Hallelujah You Are Good

Nothing streamlines my thoughts like music.

Sometimes I see reality as a montage set to music. I see beauty in the form of melodies dancing behind a beautiful moment I remember from the past.

But I love it when those montages bleed through to current moments - or moments that sit in the recent yesterday instead of the yesteryear.

You are with us
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You are good.

My son is worrying me, guys. It's not because he has reached a critical point, it's because I have started to worry and play possible futures over in my mind and I just worry. I'm his mom. I just want him to be okay and I want him to be able to go to a mainstream school and function well socially, and sometimes I worry about tomorrow before I should.

And when faith gives way to fear
I will trust Your heart
I will trust Your heart
When I cannot feel You near
I will trust Your heart
I will trust Your heart

The truth is that I've been in a place of grief recently. I have invalidated our own struggles more than I should have. I didn't know that you grieve over every loss in a special needs family, even when your losses feel so insignificant. My son is physically healthy, but neurologically different.

I feel grief over the fact that my older kids lose my attention sometimes. I feel grief over the field trips I can't accompany when it's too much for my youngest child. I feel loss when I know my kids can't sit through a puppet show unless there is another adult who can take Joe because for now it's still too much.

There is guilt for all of the screen time that I allow because if I don't have enough quiet, I won't make it. Every ideal that used to play out for real in my home that's been cast aside somewhere along the way.

In the ashes and the dust
in the sorrow and pain
lies the promise of His word
and the power of His name

I grieve over potential losses that aren't even here yet. I don't understand this process. Or rather, I didn't. I didn't think that having a child with sensory differences would allow me a small peek inside the world of special needs families. I keep telling myself how different our journey is. Josiah doesn't have Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, learning delays, or even ADHD. But special needs, no matter how high functioning, will change a family. The burden of need may be smaller, but the burden of life's expectations will rise to compensate for everything that your child is still able to do. And that means that the struggle is valid, regardless of the location of a family on the special needs spectrum. Understanding that has taken some personal concession on my part. Yes we are a special needs family. Yes we do need some accommodation sometimes, no matter how much I want that to not be our story.

I'm learning that the burden of the future sometimes lands squarely on today, and it requires us to constantly deflect it. No. Tomorrow can't have me today. I am staying here.

You are with us
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You are good

Today I'm putting my glasses on my nose and leaving them there - the right ones, not the rose-colored ones or the shaded ones. I'm remembering everything I have seen so far and I'm keeping my eyes open for whatever is next.

There's a message being written through the morning sun
And a new song for the broken
Death has lost
Love has won


Maybe someone else will read these words at some point when they need the reminder.

Hallelujah
I have tasted
Hallelujah
I have seen it
Hallelujah
You are good

I am grateful for every God-breathed step forward, every person who has come across our path with love and understanding, every doctor, therapist, friend, child-care worker who has decided to love us and all of our kids. Every friend and family member who has checked on us at the right moment. I have tasted. I have seen it. We are not forgotten. He is good.

Hallelujah
I remember
Hallelujah
I believe it
Hallelujah
You are good