We're enjoying some time at our vacation spot of choice this weekend. No, not a timeshare or an amusement park... we're at Grammy and Grampy's. Having been blessed with sweet, loving people for in-laws, yes, it's really fun for me, too. Ryan, Richie, and Maelynn adore their grandparents. When we're here there are several little things the kids enjoy, but the one that they really look forward to is the people train... otherwise known as the DART train, the commuter rail transportation in the Dallas area.
I have to admit I enjoy it, too. It's fun to people watch, and I just like riding the train. Then there's the fun of watching the kids' sheer delight in waiting on the platform, watching the buildings go by, the changing of the people with every stop, and of course, the stop to get ice cream as we wait for the train to go back.
The flipside of this (you know there's always a flipside) is that Ryan's social skills don't exactly include gratefulness. Or tact. So for the week since we were here for a short time to attend a special wedding last weekend, Ryan has been consistently demanding the people train. It goes a little somethin' like this:
Ryan: Do you want to go on the people train?
Mommy: We're planning on that this weekend.
Ryan: You WILL go on the people train!
Mommy: Ryan, we are talking about when we'll go. Be sweet and don't demand it, okay?
Ryan: PEOPLE TRAIN!!! PEOPLE TRAIN!!!
About this time, you can insert smacking of the chest, head, legs floor... whatever's handy, and screaming and crying.
All I want to do is give my boy a gift. All we want is for him to enjoy himself. Ryan's grandparents are more than willing to do whatever we think is best, and they share our desire to give the kids something cool to do. This time, though, I almost didn't think it was a good idea to take him. Sometime he has to learn thankfulness, gratitude, and the art of graciously accepting a gift... not to mention graciously waiting to see if you get that gift. Gratitude and yelling over and over while hitting yourself and demanding something just don't go hand in hand in my mind. As I type this, he sits snuggled in tight to me in the oversized chair while the littles nap, saying "you WILL go on the people train!" every now and again.
We want all our kids, and we want to, live in a way that shows gratitude for everything. There are so many things, situations, and people in our lives for which/whom we are so blessed. We don't want to live so wrapped up in what we don't have or what we might get that we miss what we have. That is a sad state in which so many live, and it's a tempting road to travel. It's easy. The road is wide that leads to that type of hamster-wheel of misery. So it was a not-so-little twinge of panic that almost made me argue to not take the kids on the people train this time. After all, when are they going to learn? Ryan had NOT been gracious in any way about the possible trip this time. He'd bugged us and melted down over it a lot this weekend. I was ready to throw down the "never again" parental gauntlet in the name of saving my son from his ungratefulness problem.
Then my husband looked at me, asked if we could talk about it, and it hit me.
Grace and mercy.
This is a time to exercise grace and mercy for our child. We need to understand that he doesn't understand. All he knows is that this is his favorite thing, and we only do it with Grammy and Grampy. So we took the kids to the people train, to ride to downtown, get some ice cream, and ride back. It was a lovely day, and the kids had a great time with Grammy and Grampy. Ryan stimmed hard on the passing trees and buildings, searching all up and down the red line for every elevator, clinging to each one with his gaze until the train's speed ripped the picture from his line of sight. Richie enjoyed watching the other trains pass, and spotting birds along the track. Maelynn, in her stroller, enjoyed charming the other passengers in between snapping the rigid dress back onto her plastic Minnie Mouse doll.
The kid has to live sometime. Life can't all be hard-earned. Yes, there are consequences for our actions, and yes, I will continue to help Ryan, Richie, and Maelynn learn that lesson. But much, much more I want them to learn to be graceful and merciful, loving and kind people. Don't we receive completely undeserved blessings from our Heavenly Father every day? We have received so much, and all of it... every breath, every heartbeat... has been ransomed from death.
Even before time began, God knew we couldn't follow the rules. We couldn't be perfect. So He sent His only Son, who descended into hell, making himself the sacrifice for our inability to be good. He was buried, devastating his followers, until he rose on the third day, bringing the greatest hope ever known to all who believe.
