How To Find Joy in Every Season of Your Special Needs Parenting Journey

How To Find Joy in Every Season of Your Special Needs Parenting Journey

by | Apr 18, 2019 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support

How To Find Joy in Every Season of Your Special Needs Parenting Journey

How to find joy in every season of the special needs parenting journey is a challenge for all of us. Different Dream guest blogger, Jenn Soehnlin encourages parents to intentionally seek and find joy even with the hard bits of parenting all around.

How to Find Joy in Every Season of Your Special Needs Parenting Journey

After a long, dark, and snowy winter, I’m excited to see signs of spring all around me. New buds and blossoms and leaves unfurling. Birds chirping and building their nests. And yes, some rain too, all which bring hope of new life and sunnier days.

There is something beautiful about each and every season, though we always have a favorite (or two).

Life itself has many seasons. I’m reminded of the wise Solomon, who in Ecclesiastes 3 said:

“There is a time for everything,
And a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
A time to plant and a time to uproot,
A time to kill and a time to heal,
A time to tear down and a time to build,
A time to weep and a time to laugh,
A time to mourn and a time to dance,
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
A time to embrace and a time to refrain,
A time to search and a time to give up,
A time to keep and a time to throw away,
A time to tear and a time to mend,
A time to be silent and a time to speak
A time to love and a time to hate,
A time for war and a time for peace.”

This special needs parenting journey is full of seasons. Seasons where we are overwhelmed with grief or anxiety, and seasons where we experience hope and joy. Seasons of stress and never ending appointments, and seasons where we choose to cut back on some obligations and find more rest for ourselves and our families. Seasons where we see our child make no or very little progress, and other seasons where we watch our child flourish in a certain area or several.

Seasons have a purpose

There is a purpose and reason for every season. Our challenging life circumstances may make us feel we’re in an endless winter, but we always have hope that God will use our season and that spring will come. Yes, there’s challenges in every season. Even in the much awaited spring, we experience those April showers which bring May flowers. But there’s always hope and God’s love and His purpose in every season.

I remember a season where I was overwhelmed with the endless therapies and specialists and calls to insurance for my two young boys and I felt it was never going to end. I struggled with alternating bouts of anxiety and depression. But now, the boys are getting a lot of the therapies and support they need at school and I’m finding myself in a season where though we still have plenty of challenges, I have more breathing room. And when I asked God what He wanted me to learn from that season of stress and anxiety and grief, He told me to write about my experiences to encourage other special needs parents in the same place. It wasn’t what I expected or planned of my life, but God has a plan and a purpose for every season, especially our hardest ones, and we may not see it all when we’re in the middle of it, but God will not let it go to waste. He is growing you. Teaching you. And He will use you because of what you are learning in your current season.

A new season unfolds slowly, reminding us that we aren’t supposed to rush ahead to the next season (as much as we may want to) and miss all the blessings and the purpose God has for us right now. But a new season will come, and bring with it a new life, hope, and purpose for you and your family.

Seasons are to be savored

I love that God Himself gives us permission to sit in our season without guilt. We are allowed a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to embrace and to refrain from embracing. A time to keep and to release. God is doing something in our lives in every season. There is always something to be grateful for. We cannot always control the circumstances in our seasons, but we can control our perspective and our response to our season. We can choose to see the good, the beauty, the blessings in each and every day.

I find the beginning of each new weather season a beautiful time to take some time to evaluate our lives and what I want out of the upcoming season. I encourage you to take a little time to:

Make a list of things you are grateful for in your current season.

  • Evaluate what goals you want to set for yourself, your family, and your children in this upcoming season.
  • Evaluate what things you need to let go of in your life to find a healthier season for you and your family. What things can you remove from your to-do list so that you and your family have more time to rest, to enjoy life and each other? What things are you carrying that God wants you to let go of?
  • Evaluate what things you need to embrace in your life so you can experience all that God has for you and your family in your current season. What good things has God given you that you want to be more intentional about enjoying?
  • Evaluate what life-giving things you can incorporate into the season you are in so you can live fully present.

Contemplate these things with God, with your spouse or a good friend, and/or in a journal. Your mindset is powerful and a major contributing factor into what will help you step into and savor a season of growth and new life and purpose.

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Jenn Soehnlin is a mother to two young sons who are precious blessings and who both have special needs. Her heart is to share encouragement and God’s truths with moms who are also traveling the special needs parenting journey. She is the author of Embracing This Special Life: Learning to Flourish as a Mother of a Child with Special Needs. She enjoys blogging about faith and special needs parenting at www.embracing.life.

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The Polar Vortex and Gratitude: An Unlikely Combination

The Polar Vortex and Gratitude: An Unlikely Combination

by | Feb 20, 2019 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support

The Polar Vortex and Gratitude: An Unlikely Combination

The polar vortex and gratitude. I never thought of pairing the two until the great polar vortex of January 2019. Even I have lived through plenty of what we called “cold snaps” until the 24/7 news cycle invented a more alarming term.

