This is our "Life with Autism" Christmas Mantle decoration for the holidays. Well, the picture represents our "Christ-Giving" decorations. For all of November, I have Fall/Harvest/Thanksgiving decorations out. Then the week of Thanksgiving, we put up the Christmas decorations. Thus, our "Christ-Giving" week of family & fellowship at Thanksgiving. Then after Thanksgiving, all the "Give Thanks" and Fall/Harvest/Thanksgiving Turkey decorations go back in the attic.
I have to chuckle when I look at our mantle and that Nativity scene. When typical people look at their decorations, most likely the first sentiment they think of is the memory behind the object. A family heirloom, the child's first ornament, etc. But as an autism warrior-mom, when I look at a Christmas decoration in my house, I think of how many before have perished before I learned the fine art of velcro and super-glue. Now, all of our Nativity things are cemented to a board by super-glue and velcro, then triple velcroed to the actual mantle. No more Brandon helping the wise men reach their destination quicker by launching them through the air. No more migranes for Mary after she was thrown against the wall by a caught-red-handed Brandon as he ran off after ditching the evidence of messing with things he knows he's not to mess with. No more finding the little drummer boy swimming in the toilet. Gotta love decorating "Autism" style!
But back to the Nativity scene in the picture...
Today was the "back to reality" day after a wonderful week with family here for Thanksgiving. All the cooking done, all the leftovers eaten. All of the quiet after all of the laughter from game after game that was played. The teenagers upstairs on play-station, the children in our playroom/fort under the stairs that Todd built to resemble what a treehouse would be outside; and us "old folk" at the tables playing cards...
So yeah, that back to reality brought a tedious day of picking up where I left off before last week, - in trying to answer parent e-mails, trying to find a doctor to help Brandon, trying to track down some lab results, while faxing others to yet another doctor clear across the country.
In trying to determine when my world would start spinning again. As the mom of a Navy-man about to go off to Boot Camp, I feel like I'm in a time-warp. A black hole where while everything else goes on, my everything is in a stand-still. Wondering if Matt will leave next week as planned, next month, or the one after, etc. As a mom of course I want any extra moment with my son. As a mom I know that the sooner he goes, the sooner he comes back.
This trusting in God's timing thing has always quite frankly frustrated me. I believe in it. I know it to be true, but it's still hard. I haven't mastered patience.
God knows that. And that is why when Brandon's cup went missing yet again today, --- I was inadvertently blessed yet again by yet another dose of his perfectly balanced blessings.
(see link below for original writing on "Perfectly Balanced Blessings")
Brandon has this unbreakable habit of leaving his cup wherever he walked off to when he drank it. Always seeming to perfectly balance it in the oddest places. We've found it on a pillow on his bed. Perched on the edge of the couch. In a remote corner of the garage atop a tool. In the middle of the floor. On the banister. On the TV. On a chair.
Most often when we find it in such a precarious place, it's because we need a laugh.
But today, I found it in my Nativity scene.
Because I needed a lesson.
God knew that all I was thinking about and doing today, were things that are not in my control, but in His. So he directed Brandon to put that dadblasted cup in the only place in my house that so fully represents that.. Under the cross, in the Nativity scene, with Baby Jesus. By the Angel that was right next to the big "Give Thanks" Thanksgiving decoration.
As with each time, in each place I have found his cup, I could only smile and shake my head in total humbled amazement about how God uses such a boy as Brandon, to be such a Blessing to me. God doesn't need a perfect person to make his point. All he needs is a person willing to deliver a perfect message. Today God used the sweetest, simplest boy to direct me to the simplest answer to the most complex, perplexing thoughts I was having.
The answer to any problem, stumbling block, challenge, loss, need, -- anything that threatens to steal anyone's Christmas Joy this season, can be found where I found Brandon's cup today. Right there by Jesus. Right at the cross.
I don't know if I'll get any help with Brandon's medical needs. I don't know if his seizures will ever stop. I don't know if Matt will be here this Christmas or not...
But what I do know, what memory I will cherish this Christmas and every Christmas to come, is the finding of Brandon's cup. Having all the questions that haunted me, answered in finding a green cup. I found peace in finding that cup today. And that green cup will remain right where it is. Super-glued alongside the figurines.
Reminding me to...
Leave my burdens at the cross.
Give my worries to Jesus.
Know that Angels are watching over him.
Give thanks.
When things don't go as planned, when people threaten to steal my Christmas joy, I will only have to look at my mantle, see Brandon's cup, and be reminded of how this child of mine, this boy who society treats as the least of these, who bullies laugh at and call stupid, this boy who doesn't even know what Christmas is, --- lead me to God's Perfectly Balanced Christmas Blessings.
Thank you Brandon....
Yet again.
Read the original "Perfectly Balanced Blessings" by clicking here
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