This is the Christ we serve. We serve someone who loves us enough to experience staggering amounts of brutality and separation from the Father so that we might know Him and be accepted by him. We serve a man who served others, lived a perfect life, died a horrible and clearly unfair death, experienced death and separation apart from God, and rose again, beating the pants off death and hell!!!
With all that in mind, I'm pretty sure he'd have been cool with extending mercy and grace to a kid with autism who doesn't really understand this whole social graces thing in the first place.
And honestly, I love my kids... and I love seeing them happy, even for a moment of fleeting joy as the elevator passes.
So have a blessed, meaningful Easter, and remember... HE IS RISEN!!!
How deep the Father's love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
~Stuart Townsend
(click below to listen)
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter. Show all posts
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Rising and the Red Button Incident
I almost didn't get out of bed this morning. Really. But this time, it was because I had an indescribably beautiful baby girl snuggled up to me in her pink doggie pj's. As the morning light seeped in through the window sheers and graced her round, porcelain face and made her golden brown hair shine, I watched her rest completely still except for the gentle rise and fall with each breath and the nod of her pink binky every now and then. What an amazing blessing... a gift... our children are. Can there be a more fabulous sound than the slaps of tiny bare feet on the kitchen floor? How awe-inspiring and humbling to think that we are chosen to give them a home; to make sure they feel loved and learn to feel and share the love of Christ! Then I thought about the stark contrast between our two younger and our oldest.
When Ryan was a baby, he was the only one, and we would sleep all snuggled to each other after Daddy left for school. The older I get, the more I cherish the things that were normal baby things he did. Back in the days when we just loved being parents and couldn't wait to see all he'd do! I had decided our kids would learn to read before they went to pre-k and would learn to read music at the same time. They'd start piano at an early age, and would basically walk into the school the first day of pre-k with everyone telling them how amazing they were... and of course, everyone would talk about how smart and well-adjusted the Senzig kids were! Oh, and I was going to be the Martha Stewart of room moms. Look out. Equipped with more Tupperware than is ever neccessary, I was gonna rock their little Elmo socks off with my baking skills. Yep, I'd been waiting my whole life for this! Ever since I was a little girl "raising" my Cabbage Patch Kid (Annabelle, and yes she DOES live in Mae's room now) I couldn't wait. It's not a popular thing to say in this day and age, but I wanted to be Betty Crocker, Donna Reed, and June Cleaver all rolled into one and stuck in jeans and a t-shirt.
But what I didn't know was that the t-shirt would have a giant puzzle piece on it for Autism Awareness. All that effort I was going to pour into having our children be exceptionally gifted and super-overachieverly prepared was going to go into just getting Ryan to do the basics. I didn't know I was going to beg him at nearly six years old to just please go to the bathroom without screaming and crying. Just walk, please. I expected to train him to sit in church at an early age just like I did my sister Bree, and be able to keep him quiet with the evil eye from the choir loft just like Bree. And yes, that really did work... she was awesome! Instead, I'm doing good to keep him semi-quiet and confined to the pew-area we're occupying. I also had no idea that the job I had done professionally would turn out to be exponentially easier for me than figuring out how to be an autistic child's mother. Yes, folks... I am far more comfortable with my ability to handle 150 sixth graders with musical instruments than I am in my ability to take my son to the grocery store. There, I said it. It's inexplicably difficult to admit it. I LOVE my son, don't get me wrong. It's just that walking through the grocery store with a nearly six year old slapping his ears, beating his chest, and now hitting me (that's new, by the way) and screaming like some kind of tribal man off to war hits this people-pleaser where it hurts.
