to let some dreams go.

As our third child, our second son was diagnosed with Aspergers an autism spectrum disorder. There are some things I have had to let go of. I’ve had to come to the realization that we might be lifetime caregivers of our son. There is no guarantee that therapy or diet will work. We have seen that already as he gets worse instead of better. We also had to let go of the simple dream that he may never be able to read. There are many other dreams we have had to hand over to God. We have had to mourn the loss of relationships through this. It’s terribly difficult to have fair weather friends but you can tell who your true friends and cheerleaders are as you embark down a dark path with no idea where it would possibly lead.

Am I mad at God? No, no i’m not because i know what I deserve is far worse than this! I deserve the pit of hell. But through His grace and mercy I have a promise of HOPE, and I will gladly endure whatever for His Glory, for it is ONLY by his love that I can all ALL things!

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I must confess that when my arm was in the splint it was too hard to type so i had to let blogging go for two weeks! So now i wanted to finish up!

Week 8- When you just Want To Give Up
Well I must have to say that this has been an encouraging chapter!
Have I felt this way? Most certainly, and it wasn’t all that long ago either!
Actually, there is a blog post entitled “Getting Ugly” that came out of that dark time. You see a battle has been waged in our home. That battle nearly consumed me. It is a battle that started in October of 2012, with no warning!

It brought to light my weaknesses and every area I felt as though I was failing in. God had been chipping away at some very deep scars. Ones I had been hiding deep in my heart…..ones that I will not share here. I was struggling. I felt as though there was absolutely no where to turn!

I felt so incredibly alone and as though I had to wage this battle alone. It involved our third child, our second son. Something obviously changed in October. We started seeing and hearing things we had never seen or heard before. I was so embarrassed and scared. Not necessarily for myself but for my husband! We are a pastor’s family…..what would people think if they heard the pastor’s son say that? He could loose his job. I was SOOOOO worried about appearances!

I had downloaded a free copy of Hope For A Weary Mom back when it was first released. I thought to myself, “i’ll just add it to the ever mounting collection on my kindle”. Well in January God really started moving my heart. I was thinking about this book quite a few times in a day so I began to read. I joined in on the reading club even though i was a month behind. I was caught up by week 5. As i read chapter 2 i was sobbing uncontrollably. That last chunk fell to the ground and shattered to the tiniest pieces. It was called “when Your Weakness Is all You Can See”. Boy oh boy did that fit little old me, you see I had convinced myself that I was unworthy to sit before my Heavenly Father because I wasn’t good enough. I was failing in EVERYTHING!

Since that day when I fell to my knees and gave it all over to God, and confessed my struggles with feeling inadequate in literally every area of my life, God has blessed! Mostly in my confidence! My confidence to share our struggles as a parent of a child on the autism spectrum. I have always believed that if God gives you a story, you need to share it! My life has been nothing short of one HUGE amazing story to share. And as that chunk of inadequacy fell to the ground, so did my fear of not being good enough. Because the only person I truly have to impress is God himself. By myself I am not enough, but because the blood of Christ cleansed me from all imperfections (though i am very much still imperfect) I AM ENOUGH!

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Greetings all!
I have bombarded with questions about how we found out about our son being on the autism spectrum. There have been a couple of unbelievers as well, citing lack of discipline. But as I have been living this craziness for the last 6 months I have come to realize 2 things:

1. These people do not really know our family
AND
2. These people have no real concept of the world around them.

I wouldn’t wish an autism spectrum disorder on my worst enemy! But there are some amazing resources out there. Our son was diagnosed with Aspergers about a month and a half ago!

Since the very beginning our original doctor’s answer was to medicate him for something he clearly didn’t have! MEDICATING A CHILD FOR ADHD WHEN THEY HAVE A SPECTRUM DISORDER MAKES THE CHILDS SYMPTOMS WORSE!

Ok so what are the symptoms?
Well I fouNd this great blog post HERE
This post helped my husband I see things that we just though were quirky!

So let’s go symptom by symptom and I’ll give you an idea of what our life looks like on the spectrum!

1.they have a hard time socially. Our son has a very hard time making friends. His friends are his little men. He has loads of them! But not just that they have no concept of social norms. A lot of spectrum kids will sniff, lick or touch people. Our son does all three!

