Tag Archives: special needs

Impact, Influence

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Do you ever wonder what kind of impact you are having on people?  In the ministry I know that I do.  You go along like the prophet Jeremiah sowing seeds and watering them with your tears.  The results are up to God and I understand that.

I was thinking about the song “Thank You” by Ray Boltz.  Sadly, he no longer walks with the LORD; but, this song is still has a deep impact on God’s people.  I remember a line of the song that says, “… as far as the eye can see.  Each life somehow touched by your generosity.”  We never know what kind of impact or influence we are going to have on someone.

The other evening we went out to eat because we had a gift card.  While we were sitting at the table a young lady came to our table and inquired if our son was Jonathan.  We said yes.  This young heart had tears rolling down her face.  She was a peer for Jonathan when he was in school.  From our conversation he had quite an impact on this young girl.

The tears ran down her cheeks as she told us about her activities with Jonathan.  you can imagine how we felt.  I was fighting back tears and I believe that my wife was also.  She shared with us how because of her work with Jonathan that she had decided to be a special education teacher.  Wow!  She said that her work with Jonathan confirmed in her  that she wanted to do that.  She will start college for that next fall.

This proves to me that anyone can have impact and influence on someone or even multiple people.  I was thinking about the Apostle Paul and his interaction with king Agrippa in Acts 26:27, “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”  We have to be people that make an eternal impact and have eternal influence on others.

So, how are you doing?

 

Heros

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We live in a day that is turned upside down and just plain mixed up.  Our children are given gang bangers and thugs for heros.  It is horrible.  What happened to the days where the good guys wore white hats and acted like they had a bring in their head?

Recently I saw a post on a social networking site that told of a family that I am familiar with.  Their son was in the hospital and not doing well physically.  My heart ached for this family so deeply.  I went to the hospital at midnight to visit them.  Unfortunately, the information I saw was twenty four hours old.  I felt like an idiot showing up at midnight to visit this family.  Yet, I am glad that I did and I pray that I was able to encourage them.

These dear Christian people are my heros.  They raised a son for twenty seven years with severe disabilities.  They did it with the smile of God on their faces and the joy of the LORD radiating from them.  They shared how difficult it was.  I say was because their son went to Heaven the next day after I visited.  Oh, how I prayed for this family.

I want you to click on the following link to you tube and watch this video here.  Think of this family and many just like them who are the heros that we need to uplift as their lives demonstrate the grace and mercy of God.  Look at Romans 2:7, “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:”  Let’s give honor to whom honor is due.

So, how are you doing?

Humbled

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Yesterday I spoke to you from my heart.  Today I would like to continue my thoughts.  My heart is still aching after that incident.  I am sure that you can imagine my pain.  As I began thinking about this whole thing I was reminded of Matthew 21:37-38, “But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.   But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.”

This is where I began hearing from my Father.  He spoke to me about how His Son Jesus was treated by his own people.  The tears began to fall.  I know it is a whole different situation.  Yet, I now feel like I have a better understanding of how my Father felt when people reject Christ and say all manner of evil things about Him.  Oh my!

Sometimes in life we experience things that are unpleasant.  We wish that we had not experienced them.  The Father tells us that these are for our good and His glory.  Well, I dropped the ball in our experience the other day for sure.  Thank God for forgiveness!

The people of Jesus’ day did not understand Him.  Not even His own men.  How this grieved the heart of Jesus and Father.  Just like I sat in the van grieved only on a far different plane.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am sharing this from my heart to yours in order that we might understand the heart of the Heavenly Father.  He loves us supremely and He allows these things into our lives to drive us to Him.  I know in my life it caused me to see some things differently.  If people would not reverence and respect Jesus why would fallen man have any respect for God’s special people like our son.  The rhetorical answer there is, “They will not.”  God help them!

So, how are you doing?

From The Heart

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Today I would like to just sit down at “The Pastor’s Table” with a cup of hot tea or coffee with you and share something with you.  A couple days ago I had the pleasure of taking my wife grocery shopping.  In the day we now live I find it important to take her and to protect her from some evildoer that might seek to take advantage of her.  This is a big part of my role and responsibility as her husband.  It is a role I take very seriously and with much pride.  I have the same role and responsibility over our son.  This is intensified when you factor in that he is one of God’s special children.