The contrast is amazing. Richie is now beginning to help his brother. He leads Ryan back into the house when it's time to come in from the backyard, pleading in his sweet Richie voice, "Come inna howse, Yyan!" He reminds Ryan of the rules, especially with the piano. "Fingahs onwey, no feets, Yyan," Richie reminds as he hears (even from the other room) Ryan holding the sustain pedal as he experiments with intervals. Richie's sweet heart is such an encouragement to me. Ryan is his hero. Richie has no precluded ideas about behavior or culture. He just loves his big brother. Richie even used to try to stim, or handflap, like Ryan. So precious, that unadultered love and trust. We are getting to the point where, when Richie copies some of Ryan's autistic behaviors, we have to explain that brother does that because he doesn't know better, but Richie does. This is true, and that's just one of the parts that is hard to swallow.
Other than the diagnosis itself, and really more than that, is the death to my preconceived ideas about all of life. How my house would be kept, how I'd teach my children everything, how we keep our marriage healthy all has to be relearned in a way that fits us. Yes, that sounds familiar to most couples, I bet. The hardest part for me is realizing that I do have to draw lines, and more often than I wanted, the lines will be drawn in a way that the answer is "no, I can't do that."
Can't.
Ugh.
Now, yes, I physically CAN walk out this door every day and do whatever. I can force my will and do whatever I think is right... to a point. I could do a lot of things, but the hard part is listening and hearing the difference in "good" and "best". Last week I got a lesson in that. I had been thinking after a few weeks of these sweet neighbor boys watching Richie for me while I take Ryan to therapy with Mae in tow that I really could do this on my own. They were out on vacation for a while, and I found myself carting all three kids by myself to Baylor. Everyone got out of the van just fine; we made it into the building just fine. Richie and Mae let me sit and read books to them the whole time, and we spoke with Miss Stacy, then left. On the way out, I learned my lesson. See, there are all these emergency call boxes all over college campuses. They're equipped with these big, round, bright red, irresistibly pushable buttons- just at Ryan-eye-level. Usually, I can keep a hand on Ryan and a hand on the stroller. This time, Ryan led Richie away and as I was getting Richie, he bolted straight for that button and before I knew it, that blue light on the top was flashing and I was telling (while half-running away and trying to not say any unsavory words) the campus cop who calls out loud so loud that half of McClennan county can hear that yes, all is well. As I walked away, once the embarrassment subsided and everyone was safely buckled into the van, it hit me how much I do need those boys, and what a God-send they truly are.
We are at a crossroads (thanks, Kay Arthur) in our lives right now... and really, several times a day. We can whine, be sad, be angry and resentful and let that grow into bitterness, or we can ask the question God asked Jonah.
"Do you do well to be angry?"
Well, do you? How's that workin' for ya? For me, not so good. I'm not denying that there is a grieving process for every hard thing that happens in life. But I am saying that at some point, we have to realize that the time we're spending bemoaning our trials is time SPENT. Time we could have been stroking those golden-brown curls. Time spent letting Richie kiss-hug-kiss-hug all over my face till he giggles. Time spent laughing when Ryan passes the emergency box and says "you LOVE to push buttons" every time since the red button incident. Yes, I get angry. At least once a day I look at God and say, "Are You SERIOUS?!" Yep, I have plenty of fodder for those, as I'm sure you do. Just last weekend we spent part of a gift to give back and participate in the Waco Walk for Autism. After walking one lap around the Fountain Mall, we found Ryan's beloved Miss Stacy, who had her iphone out, and yep, that was it for Ryan. Twenty minutes to get the phone away from him plus forty-five in a meltdown equals the whole of our walk experience. Ah, well. Just today, we had to have a new tire on the van. No one in town had one, so I bit the bullet and took Ryan with me to the Goodyear store in Waco. Yep, meltdown city. First I had to keep him from running out of the store and into traffic. Then spent the rest of the time calming him down, because man, mama... you're mean not letting your child play in traffic.
Just like anyone else, after all that, I was so tired and really wanted to crawl under a rock, even just to get some sleep. But instead, I tried to remember in each instance... there is always a reason. I may never know the reason or reasons behind anything that happens, but I trust that the same God who loves me enough to send His only precious Son to die a horrendous (at best) death so that I could experience His love and peace has nothing but my best interest at heart. The same God who knew me before the foundations of the earth has a plan for my sweet children!!!
