As I turn 40 this week, I find myself fighting off constant disappointments and being distracted by all the things I thought would come to fruition by now. As special needs parents, my husband and I have tirelessly fought for the best treatments and therapies for our son in hopes that he would be “mainstreamed” by now. Being mainstreamed means that a child transitions from special education into regular education with typical peers.
As I plugged away at my master’s degree years ago, I took pride in the fact that I had read all the research and positioned my son to be on his way to “regular” development and school once he had reached this age. After all, the research studies showed that full time ABA for him would give him triple the chances of inclusion and mainstreaming. My selfless husband changed careers multiple times to ensure his insurance coverage for therapy and we did what we knew was the best for him. We still do what we feel will help him to be successful.
Despite our best efforts, however, God has showed us that He has other plans and that His plans look very different than our will and our desires for Jacob. We wanted Jacob to mainstream, to be self-sufficient in many areas, and to be fully verbal by now. We wanted ease for him and if I am being honest, we wanted ease for us.
But that isn’t what God has in store for Jacob or for us right now. Most likely, friend, God’s plan looks a lot different for you than what you wanted or expected. His will often takes a completely different path than the one we hope for and, I believe, if we fight that redirection then we won’t fully enjoy what He has in store for us and what He wants us to learn from it.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
We don’t understand and simply can’t understand why God has chosen the path that we are on. What we can know for certain is that He is a God that can be trusted and…
“We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Understanding that God’s good for us can look and feel a lot different than our good is challenging, especially when you’re struggling through a situation like disability or job loss or the loss of a loved one.
What I am having to do in times where my ideas and motives and plans don’t match up to God’s, is to surrender and trust Him daily. I refer to Proverbs 3:5-6,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”
I can fully talk myself into trusting God’s plan one day and by the next I am in a full panic about therapies and insurance and behavioral issues. That’s human nature. I have to exchange my will for His and I do this by reading His truth. His truth says not to lean unto my own understanding AND to acknowledge him. I acknowledge Him by reading truths in His word and getting to know Him and by serving Him.
I am challenging myself as I turn 40, and if you can relate to this, I challenge you to see these lost hopes and dreams as merely misdirected hopes and dreams. I’ve been in the driver seat for a while refusing to let go of control fully, but I can trust that God has what’s best in store for us according to His will and purpose… not mine. So as I wake up each day, I will rededicate my plans to God, who knows infinitely more than me and loves Jacob infinitely more than I ever could.
It doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want us to fight for our son or to continue to give him the best treatment we can. It just means that I need to place my hope in God, not the outcome of what I’m striving for. If we pray and trust that God is leading us in a certain direction, we need to also trust that the outcome will be God’s will. And there is no better place to be.
Allison Hill
Special Needs Ministry Director