2. Eccentric or Repetitive behaviors- we see this a lot in our son. He has many and they change from day to day. The first one which we see the most common is hand flapping. He does this when he is both excited and agitated! Then there is spinning in circles this is very common but I have only seen our son do this once. These things soothe the children who are affected. Our son also kicks his feet rapidly. He will rewind the same scene in a movie and watch it over and over and over again.

3. Unusual preoccupations and rituals. Our son has some of these one of them is inappropriate to share here. I will say this though he is fascinated with all things space. Star wars, star trek, star maps. He will stare on these things for hours! He is very enthralled with little plastic characters and goofy. He will sit and trace the outline of his characters for long periods of time. He doesn’t really pretend. At times we catch him re-enacting stories but he doesn’t make up his own stuff!

4. Communication Difficulties- one of the worst thing you could do to our son is yell at him to look at you. Kids on the spectrum have a very difficult time making and keeping eye contact. When our son is talking with us, he won’t look at us at all. Only a few people get get him to look at a camera when getting his picture taken! Our son also has trouble communicating thoughts. He stutters quite a bit, though he does have quite a large vocabulary, he didn’t talk until he was nearly three. AND. it wasn’t until recently that a memory came to mind of him as a baby. As a baby he never cried! I’m serious. One morning he slept for 12 hours…no joke. I went in and he sat laid in his crib. I had checked on him every hour but i finally had to wake him up. From that point on I set a timer! He did cry when he had a messy diaper and he never cried to get out of his crib after a nap. I frequently checked on him so i knew when he was awake! I shared my concerns with the doctor but i was dismissed and said “i just had an easy baby”

5. Limited range of interest. This really depends on the day for our son. It could be spce related or technology….movies, my ipad, tight spaces, and other times it might be finding every small plastic fugre he owns!,

6. Coordination problems- these kids tend to be very clumsy and awkward. My son is no different, he also has very low muscle tone. He is unable to jump on one foot, matter of fact he doesn’t run or jump with two feet at all!

7. Sensory issues- our son is just riddled with these! He is both more sensitive in some areas and less sensitive in others. Now we have found that what he is sensitive in one day might not be the same the next day. He hates shoes and socks …they “pinch” his feet. He hates regular clothes he would live in soft PJs . Matter of fact he has tried to sneak his PJs under his regular clothes before church or school! He rarely if ever feels cold in his feet. If we aren’t very careful he will go out in the snow without shoes on. Having his hair cut and washed is a huge ordeal. Same with having his face touched. Food textures and tastes are also a big thing. He doesn’t generally like meat!

8. Difficulty regulating emotions. He can’t control himself whether it’s happiness/excitement or anger/sadness.. We see ginormous swings in a matter of seconds!

9. Lack of empathy- so if i hurt myself (like a few weeks ago) and I cry because I am in pain, he basically could care less…OR he might laugh. Whereas our other children say whats wrong mommy?

(At this point I want to draw your attention to what our new doctor pointed out as another major symptom and that is the inability to read facial expressions so the famed “look” every mommy has used is worthless . They will just look at it as though you are making faces at them and laugh….this drove us NUTS!)

10. Difficulties in transitions and rigidity-from the very mom our son wakes up it is what are we doing today? What’s tonight? We answer this many times in a day. And if per chance we have to change our plans, look out! He is always asking what’s next.

11. Difficulties with imaginary play- as i said before this is not something he is good at and it is VERY rare that he plays with his siblings. He would much rather be in a room away from all the noise sometimes under a bed, in his safe room, or behind a chair playing with his toys. He doesn’t really play with many different toys.

12. Skilled or talented- our son has an amazing memory. He memories bible verses amazingly fast and only really needs to hear a song once or twice. He also does very well with numbers and can color like no other 5 year old boy, i have ever met!

This is by no means an extensive list of symptoms and all of these symptoms are intermingled with each other. I know this is a small glimpse but imagine all of these things going on and toss in verbal and motor tics as well and it makes for some super exhausting days!

Thanks for showing interest, care and love for our family as we embark on this new journey Life on the Spectrum!

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