Who He Was Created to Be

After waiting for a few minutes in the waiting room, we hear our name being called and follow the click-clack of the woman’s heels down the hall towards her office.  She motions for us to take a seat on the other side of her desk, offering us coffee.  Commenting on the weather.  Asking if we were able to find a spot in the parking deck across the street without too much trouble.  She is obviously trying to be polite and make us feel comfortable, but I am impatient and ready to get down to business.  We are here for answers, not small talk.

Finally, she sits behind her desk and hands us a thick stack of papers, neatly bound together with a large binder clip.  It my first hint that this meeting is not going to be quick.  Or that the news inside these documents is not going to be good.  I had been secretly hoping that she would give us a single sheet of paper, one that said something simple like, Your child’s test scores all came back in the “normal” range, and you have absolutely nothing to worry about.  Have a nice day!  But of course my secret hopes were entirely unrealistic.  We wouldn’t have requested these evaluations in the first place unless we had suspected that something was seriously wrong.  The thick stack of papers is a professional’s report, confirming and articulating in technical terminology what we already know to be true.

She starts talking about the report, explaining some of the details and diagnoses.  You know how, when Charlie Brown’s teacher talks, all you can hear is Wah wah, wah wah, wah wah wah instead of the actual words?  That is exactly what this feel like.  I can hear this woman’s voice, and I know she is saying actual words, but I am unable to understand any of it through the fog of shock.  How can these words be describing our child?

Seeing our child’s weaknesses and struggles right here in black and white, complete with specific codes from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), is sobering and heart-breaking.  What parents want to read a document that officially declares that their child is deficient? What parents want to admit that their child is fundamentally flawed? Abnormal?  Broken?

Later, in the privacy of my home, when I have had time to process the gravity of the psychologist’s conclusions, I study every word of these documents.  I highlight diagnoses and labels.  I use sticky-notes to mark important phrases and summaries that I may need to refer back to in the future.  I use Google to look up words I do not understand.  I make copies of this thick stack of papers for the teachers and therapists and service providers and case managers who have already been a part of my son’s life, and I add this thick stack of papers to the ever-growing pile that documents his journey.

For the past ten years of my son’s life, I have been his Warrior Mama.  Not only for his complicated health needs, but also for his complicated neuro- developmental needs.  I have researched statistics and educational options and possible outcomes.  I have hired therapists and tutors, exhausting every available resource.  Together we have given my son every opportunity to reach his fullest potential. 

And when it became clear that everything we had been doing was still not enough, we requested an evaluation - a formal, intense, 2-day assessment of his cognitive abilities and delays.  Seeing the growing stack of paperwork that documents our son’s journey so far, I am terrified by the depth of our son’s brokenness.  The thought of him facing this potentially life-long struggle to learn and progress, of the challenges and obstacles that just may be impossible to fix . . . it is too big, too much, too overwhelming.

My deep-seated fear doesn’t quite have a name yet, but the seriousness of his needs fills my heart with unanswerable questions about his future.  How will I ever be able to help him succeed?  Will he succeed?  What if, by following the Special Education track that is specifically designed for students like him, he is unable to graduate from high school and earn his diploma? Will he ever be able to live independently?  If not, who will take care of him after my husband and I are gone?

Has God forgotten about my son?  Do His promises apply to everyone else’s children?  Does He only have plans and purposes for the honor student or for the athlete or for the creative or for the popular or for the entrepreneurial-minded?  Of course not!

On the desk in my office sits a thick stack of binder-clipped paperwork, filled with professional assessments of my son.  But that’s not all I have.  On the bedside table in my room sits a thick black leather-bound book, filled with God’s promises for my son.  And in this book, I read a verse like this:  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)  My son is God’s handiwork, and he was specifically created by God to do good works.  He has already prepared my son, with all of his complex challenges and differences, for good works.  How that truth encourages my heart!

Or verses like this:  The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother He named my name. (Isaiah 49:1)  He set me apart before I was born, and called me by His grace. (Galatians 1:15)  Even before my son was born, long before I ever knew him, God, by His grace, had already called him and set him apart.  Had already planned to place him in our family, and He already knew his name!  Before any of his diagnoses had been identified and labeled, even before I knew he would struggle, God already knew.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)  It is God at work in my son, in his heart and in his life, and yes, even in his neuro-diversity.  (Oh, how I love that word: neuro-diversity!)  He knows how my son is wired.  How is brain works and where he struggles.  He knows what it will take to reach him.  To transform him into the young man that he was created to be.  His purposes for my son are, what?  Hardship and struggle and shame?  No, His purposes for my son are good!  There is no label by human psychologists, therapists, or teachers, licensed though they may be, that can thwart God’s plan for my son’s life.  Oh, how I need to be reminded of that!!

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.  (Psalm 25:10) Really?  ALL the paths?  Even the path of neuro-diversity and Special Education?  Even the path that sometimes seems dark and discouraging and frustrating and lonely?  Even the path of painfully slow progress and frequent setbacks?  Yes, all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness!  I cling to that!  

This is definitely not a path I would have chosen for me or my son or our family.  But this is the path we are on.  And this path is from the Lord.  And His steadfast love and faithfulness are on this path with us.  He is on this path with us, carrying us and sustaining us (Isaiah 46:3-4). Giving us wisdom when don’t know what to do or where to turn for help (Proverbs 2:6)  God has not forgotten my son, and He has not forgotten me.

The fear for the future is very deep.  These diagnoses and labels, the challenges my son is facing are real and serious and terrifying.  But those truths are not the only truths.  I have a choice:  Do I put my trust in the words of the one who assessed him, or do I put my trust in the words of the One who created him?  Do I put my trust in the thick stack of papers filled with diagnoses, or do I put my trust in the black leather-bound book filled with the promises of God?

Every new diagnosis causes new grief. A new process of lamenting and then learning to accept the current path that we are on.  

Every new setback causes fear, but also a renewed resolve to trust in the purposes and plans that God has for my son’s life. 

This thick stack of papers is daunting and completely overwhelming.  But it causes a renewed resolve to continue to be his Warrior Mama.  To fight for him and advocate for his needs.  To “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” (Proverbs 31:8-9). To hire therapists and tutors and avail ourselves of every possible resource.  To give him every opportunity to reach his fullest potential.

Every challenge and struggle causes a renewed resolve to encourage our son.  To remind him that God has a plan for his life.  To cheer him on!  To inspire him to become who he was created to be.

For as it is written, No eye has seen, 

nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, 

what God has prepared for those who love Him.  

(1 Corinthians 2:9)