god is my anchor
When we received the diagnosis, we weren’t new to pain or hardship. But this was undoubtably a different level of tenderness and difficulty.
Moving across the world and living in an impoverished community was hard. Starting a non-profit football academy was hard. Raising lots of money to keep it all going was hard. But that was all easy in comparison to this.
We had even had great pain as parents. When Kieren was one years old she poured a cup of boiling water on her head and shoulders and 22% of her body was badly burned. We spent 5 days in the hospital and watched our daughter go through the most excruciating pain imaginable. But even that was fleeting and passed. This was different.
The pain of special needs is not a moment. It’s a dark cloud that settles over you. It permeates deep into your bones like a wet cold. It makes you shudder and cry unexpectedly. It rearranges who you are, what you think your life purpose is, and what your future will look like. You doubt your past, what you had dreamed and hoped and forces you to surrender it and pick up what gifts are in your present. It makes you feel impossibly small and weak and yet also brings you waves of strength and courage beyond your wildest imagination.
You wonder if your child will always have to live with you even when they are old. You wonder if you will ever be able to have a conversation with your child. You wonder if you will ever hear “I love you.” You wonder if your child will ever make friends. You wonder if your child will ever fall in love. You wonder if your child will ever get married. You wonder if your child will ever truly be happy.
You wonder if YOU will ever truly be happy again.
It’s a present grief mixed with a future grief. So much unknown and so much pain. And every day seems like a battle to unlock the child you believe your child could be. And you never know what you are going to get.
I took this pain and grief to my God.
I just dumped it in his lap.
I really just couldn’t understand the WHY still. Why us? Why Keller? Why?
But maybe that would still come.
If I didn’t have the WHY I definitely had a big HOW.
How would we navigate this? How would we survive? How would we create a new way of life? How would we find hope and peace. HOW. WOULD. WE. DO. THIS?
I couldn’t see how we would even keep our heads above water. It seemed like a torrential hurricane had centered on top of our lives and wasn’t moving. The waves were crashing, it was dark and ominous, and I couldn’t even catch my breath.
In all that, I got a symbol.
An anchor.
Hebrews 6:19 says, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul…”
An anchor. That was exactly what I needed.
The storm wasn’t going away. My fears were not going to lessen. The weight was just something I had to carry. But I felt God promising me that He would be my anchor in the storm. He would hold me together even though my soul felt it was going to rip apart. I would be anchored in him.
A bit later I found the quote “I REFUSE TO SINK.”
That also stirred my soul. I knew the storm was here to stay for a while. But God would be my anchor and I would NOT sink.
I decided I believed God was with me in this storm. I wasn’t alone and it wasn’t too much. I believed that He would keep whispering in our ears and bringing us hope. I believed that He would keep bringing the right people in our world to walk the journey with us. I believed that He would provide all we needed for every intervention for Keller.
In all of my life of ministry towards others, I had never personally walked through something that challenged my faith to its core. I was testing God and nothing could manipulate the response. Either God would be with me and God would see us through this or I would learn none of it was real to begin with. I started to realize that much of my life had previously been built on my own strength and savvy, not on God at all. For this, I needed God DESPERATELY.
He was my anchor and I would not sink.
See more in my new book Anguish to Awakening!
