Therapy

I enjoy reading the sweet and encouraging Dear Mom letters over at this blog http://rachelmariemartin.blogspot. Here is one she didn't write but I wish she had. It is for you. It is for me. It has no spacing or indentation because I cannot figure out how to make my blog publish the spacing that I so carefully place into it. Dear Mom (or Dad) who takes your child to therapy on a regular basis, You know that feeling that your exhaustion seems out of proportion to the few hours a week you accompany your child to therapy? It's not. Taking your child to therapy is truly exhausting. I know. I take my son to therapy every. single. weekday. And I am constantly thinking about how I can build more "therapy" into our daily lives and activities. Each day I barely have enough to make it through, but I make it. Barely. God is a good parent. It is a lofty yet appropriate goal to become like him as we parent our children. God, however, has unlimited time, unlimited energy and unlimited resources. By contrast, we humans have limited time, limited energy and limited resources. When you have a child that needs to be taken to therapy regularly it uses more of the time, energy and resources allotted to you. And it's not like dropping a kid off at school. Which I've never yet done, but I can imagine that bittersweet freedom. But no, therapy class is for the parents to learn as much as the children. You, the parent, must learn to become your child's 24 hour personal therapist. You must become your child's greatest advocate for life. So you attend the class, rooting for your child with all of your being. As if by willing it strongly enough you could make your child recover from whatever trauma he's been through. Help him take those steps to "catch up" a little with his peers. Whether you are holding his hand as he walks another obstacle course or sitting on the sidelines cheering, you are using all of the parenthood force to hope that this will be a breakthrough moment for him. That all of those times putting pegs in a pegboard and pulling them out again will add up to increased dexterity. That all of the balance beams walked across will equal greater equilibrium. That one of the times when you ask what color the ball is, he is going to look at you and say clearly, "It's red." Let me tell you something about using the force of parenthood--it's draining! And sometimes you are not only concentrating the force towards your child, but sometimes you must aim a lot of it towards his teacher as well. Willing her to get to class on time. Willing her this time not to waste ten precious therapy minutes on announcements or less-engaging activities. Willing her to understand what your child needs. And then when the class is finally over, not only is your child spent but so are you! Well at least the world understands that you are spent, right? You come home and someone hands you a free extra large latte and says, "You did real good working the parental force today, take a break why don't you?" Your children look at you and see your exhaustion and say, "We are going to go to the other room and play with our toys nicely for an hour." You kick back and relax. Ahhhh. Dream world is nice, isn't it? But of course we know it's not reality. You are responsible for at least one child who, at this time of life, needs a lot of extra help. And you want that child to have healthy meals. And a positive home environment. And the right amount of stimulation. And enough sleep. But in reality, without a second set of hands, some of those positive parenting goals are just out of reach for you. And then the other big life-sucker comes into play: parental guilt. Maybe I didn't talk to him enough or stimulate him enough or feed him enough of the right foods or let him exercise enough or play with him enough or send him to playgroups enough or go out enough or stay home enough. Maybe it was the vaccinations or lack of... Basically you can make yourself crazy on this one. You know you shouldn't, but it's oh so easy to go down that road. Well, don't. God made you Mommy and with God's help, you ARE enough. His grace is sufficient for you--yes, YOU. You may be exhausted, but our God, who gives good gifts, will supply enough energy from his unlimited supply to get you through today. But here's the secret. You have to lean in. Harder. Harder! Let go. Let go of the force. Let go of the guilt. Let go of the anxiety. God's got you in his arms. God's got your child in his arms and in His plans. Breathe. You are going to make it. And remember these words of wisdom: Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Aint that the truth! Be blessed! Go in peace.