As my wife shopped, our son and I sat in the vehicle waiting for her to return.  When i backed in I noticed that the vehicle in the next parking space next to the passenger’s side of our vehicle was parked almost right on the line between the two spots.  I just centered up in my spot (maybe getting a little closer to the line than I would normally have gotten).  After sitting there for a few minutes music began to come screaming loudly from this vehicle.  Music that I personally cannot stand.  No it was not rap or rock and roll.  Inside this vehicle were at least three teenagers about thirteen or so and maybe they were younger.  They acted about three years old if you ask me.

They made one fatal mistake.  The one sitting by the window on our side began to mock our son as he jumped and squirmed and gyrated like a complete idiot.  Now, to say I was angry would be the understatement of the ages.  I could feel myself beginning to boil.  I was so angry that I had visions in my mind of putting my hand through the window of their vehicle and pulling the “intellectual midget” out of the vehicle and beating him senseless.  Then it dawned on me that this was not a proper Christian; let alone, a proper pastoral approach.  So, I asked God for forgiveness and I started a staring contest with the little, future felon of America.  I even pulled out of the parking spot at a crawl staring a hole in the little dirt bag as we slow rolled toward home.

Then something dawned on me.  Look at Proverbs 15:1, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.”  Now, this poor child could not have heard a “soft answer” due to the volume of the sickening music he was trying to share with the entire state of Indiana.  Yet, I received the message that the LORD was speaking to me.  My response was totally wrong.  “But; LORD, he mocked my son!”  I thought to myself and Him.  There I drove and was deeply convicted and still deeply angry.  Yes, I finally settled down and asked for forgiveness.  The great part is that I received forgiveness.  Now look at the next verse He shared with me in Proverbs 15:23, “A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!”  Ah, yes.  Conviction is a wonderful thing.  Don’t sit there on your own throne of judgement and look down your boney nose at me; because, you know if it were you that you would have responded nearly like that.

So, how are you doing?

Love For People 2

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I have a very dear friend who is the Pastor of a small Church in southwestern Indiana.  His Church had the privilege of having a wonderful man as their song leader.  I was privileged to know and love Richard.  What a joy!

As I was thinking about Richard the other day I was reminded how this small Church took up an offering and saved money to purchase a handicapped accessible van.  Why?  They needed it to bring Richard to Church.  These dear saints gave out of hearts of love for Jesus Christ and a deep love for Richard.  I am sure there was sacrifice involved on the part of everyone.

It is no different for the parents and families of people with special needs.  There are great sacrifices of all different kinds of things.  Time is one of the greatest that come immediately to mind.  You have to take time off work for doctor appointments and so many other things.  Yet, it is just what you do.  Family vacations are forever changed.  There are no “normal” (I despise this term with all the hatred I can muster.) vacations.  We could tell you some stories.

Here is the thing.  We look at the sacrifice as a privilege.  Yes, a privilege.  God has given those special people to us and that makes them His gift to us and we had better see it that way.  You and I need to see our care for these special people as our offering to God.  Look at Numbers 28:2, “Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, My offering, and my bread for my sacrifices made by fire, for a sweet savour unto me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season.”  It is our “offering” and “my sacrifice”.  It is a privilege.

So, how are you doing?

Greater Love

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Well, it is Valentine’s Day 2014.  Happy Valentine’s Day!  Not everyone will celebrate love today.  I am sorry that I do not have some squishy, lovey-dovey piece today.  I am going to try to deal in reality.  I hope today’s post is where the rubber meets the road.  Don’t quit reading now.  Finish and see what I mean. Living life with a child or children with special needs runs the spectrum of emotions.  This could all be in one day.  You can experience great success one moment and in the next moment be defending yourself from attack by your own child.  It makes no sense to me.  Here is the thing.  We are not here to understand it all.  Our lot in life is to keep on keeping on.  We cannot quit because our children will suffer.  As much as I have wanted to quit over the past eighteen (18) years; yet, I have not.  Oh I have sat down for breaks occasionally; but, never quitting.  The life of my wife and our son hang in the balance. There are a lot of thing in life I would like to do.  Most of them are on the back burner or pushed off into the trash can of life.  Why?  It is simple really.  These thing don’t fit into a life of a family with special needs.  We have to put the needs of those special people ahead of most of our needs.  There is a time when we must have our needs met or we will cease to function.  Sometimes, life just has to be put on hold.  This is difficult for me.  You see, I am in the ministry.  As a Pastor, how do you explain to someone in the hospital that you could not come because your child is having a meltdown and you cannot leave your wife home alone.  Only God can answer this.  The thing is that He knows.  Yes, He knows and He loves us supremely. Look at the words of Jesus in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  Jesus loves each one of us infinitely more than any human being ever could or will.  You see, Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to pay your and my sin debt.  If that is not love then I don’t know what love is I guess. So, how are you doing?

