Today I want to acknowledge, affirm, validate and honor every special person who raise and parent a special needs child.
I know your fierce love, your self-sacrificing devotion and your delight in the beautiful beings God has entrusted in your care.
I also know your quiet desperation and your brave smile when you are hurt again and slighted again by those well-meaning, oblivious, ableist parents who will just never have a clue what it means to have a special needs child.
We all know how lovely and rewarding it is to be a parent, but also how challenging, isolating and overwhelming it can be to parent a special needs child.
Others take for granted the seemingly effortless, normal, everyday activities and achievements that our differently-abled children will just never be able to master. In spite of our best efforts, coaching, training, encouragement and daily toil.
We live our quiet, unassuming lives filled with daily joys, excruciating challenges and grateful delight in our precious little ones.
But we also look at you “normal people” and wonder, if you could please find it in your heart, to just sometimes, be more kind. Try to put yourself in our shoes. Try to imagine and understand that every life matters. Every child ‘s unique abilities, challenges, gifts and diversities are precious and worthy of your respect.
My children may have an invisible disability. They don’t look disabled to the untrained eye. But they have to be so strong, so brave, so determined, so unflinching in the face of monumental challenges they battle every single day, just to do the normal things others may take for granted.
So here is to every parent of a differently-abled child. I see you. I admire you. I know your worth. I know the priceless gift, safe place and shelter in a storm that you are, every single day, for your differently-abled precious ones.
Hang in there. You are brave. You are strong. And you are not alone.
♡Hanlie
Comentários