  • I was 9 in 1965, the year that held the record low temperature for January 30 until 2019.
  • I was 25 and 5 months pregnant in 1982 when the mercury dipped to -45° when we were living in northwest South Dakota.
  • I was 33 in 1989 when school was called off for 2 days before Christmas break, which meant my third grade students had their anti-climactic Christmas party when school resumed in January.

The difference between my response to previous cold snaps and the 2019 polar vortex go far beyond a name change. My response to the 1965 cold snap was delight when Mom said she would drive me to school. In 1982, my husband and I piled into our friends’ car and traveled 90 miles to go out to eat, though the thermometer was -20° at its warmest.

In 1989 our son born with medical special needs was 7, and his baby sister was a few months old. By then I was haunted by what our son’s early years had revealed. His multiple surgeries, frequent invasive procedures, and nearly constant infections and illnesses showed that bad things happen even when you follow the rules and choose wisely. Therefore, my wisest course of action was to control the situation tightly, to protect my children, and keep everyone inside until the cold snap ended, or we ran out of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

To read the rest of this post, visit the Hope Anew website.

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Jolene Philo is a published author, speaker, wife, and mother of a son with special needs.

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More Than Worried

More Than Worried

by | Nov 7, 2018 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support

More Than Worried

Join the Different Dream gang as we welcome new guest blogger, Stephanie McKeever today. She confesses she is often worried and more than worried about IEP meetings as a special needs mom. What she has to say may sound familiar to you, too.

More Than Worried

Have you ever let your mind wander and let worry take over your thoughts, your days, nights, your attitude?
No?
Me neither.

Ugh.

The number of times I have given something to God and then taken it back again, honestly, it’s ridiculous. The amount of worry–and more than worry–I allow things to have over my mind is, well, mind-boggling. I am nothing if not consistent. I can be a bit impatient when it comes to God’s time versus my time when handling life. And I have been proven wrong time and again.

I had an IEP for my child, recently. Yes, I am still hammering away at IEPs. If you follow me on my website, then you know I’ve had some major life changes lately. However, freedom from IEP meetings were not one of those changes. The meeting had me worried.

Is there a word for more than worried?

The more than worried that kept me talking to myself in the car, into the bathroom silence (the only room where there is mom-silence), and stewing in the night. I had already had one pre-meeting, and I did not handle it all that well. So this time, I needed to step up my IEP game. But what if the IEP team came with the same offerings that had already kept me awake at 2 in the morning? What if they wore at the same soft spots that had me so rattled at the last meeting?

I am not proud of letting this more than worried conversation with God go on until I pulled out of my driveway to go the meeting.

Lightbulb! 

“Stephanie, why don’t you hush at this meeting and let God do what God does? Or maybe admit God has been doing His thing all along?”

Ya’ think?

Remember, I am consistent when it comes to my hardheadedness. But fast forward and what do you think happened?

Yep. God showed up when I shut up.

I am not saying God changed every single IEP meeting exactly the way I prayed it into action right before each meeting. But this particular meeting a reminder that God has shown up every single time over time. Occasionally, it takes more time than my limited time table for His work to be done. God has His own time table, and His timing is always best.

Sometimes His time is now.
Other time, I have to watch and see what God’s gonna do.
He never fails us.

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. 
Psalm 27:14

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My husband and I are parents of all boys, one of whom was a young adult with both physical and intellectual disabilities. I don’t always know what I’m doing as I parent these guys. But what I do know is God is teaching me big things through our trials that I probably would have never learned without them. You can find more from me at  www.stephaniemckeever.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter @stefmckeever.

Author Jolene Philo

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When the Caregiving Hits Keep Coming

When the Caregiving Hits Keep Coming

by | Oct 22, 2018 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support

When the Caregiving Hits Keep Coming

What’s a person to do when the caregiving hits keep coming? Though I have decades of caregiving experience under my belt, I  had to think hard to answer the question after my husband Hiram had hip replacement surgery in September of 2018.

The surgery was planned. My schedule had been cleared. My daughter and son-in-law, with whom we live multi-generationally to be ready for situations like these, volunteered to mow the lawn and make meals after we came home from the hospital. All systems were go, and I was certain juggling caregiving and work duties during Hiram’s 6 week recovery would be no problem.

The surgery went well, and the next day I brought Hiram home after supper. I went downstairs to talk to the rest of the caregiving team.

“He’s home,” I said.

“Don’t come in,” my daughter said, pointing to their 3-year-old son. “Tad’s sick. We’ll stay down here so Dad doesn’t catch this.”

The next day, everyone in their family was sick. Not just a little sick. They were sick sick.

Fevers.
Headaches.
Coughs.
Vomiting.

I was on my own. I was cooking for everyone, taking meals to the downstairs family and keeping my distance for over a week. By the grace of God and constant hand washing, my husband and I didn’t catch the creeping crud. But once everyone was back on their feet again, I was a mess.

To read the rest of this post, visit Key Ministry’s blog for parents of kids with special needs.

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Jolene Philo is a published author, speaker, wife, and mother of a son with special needs.

