Living in Holland

My Friend and I read an amazing piece written by Emily Perl Kingsley.  What makes it so wonderful, was how it spoke to both of us and I am hoping you as well. 

I made up my mind that I will live in the moment.  I am still amazed that God does what he does.  I am even more determined to live in my “Holland” with joy.  I don’t want to miss the details of it.  I am not going to pine over what I don’t have.  I am not going to say things like “why is it that my son can’t be like that other child. You know the one in university, not smoking and is gainfully employed.  Yeah that child that is different from the one I really have.” He is a part of my Holland experience.  He asked me the other day “Am I not doing okay?  Am I not going back to school?”  I have been guilty, if I were charged, of telling him about “Italy” and how much I wanted him and I to be there – not in HOLLAND.  I am not going to pine over what is not and what could have been.  I am going to live in the moment.

 

For my friend, she writes:

I can hardly believe that it has already been 1 week since my baby's PSARP. I am amazed by his strength and resilience. I guess after 6 hours of surgery I did not expect him to be sent home 3 days later with Tylenol (as needed) and some Polysporine cream for the incision. He is a happy baby and is doing wonderfully well.  God knows we had a rough time getting those colostomy bags to stick when he came home from the NICU but today I am happy to report they are sticking for at least 24 hours which is a victory for us.

Someone shared this poem with me and I wanted to share it with you because it helped me put things in perspective. A little sad but it really spoke to the sadness and worry I felt last week.

 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland

Arise and let us be going

Truly, I must say the thoughts that I am about to share were planted from someone else.  I was reading Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest and was inspired.  He communicated that when we realize we have not seized an opportunity, we tend to fall into despair.  Isn't that true?  He goes on to say that when faced with this despair, "...Jesus Christ comes and says - "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it..."  If I were to end here, you would not only be in despair but certainly, this might cause you to sink further down the emotional pit of defeat and hopelessness.  For me, my eyes couldn't wait to get to the end of this sentence.  I needed to find hope.  Oswald continues, "...but arise and go to the next thing."  That is the answer.


I have spent a considerable amount of time bemoaning my many "missed opportunities".  I have prayed for some of them to return so that I may take advantage of the do over.  I have kicked myself and spent time trying to re-build the windows as it were of opportunities.  All have been a waste of time.  What I needed to do was as Oswald said, Arise and go to the next thing.  It sounds so simple.  Is this really all I need to do?  Oswald explains that to do this we must "Let the past sleep...on the bosom of Christ and go into the irresistible future with Him."  Jesus had compassion on his disciples and gave them that grace when they missed their opportunity.  Instead of watching, they slept as Jesus prayed.  I could imagine how they felt when he woke them up.  They were caught sleeping on the job and maybe they were ready to beat up themselves about it.  Jesus, didn't allow them to wallow in self pity and despair, "Rise, let us be going".  Move on.  They couldn't watch and pray with Jesus.  It was already too late.  The time was past. 


Can you relate to this?  I can.  So, let us move past those things that we should have done, could have done and even would have done.  The time for that is gone and it is time to move on to the next window of opportunity with Christ.  As I started with Oswald I will finish with him, "Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action." Arise and let us be going. (Matthew 26:46)

Unravelling

On Sunday I witnessed a person unravelling.  I didn't know it at the time.  I admitt that I got caught up with the action instead of the cause behind it and may have over reacted a little. 
He came into the house and was hell bent on having it out with his offspring.  It was like something inside of him snapped, but it really had little to do with the current situation.

I tried to say "calm down", to which he responded "DONT TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!  I DON'T WANT TO CALM DOWN!"  Unravelling. Just like a roll of thread that falls to the ground, rolling along without a destination point. I could see this was going nowhere and fast. So I tried my best to keep my voice calm.  His ranting continued.  He was out of control, only he didnt know it.   He didnt see that with every word he carlessly spoke he was hurting his child.  He didn't see the wedge he was building.  Each word was like a hammer.  Knock. Knock. knock. Bruise. Bruise. Bruise.  He was like the very animal he claimed his offsprings had to be treated as for them to "move". Unravelling.

Before it was over, I was on the verge of tears.  As I closed the front door, the damn burst open and I cried long and hard. I was hurting for them both. The child that had to endure that verbal abuse and the father that couldnt see beyond his own ideas of right and justice. I hurt because this was not the first time and I imagine that it would not be the last time. I hurt beacuse this glimpse into the reality of people I thought I knew was heart breaking.  I cried some more.

As I write this, I am thinking of how many of us are trapped in the cycle.  You know, our parents did it to us and so we do it to our kids.  I wonder how many people are unravelling in our circle but no-one is able to see it because we brush it off as their personality trait.  "That's just how they are" we say.  What I witnessed on Sunday was not the problem but a manifestation of something else. That behaviour, erratic and out of control, was more than a father excercising discipline.  It was void of love. It was void of reason. It was the picture of a man unravelling. 

What is it that lurks in the minds of those we love that causes them to loose their temper, drink every day, harden their hearts, hide behind other things.  What causes them to pretend that all is well when inside they are dying to say "Help me please! I am hurting!  I don't know what to do!"   I don't know.  But this I do know with certainty, prayer works. It will take a power greater than the Demons of the past that haunt and terrorize.  It will take a light bright enough to dispell the darkness on the inside. It will  take a love that is unconditional to combat the hate and lies propagated by our common foe - the Devil.  It will take a name that is higher than any other name - Jesus. Jesus, we are calling upon your precious name so that we might be saved!  In Jesus' name Amen!