A New Storm

As I try to get back into blogging (here and there), I have been reading back over past words I have written.  Wow…how times have changed and the seasons of life have been amazing.  One of the posts that struck me the most was one that I wrote back in 2007 about the storms of life.  Back then it was a different storm but when I think about today in life, I think about the storm that my family and I are going through….speech therapy for my precious 3 year old.  Before I continue my thoughts, here is what I wrote:

Last week, I had the privilege to attend a revival and on the last night (Friday), the pastor, Brother York, talked about storms in life. He shared that all of us have either been through a storm, are in the midst of one or getting ready to go through a storm? He shared several things about storms: 1) storms can be self-imposed; 2) storms may be due to the choices of others; or 3) storms are from God. When we enter a storm we should remember three things: 1) when a storm arises, it is going to cause problems because storms in life are disruptive to our lives and they are demanding; 2) when we are going through a storm, we need to remember the promises of Jesus that He will never leave us nor forsake us and God will see us through the storm and we should live by the verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"; and 3) the storm will always show where I am spiritually and I need to look at how I react to the storm when it hits and I need to look at my life and ask "what in life matters and is important"?

My storm is #3 (from God) but after a one-year struggle (more years to come), I don’t understand why God is putting me through this struggle.  I don’t understand why he is putting my sweet son through this struggle. I know that many other families go through harder struggles than we do but this is my struggle..my child’s struggle..my husband’s struggle…it is personal to me.  It is made up of so many components:  a mom (me) who is angry that my child has to go through this struggle in life;  a mom (me) who cries when her child is trying to say something (over and over and over again) but I can’t understand him; a child who has so much to say but can’t find the words; a loving child who uses his hugs and smiles to “talk”; a mom who rejoices when my sweet boy makes a sentence or says a hard word (zucchini is zucchitini); a mom who cries from joy when a sentence is figured out; a mom who high fives when he tells me that a Mouse-Ca-Tool can help him get his balloon down from the ceiling; a mom who sits nervously observing him in speech therapy from behind a two-way mirror and wants to yell through the class when he does great; a husband who is trying to support both of us.   

My child has a huge vocabulary but he struggles to make a sentence. He doesn’t always know how to interact with other children because he knows he can’t “talk” to them in a way that they will understand.  I watch my child try to talk to children on the playground and all he can do is try, realize they don’t understand him, hang his head, drop his shoulders and walk away.  As a mom, I want to fix his problems. I want to tell the other children that James is a sweet boy who just wants to play without words.  My sweet boy will tell me something and when I don’t understand what he is saying, he will repeat it over and over again.  I know I have misunderstood him when he says something, I don’t understand him, he says the word “oh” and we keep guessing.  I can honestly say that I HATE speech delays.  As a mom I feel like a failure sometimes because my sweetness has a need and I can’t always meet it.    I can’t always figure out what he is trying to tell me.  I can experience heartache, joy, happiness and tears all within a few minutes.  What am I supposed to be learning from this?  I have no idea.  Maybe one day I will understand why God has put our family through this storm in life.  What is your storm in life?

This is my sweetness playing with funny classes, a hammer and a screwdriver.