Greater Love

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I was thinking about tomorrow being Valentine’s Day.  This brought to me thoughts of love.  Don’t choke I am going somewhere with this.  As you have been reading over the past few days you know that life has been tough at best the past two weeks.  To be honest I did not want to write about what was going on and that is why it was plain vanilla in description.  I don’t want to be one of those kind of people that put on social media every time they scratch their nose and want the world’s approval on it.

My purpose in writing what I have written is to hopefully encourage other families that are experiencing the special needs roller coaster as we have and are experiencing.  Truthfully, love is the motivating factor here.  I want others to know that we love our special needs family members no matter.  When life comes to a literal battle we have to remember it is the disease and not the person that is doing this.  Sometimes this is hard to get hold of.  It is necessary though.

Love has been described in so many ways by so many adjectives.  I will not try to describe love for you in this writing.  This one thing I will say is that love, true love sacrifices for the betterment of the other or others involved.  We willingly do not do some things and go some places because it is not a good choice for our son.  It is a choice we made when we found out my wife was pregnant.  Then when we received the life shattering diagnosis it was put into cement.  We still believe in the truth in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  I might add “family” here too.

So, how are you doing?

Accusations

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I was browsing through the social media site facebook and ran across a post about a family that received a nasty letter that suggested that they euthanize their teenaged son with autism.  I will post a link to the story; but, the letter has a lot of offensive language in it.  Click here.

I became so angry that every emotion I had surfaced simultaneously.  I am heartbroken for this family and for this young man.  It is obvious that the author; who did not have the courage to sign his name, had an I.Q. much lower than the boy they were writing about.  I cannot imagine being this young man’s parents.  The community have come out with an outpouring of support for this teen boy.

As Christians we are the subject of this everyday and most don’t even know it.  Maybe they don’t care either.  The Bible tells us in Revelation 12:10, And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.”  I am sure that God the Father will not tolerate the profanity that the letter contains; but, we stand accused by the enemy of our soul.  In my mind I see Jesus stand up and proclaim, “He’s mine!” or “She’s mine!”

No matter, if the accusations are not true then we need to go on for God.  If they are true then we need to confess and forsake the sin so that our enemy has nothing to use against us.

We need to be careful not to be as the devil and be “an accuser of our brethren”.

So, how are you doing?

Gaps

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As you look around the world you see hurting people everywhere.  People are loosing jobs right and left.  Families are breaking up before our eyes.  There is not a day that goes by that I do not shed tears over something.

As a father of a child with special needs I find myself often sitting in prayer and tears scalding my face.  I cannot help it as I am tenderhearted.  It is usually my prayer that God will send someone to just put an arm on my shoulder for comfort.  There have been times that I have asked God to literally do this for me Himself.  The awesome thing is that He, Himself put an arm around me.  What comfort!

As i was reading the other day I read the following passage of Scripture in Ezekiel 13:5, “Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.”  The word “gaps” is also breaches.  It brings to my mind a dam holding back millions of gallons of water with a baseball sized hole in it. The word “made” can also be translated hedged the hedge.

When people who have children with special needs sometimes they feel like their live is like that dam.  What we need is someone to put a hedge about us and then have someone else put a hedge about that one so that there are multiple hedges.  Ultimately, God is the One who puts the hedge about us; but, He uses real people in His ministry too.

So, how are you doing?

See As He Sees

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In an e-mail that I received from my cousin Dale A. Byers “Someone Cares”, he quotes Beverly Leckie who is telling the story of a young girl that was walking home during a thunderstorm.  The mom is filled with fear for her daughter as she walks home.  She drives to the school to pick her up with lightning flashing and concerns rising.  The next paragraph picks up the account from here.

“With apprehension turned to inquisitiveness, as her daughter settles into the car, her mom asks, “Why were you stopping and smiling and looking up at the sky?”  “Oh, Mommy,” came the quick reply.  “I kept smiling cause God kept wanting to take my picture!”  The story brings on our own smiles, but why would the child smile?  There is only one explanation.  She was so confident in God’s love for her that a natural expression of that love was picture taking!” “Thoughts Under the Umbrella” by Beverly Leckie bleckie@sbcglobal.net  

I shared this story because it shows a great difference in how people perceive things.  If we perceive our circumstances as the storms they sometimes are then we will like Peter in Matthew 14:30, “But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.”  If Peter had seen the storm as Jesus saw it; a teaching moment, he would have cried, “Lord, teach me!”

So, how are you doing?