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The Dads Band

The Dads Band

by | Oct 18, 2018 | Books and Resources, Different Dream, Spiritual Support

The Dads Band

In this post, guest blogger Rachel Olstad introduces readers to the members of The Dads Band and describes their exciting new CD, The Waiting Room. 

Four musicians. Four fathers of children with severe disabilities. Years of playing together at Joni and Friends Family Retreat. Now performing their own music, the music that flows from their experiences of genuine faith lived in the middle of suffering, sorrow, and joyful hope. They are The Dads Band.

These four dads met years ago at a Joni and Friends Family Retreat for families affected by disability in the Santa Cruz mountains. Sean, Bart, Brent and Jim each have a child affected by disability – autism, Dandy-Walker syndrome, spina bifida, ataxia telangiectasia. Drawn together through disability, they soon discovered that they all were musicians and involved in ministry. Bonding over this triple crown of commonalities was a cinch.

They began leading worship at Family Retreat and affectionately became known as The Dad Band. They soon started to see each other throughout the year at other ministry events and sometimes even just for fun. People who heard them play kept asking, “When’s the CD coming out?”

This past January, they finally came together for four days to record a CD. Each guy brought in three tunes he’d written or arranged out of his experience of being special needs father.

In Love is Silent Sean expresses his desire to communicate with his son who is nonverbal.
Bart’s tune, On Gold Street, celebrates everyone dancing in heaven one day.
The Waiting Room is Brent’s take on learning to wait in the shelter of God’s wings.
Grab a tissue for Jim’s song, She Likes to Dance, which will break your heart and make you smile at the same time.

In creating this album, The Dads Band hopes to encourage everyone, but especially fathers who have children with disabilities. Band members want to offer God’s hope to those who are struggling with their child’s diagnosis, to those who are struggling with the loss of dreams and expectations for their child’s future, to those who are struggling in their marriages because the caregiving is sometimes just so hard. And they want to show that there is joy and love and laughter to be found on the path of disability journey.

You can listen to the tunes by downloaded them individually or as a full album on Amazon.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page

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Rachel Olstad began her journey into the world of disabilities in 1990 when her oldest child was born with spina bifida and subsequently diagnosed with autism. She volunteers with Joni and Friends Southern Oregon, helping to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of individuals and families affected by disability and encouraging churches to include all people. She was a contributing writer for both Special Needs Smart Pages and Nursery Smart Pages (Gospel Light), has been published in the Journal for Religion, Disabilities & Health, and was an assistant editor on Beyond Suffering: A Christian View on Disability Ministry. (Christian Institute on Disability)

Author Jolene Philo

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Called to Serve Others the Way Jesus Did

Called to Serve Others the Way Jesus Did

by | Oct 10, 2018 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support

Called to Serve Others the Way Jesus Did

Guest blogger Kimberly Drew rediscovered the heart of what it means to be the parent of kids with special needs through a chance encounter at the store. It’s all about serving others the way Jesus did.

Yesterday I stopped at the store to pick up something quickly. On my way out I ended up holding the door for a couple who had to have been in their 80’s. It took them a little while to get out the door because they were assisting their son who was in his mid 50’s and disabled. His mom apologized when he stopped at the door to put both his hands on my cheeks and try to kiss me.

I told her I had a daughter who loves the same way he does, and that I didn’t mind at all. I watched her help him get in the van and buckle his seatbelt. She did it all with a smile.

I couldn’t help but think about our life… I had no idea that I would spend so many days and hours in silence. For a woman who loves nothing more than a deep and heartfelt conversation with a friend, the one-way chit-chat I make with my girls on a daily basis can be very difficult.

I didn’t expect to change diapers on my teenage daughter while she is menstruating.
I had no idea that teaching someone how to eat could take so long.
There is no manual for how to bond with your adopted daughter when all she does is cry from drug withdrawal for four months straight.

But when I graduated Taylor University, I was given a towel to remind me to serve others the way Jesus did.

I’m so humbled by the mom in her 80’s who was taking care of her disabled son with a smile.
I’m challenged to make sure that the towel on my dresser is a way of life and not just a piece of decor.

The towel itself implies that my hands have to get a little dirty. I’m not there yet and so I have to just pray…

Lord, Give Me a heart and hands ready to serve, and a soul that finds joy in doing so.

Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.

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Kimberly graduated from Taylor University with a degree in Elementary Education in 2002. While at TU, she married her college sweetheart and so began their adventure! Ryan and Kimberly have three amazing kids on earth (Abigail, Jayden, and Cooper), and a baby boy waiting for them in heaven. Their daughter Abigail (Abbey) has multiple disabilities including cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder, hearing loss, microcephaly, and oral dysphagia. She is the inspiration behind Kimberly’s  desire to write. In addition to being a stay at home mom, Kimberly has been serving alongside her husband in full time youth ministry for almost fourteen years. She enjoys working with the senior high girls, scrapbooking, reading, and music. You can visit Kimberly at her website, Promises and Perspective.

Author Jolene Philo

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