Perspective

Today we had an appointment with our son’s developmental pediatrician at TSRH for children.  It’s never a ton of fun to go down to the hospital, but it does provide perspective.  It’s often very easy to get down as a parent of a special needs child.  Life is often just difficult.  But today my eyes were opened to how easy I truly have it.  There was a little boy sitting in the waiting room with me, as I filled out the forms for our visit, and I was clearly aware of how difficult life must be for him.  I won’t go into all the details,  but it was obvious of the visible impairments that he deals with on a daily basis.  The family members who were with him were noticeably frustrated and looked like they could use a break.  Maybe even a hug and an “I love you!”  “You’re doing a great job!” or “You are special!”

With perspective, I can say we certainly have it pretty easy as parents of a special needs child.  At least Wakeland can talk to us and tell us stories.  He makes us laugh with his jokes and his off key Queen songs.  Even his teachers were commenting on Monday at how much classic rock we must listen to.  Apparently Wakeland sings a lot of Queen at school.  Wakeland is an incredibly imaginative and creative child and I feel very blessed to have him as a son.

Sometimes I’m frustrated at the pity parties I have for myself, when I feel I’ve been robbed of the “normal” life most people have.  How do we define normal?  Is normal a child who can play sports or walk perfectly fine?  Is normal defined by the lack of drool spilling out of a child’s mouth?  Maybe normal should be defined by the level or degree of temper tantrums that are thrown by our children.  I’m certain that my “special needs” child isn’t the only one who throws occasional fits.

I’m not sure I can adequately define or say how I’m truly feeling.  Maybe I should just say, I feel blessed.  I’m happy Wakeland is my son, even with all of the difficulties I often feel we have.  I’m confident and hopeful today that God is shaping our journey and writing our story and I’m excited about the opportunities I have to share them with anyone who is willing to listen.

May God’s grace and peace fill your heart today and may you feel His embrace as He holds you tightly in his arms.

Stick with Me

I know I’m a day behind on my blog and I have so many fans out there just dying to read the latest thought from my head…(that was just said very sarcastically if you didn’t pick up on it).   Actually this week is crazy.  Somehow all our appointments ended up on the same week, so the first three days of this week are taking me out of the office, for a meeting at my son’s school, a dentist appointment for me, and an annual doctors appointment for my son at Scottish Rite.  On top of all that, my wife and I tried to throw in a date last night, which probably just threw us further behind on everything else we need to do.

I know some of you who read this blog and the crazy, hectic lives you live, and you’re thinking right now, piece of cake…maybe Kyle would like to trade weeks with me.  We’ll you haven’t heard about the other wonderful curve ball thrown my way yesterday.  We’ve been waiting for about five months to hear from the IRS about our 501c3 status for Retread and yesterday we got a letter from them in the mail.  It was what I expected and the letter said they need a little more information from us.  Actually there were seven items on the list we need to provide information for.  Two of them are a piece of cake, and the others could possibly take a considerable amount of time thinking through.  The best part of it is…we have about 10-11 actual working days to get this all prepared.  It has to be in the hands of the person who prepared the letter, by May 15 and in order to not miss that date, we probably need to have it in the mail by the 10th of May.

So, if you see an absence of blog posts over the next couple of weeks, don’t give up on me.  I’ll be back and sharing my thoughts soon.  I just need to get this little hiccup taken care of first.

Friday’s Favorites | Wakeland my Protector

I have to share a cute and heart warming story with you today.  For those of you who are new to my site or don’t know me, I’m a dad of a child with special needs.  My son was born with a Chromosome Deletion Disorder that has given him complications with his fine motor skills, including walking, so he walks with the assistance of a walker.

Last Friday I was outside getting some lawn work done and he really wanted to be out with me helping, so I allowed him to hang out with me.  He roamed the yard and kept a watchful eye on me from a distance, especially after I cranked up the weed eater.  Wakeland isn’t a big fan of the noise created by the weed eater, blower, or edger.  Often times he yells and makes noise, imitating the piece of equipment I’m using.

So, when I was using the weed eater last Friday afternoon and he was standing at a safe distance on the front porch, I didn’t think anything about his yelling at me.  However, I did find it a bit strange when he started banging his walker up and down on the sidewalk.  Then he started running up and down the driveway banging his walker.  This was something I hadn’t ever seen him do.  It certainly appeared he was trying to get my attention, but I wasn’t sure why.

I continued my work down the side of the yard and saw him going into the house with my wife Joanna and assumed all was well and he was probably bored of being outside.  A couple of minutes later Joanna came walking down the side yard, where I was at, and obviously had something to tell me.  When she got to me she said to come in the house when I got back up to the front yard.  Wakeland was upset and crying and had told her his daddy was on fire.

