The future is bright

The days are turning to months so quickly. The kids are growing up and events and experiences keep flying by.

Miles is a junior in high school and many days feel pretty hard and heavy with him. He's had an unyielding struggle with his mental health since we moved from 47 E. 530 N. in November of 2021. I love him dearly and not being able to alleviate his mental health challenges or control the outcome of these struggles helps me to learn better how to center my life on Christ and His hopeful, bright, and warm promises, instructions, and lessons. I wish I was better and faster at soaking in and truly making all the lessons and teachings a consistent part of me, but little by little I am learning and growing and God is a patient and kind teacher, thankfully! I am learning to choose faith over fear every day. I think about baby Moses' mother placing him in a little basket and then placing that basket in the river and I can imagine fear would have been easy to choose, but she must have chose faith. Letting our faith prevail is synonymous with letting God prevail and there's always ways we can do a better job of letting God prevail. So, my experience with Miles is helping me to learn how to better let God prevail for myself: to trust God, to have faith in the future, to learn the lessons that come from this experience, and to choose for myself to face the sun so that the shadows are behind me--as Walt Whitman once put it. It hasn't been easy for him and therefore it doesn't feel easy for me, because I sense and sometimes almost vicariously can feel his struggle so acutely---probably one of the gifts and curses of parenthood, maybe particularly motherhood. Gift when the kids are happy. Curse when they're in pain.

I also find so many daily tender mercies! We have so many great resources! I'm super thankful for a knowledgeable and caring clinical phycologist we recently found who has been a blessing in Miles' journey, and who has helped Joseph and I learn how to better navigate the ups and downs. I'm thankful for his pediatrician who has also been extremely supportive. These men have learned the healer's art through years of education and practice and it's helping my son. Most of all I am thankful for all the ways God reaches out to remind me that the future truly is bright. Sometimes it's through other people saying something that gives me a new perspective or lifts me higher so that I can feel like I can better support Miles. Sometimes it's a something that I read that I know I was supposed to read that day--often a scripture. Sometimes it's when I see a good person going out of his way to interact with Miles in a positive way. In fact, often, it's the kindness of others who treat Miles with thoughtful care or genuine friendship. 

 I am more fully coming to realize from this experience is that every single one of us struggles. "For the grace of God goes I" applies to everybody and I don't feel the itch to judge so much as I do to just better understand and better love.