So I am thankful not for autism, not for frustration and anger, not for tears and emarrassing situations, but for the precious, innocent smiles and snuggles I share with the special children with whom God has gifted me. I am the most thankful for the Lord who died so that the grace and mercy and love and peace of God can flow through me, that I may glorify Him in every meltdown and every scream and hit, as well as every hug, giggle, and victory! I am thankful for the discernment and wisdom that the Holy spirit and Word of God give me! Without the death, burial and resurrection of Christ I would not be able to rise in the morning.
Instead, I'm unable to rise because I don't want the sweet moment to end.
CHRIST HAS DIED!
CHRIST HAS RISEN!
CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!
When Ryan was a baby, he was the only one, and we would sleep all snuggled to each other after Daddy left for school. The older I get, the more I cherish the things that were normal baby things he did. Back in the days when we just loved being parents and couldn't wait to see all he'd do! I had decided our kids would learn to read before they went to pre-k and would learn to read music at the same time. They'd start piano at an early age, and would basically walk into the school the first day of pre-k with everyone telling them how amazing they were... and of course, everyone would talk about how smart and well-adjusted the Senzig kids were! Oh, and I was going to be the Martha Stewart of room moms. Look out. Equipped with more Tupperware than is ever neccessary, I was gonna rock their little Elmo socks off with my baking skills. Yep, I'd been waiting my whole life for this! Ever since I was a little girl "raising" my Cabbage Patch Kid (Annabelle, and yes she DOES live in Mae's room now) I couldn't wait. It's not a popular thing to say in this day and age, but I wanted to be Betty Crocker, Donna Reed, and June Cleaver all rolled into one and stuck in jeans and a t-shirt.
But what I didn't know was that the t-shirt would have a giant puzzle piece on it for Autism Awareness. All that effort I was going to pour into having our children be exceptionally gifted and super-overachieverly prepared was going to go into just getting Ryan to do the basics. I didn't know I was going to beg him at nearly six years old to just please go to the bathroom without screaming and crying. Just walk, please. I expected to train him to sit in church at an early age just like I did my sister Bree, and be able to keep him quiet with the evil eye from the choir loft just like Bree. And yes, that really did work... she was awesome! Instead, I'm doing good to keep him semi-quiet and confined to the pew-area we're occupying. I also had no idea that the job I had done professionally would turn out to be exponentially easier for me than figuring out how to be an autistic child's mother. Yes, folks... I am far more comfortable with my ability to handle 150 sixth graders with musical instruments than I am in my ability to take my son to the grocery store. There, I said it. It's inexplicably difficult to admit it. I LOVE my son, don't get me wrong. It's just that walking through the grocery store with a nearly six year old slapping his ears, beating his chest, and now hitting me (that's new, by the way) and screaming like some kind of tribal man off to war hits this people-pleaser where it hurts.
The contrast is amazing. Richie is now beginning to help his brother. He leads Ryan back into the house when it's time to come in from the backyard, pleading in his sweet Richie voice, "Come inna howse, Yyan!" He reminds Ryan of the rules, especially with the piano. "Fingahs onwey, no feets, Yyan," Richie reminds as he hears (even from the other room) Ryan holding the sustain pedal as he experiments with intervals. Richie's sweet heart is such an encouragement to me. Ryan is his hero. Richie has no precluded ideas about behavior or culture. He just loves his big brother. Richie even used to try to stim, or handflap, like Ryan. So precious, that unadultered love and trust. We are getting to the point where, when Richie copies some of Ryan's autistic behaviors, we have to explain that brother does that because he doesn't know better, but Richie does. This is true, and that's just one of the parts that is hard to swallow.
Other than the diagnosis itself, and really more than that, is the death to my preconceived ideas about all of life. How my house would be kept, how I'd teach my children everything, how we keep our marriage healthy all has to be relearned in a way that fits us. Yes, that sounds familiar to most couples, I bet. The hardest part for me is realizing that I do have to draw lines, and more often than I wanted, the lines will be drawn in a way that the answer is "no, I can't do that."