Apparently he saw the blue smoke coming out of my weed eater and thought I was on fire.  Now I know why he was banging his walker and running and shouting up and down the driveway, something he wouldn’t normally do.  He was being my protector and trying to get my attention.  He didn’t want his daddy to be hurt.

How much sweeter can it get then that?  My best little buddy was trying to protect me from harm.

When I got back up to the house, I turned off my weed eater and went and gave Wakeland a big hug and a bunch of kisses.  I reassured him everything was fine.  I thanked him for looking out for me and gave him another big hug.  He started making jokes and clowning around, so I knew he was going to be fine.

What a heart and what a special child!

 

Swatch Happend was Unexpected

It was Friday afternoon, Q had ended, and we were enjoying the beautiful city of New York.  We had been in the Garment District for most of the afternoon, which is very different from Times Square.  We walked the streets where they hold the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and then through Macy’s department store.

On our way back up to the north side of Times Square we stopped at the Swatch Store.  It had caught my eye every day as I had walked past.  The bright colors of the sign and lights coming from inside the store we’re captivating and I really love watches, so since we were there I had to go in.  What followed was very unexpected, but it left me with filled with questions, thoughts, and many feelings.

While we were standing looking at the watches a nice, handsome, young man, who worked in the store said “you can look at that watch if you want too.”  I had my eye on one so I tried it on.  Joanna had her Q hoodie on which has a big letter Q on the right side just below the shoulder.  The young man asked “what does the Q stand for?”

We answered by saying, “Q stands for questions which are designed to lead us into a conversation.”  (I just looked back in my book and I’m not sure we got the answer completely correct, but we were pretty close.)  We went on to say we had been in the city since Tuesday and for the past two and a half days we’d been attending a conference called Q.  We told him there were about 450 leaders from the church, business, art’s, entertainment, media and the social sector.  I’m pretty sure we forgot education which blows my mind since that’s where Retread is at.  Hey, we were in the heat of the moment and the pressure was on.

I’m not sure how my wife got his name, I don’t remember him telling us.  Maybe it was from his employee name tag.  Our conversation went on and we told Daniel that Q was also about how we engage culture and how the church can be a part of culture shaping through arts, entertainment, media, and the other channels of influence.  I told him there were many young leaders at the conference who are passionate about seeing the church shape culture.  At that moment he seemed to really light up and show authentic interest.

He told us “I’m not a Christian and I don’t really believe in God, but this really sounds great!”  He told us the rest of his family were all Christians, but never really explained why he wasn’t or why he’d turned away from the church.  I wonder if it was something the church had done to hurt him.

The awesome part about the conversation was how he engaged into it.  He truly was engaged and showed a genuine interest and even told us how glad he was we had this conversation and took the time to talk with him about Q.  It looked like he had hope in his eyes again, that maybe the church could change and reach out to a generation of young people, who say they aren’t Christian and don’t really believe in God, but have families who do.  Somewhere along the line we’ve failed these young, brilliant, minds and we need to find a way to re-engage them with the church.

I’m pretty confident I’ve thought about Daniel every day since that Friday conversation nearly two weeks ago.  I thought about him all that afternoon and evening.  I even considered going back to the store to talk more.  I’ve considered calling the store in NY and asking for Daniel and furthering the conversation.

This conversation rocked my world!  Here we have a young man who says he isn’t a Christian and doesn’t believe in God, yet he didn’t once sound bitter towards the church or bash the church in any way.  He simply sounded as if he’d lost faith, but the hope was in how his face lit up when he heard there was a group of young people who wanted the church to change, to start engaging culture, and to start meeting people right where they are.

Maybe Daniel is a brilliant artist, or musician, and he left the church because he had no way to express his talents, so he turned to the culture around him where he could freely express it.  Maybe he’s an actor or writer and didn’t have the medium within the church to showcase his talent.  Maybe he turned to NY and Broadway to try and express the inner calling he felt within him, because of the lack of opportunities within his local church to do so.  Maybe Daniel was passionate about dialogue and desired to be in deep conversation with other people, who weren’t the same race or even religion as he was, but he wanted to know them and fellowship with them and since  his church wasn’t multicultural, he turned to a city that was.

I don’t know what Daniels story is.  I don’t know how our conversation impacted him and I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.  The chances are pretty slim, but I’m hopeful today that God has planted a seed within his heart.  I’m hopeful that Daniel will start investigating, searching, and longing for relationships with people, who seek Jesus and the change within culture that Jesus would have wanted.