I serve a God who heals. Some of my friends are the kind of people who travel internationally to proclaim God's word and experience first hand miraculous signs and wonders, dramatic healings that defy science and glorify God. I know God heals, yet my child who has now reached adulthood is still at home, struggling with anxiety and depression to the point of being disabled in some seasons. Yet she is a delight to my heart, and a huge help to me at home. We press in for healing, utilizing medical intervention as well as prayer, but in the meantime we trust God is good, all the time. He walks us through the valley of the shadow of death, not around it. 

We miss the passage in Hebrews about the heroes of faith that says some women received their loved ones back, while others were sawed in two! Granted, the context of the passage refers to persecution for faith, but the truth can be generalized. Those families cried out for deliverance too, just like me. There are those crying out to God for an outcome as good as mine. There are those crying out to God for an outcome as good as yours. Perspective is everything. In the midst of our most drama filled years, I would call my friend who adopted a sibling group of four with their propensities toward addictions, counseling needs and brain chemistry challenges. I used to tell her I called her to gain perspective, but that she needed to call a Thai tsunami victim to do the same! No matter what our battle, He is there to walk each of us through. One thing I know, neither life nor death, rage attacks, humiliations, incarcerations, surgeries, or school expulsions can separate us from the love of God.

Psalm 23:4, Hebrews 11:35-40, Romans 8:38-39

Toppling the Idol of Ideal
Raising Children with Special Needs

The stats are changing. It’s no longer just the rare family who has the autistic child we read about in some magazine article or see on television. Behavioral issues in our children have catapulted out of the realm of child raising and psychology and into the realm of neurobiology and psychiatry. Whether resultant from neurotoxins in the environment, dietary criminals or some other etiology, more and more families are receiving diagnoses of ADHD, autism, or other legitimate neuro-psychiatric disorders.

Is the church late in constructive response? We may be unintentionally too quick to offer counseling or deliverance with no real grasp that neurology is not necessarily a spiritual problem and definitely not a parenting problem; it’s brain chemistry. This leaves Christian Moms and Dads potentially susceptible to the myriad of uninformed voices, voices that decry the pharmaceutical industry as evil drug pushers for profit, and voices blaming lack of quality parenting for most if not all behavioral challenges. 

It’s not sympathy that’s needed, but rather hearing from somebody who “gets it”, somebody who can discuss practical issues like fighting despair, judgment, and educational challenges, deciding about medications, labeling our children, IEP’s and 504 behavior plans. Perhaps most importantly, what is needed is not only assurance that our children will be alright, but that we will survive intact spiritually while grappling with why me, why us, and why my baby? If you are that parent, You will enter into a new season, a season of discovery that launches you from a battle-weary position dodging the fiery darts of the enemy, to a position of protection reclining in the strong tower of God’s abiding presence.