Can't.
Ugh.
Now, yes, I physically CAN walk out this door every day and do whatever. I can force my will and do whatever I think is right... to a point. I could do a lot of things, but the hard part is listening and hearing the difference in "good" and "best". Last week I got a lesson in that. I had been thinking after a few weeks of these sweet neighbor boys watching Richie for me while I take Ryan to therapy with Mae in tow that I really could do this on my own. They were out on vacation for a while, and I found myself carting all three kids by myself to Baylor. Everyone got out of the van just fine; we made it into the building just fine. Richie and Mae let me sit and read books to them the whole time, and we spoke with Miss Stacy, then left. On the way out, I learned my lesson. See, there are all these emergency call boxes all over college campuses. They're equipped with these big, round, bright red, irresistibly pushable buttons- just at Ryan-eye-level. Usually, I can keep a hand on Ryan and a hand on the stroller. This time, Ryan led Richie away and as I was getting Richie, he bolted straight for that button and before I knew it, that blue light on the top was flashing and I was telling (while half-running away and trying to not say any unsavory words) the campus cop who calls out loud so loud that half of McClennan county can hear that yes, all is well. As I walked away, once the embarrassment subsided and everyone was safely buckled into the van, it hit me how much I do need those boys, and what a God-send they truly are.
We are at a crossroads (thanks, Kay Arthur) in our lives right now... and really, several times a day. We can whine, be sad, be angry and resentful and let that grow into bitterness, or we can ask the question God asked Jonah.
"Do you do well to be angry?"
Well, do you? How's that workin' for ya? For me, not so good. I'm not denying that there is a grieving process for every hard thing that happens in life. But I am saying that at some point, we have to realize that the time we're spending bemoaning our trials is time SPENT. Time we could have been stroking those golden-brown curls. Time spent letting Richie kiss-hug-kiss-hug all over my face till he giggles. Time spent laughing when Ryan passes the emergency box and says "you LOVE to push buttons" every time since the red button incident. Yes, I get angry. At least once a day I look at God and say, "Are You SERIOUS?!" Yep, I have plenty of fodder for those, as I'm sure you do. Just last weekend we spent part of a gift to give back and participate in the Waco Walk for Autism. After walking one lap around the Fountain Mall, we found Ryan's beloved Miss Stacy, who had her iphone out, and yep, that was it for Ryan. Twenty minutes to get the phone away from him plus forty-five in a meltdown equals the whole of our walk experience. Ah, well. Just today, we had to have a new tire on the van. No one in town had one, so I bit the bullet and took Ryan with me to the Goodyear store in Waco. Yep, meltdown city. First I had to keep him from running out of the store and into traffic. Then spent the rest of the time calming him down, because man, mama... you're mean not letting your child play in traffic.
Just like anyone else, after all that, I was so tired and really wanted to crawl under a rock, even just to get some sleep. But instead, I tried to remember in each instance... there is always a reason. I may never know the reason or reasons behind anything that happens, but I trust that the same God who loves me enough to send His only precious Son to die a horrendous (at best) death so that I could experience His love and peace has nothing but my best interest at heart. The same God who knew me before the foundations of the earth has a plan for my sweet children!!!
So I am thankful not for autism, not for frustration and anger, not for tears and emarrassing situations, but for the precious, innocent smiles and snuggles I share with the special children with whom God has gifted me. I am the most thankful for the Lord who died so that the grace and mercy and love and peace of God can flow through me, that I may glorify Him in every meltdown and every scream and hit, as well as every hug, giggle, and victory! I am thankful for the discernment and wisdom that the Holy spirit and Word of God give me! Without the death, burial and resurrection of Christ I would not be able to rise in the morning.
Instead, I'm unable to rise because I don't want the sweet moment to end.
CHRIST HAS DIED!
CHRIST HAS RISEN!
CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
