It's "Marriage Prayer Friday!"

This week, we are praying for parents and spouses who need a break as they give full-time care to a loved one with special needs.

A prayer for your own marriage—

MERCIFUL GOD, thank you for the cross which not only saves me but proves your understanding of every burden that I carry each day. You know that our family experiences great joy in caring for our loved one(s) with special needs. Thank you, Jesus, for the privilege of experiencing a servant's heart as we care for each other. But you also know that my spouse and I grow weary. Lord, the burden is often heavy and lonely. Show me ways to come alongside my spouse as a team sharing the burden. Forgive me for making this a solo sport sometimes! Help me to better understand how my spouse is experiencing the emotional and physical weight of the caregiving responsibilities. Help us to communicate better about our needs, concerns, and hopes. Help me to listen — and listen with my heart. Bind us together in fresh ways. Show me some practical things I can do to nurture my spouse so that he/she is encouraged and strengthened to do his/her part. Help me to leave my own neediness with You and empower me, by the strength and wisdom of your Holy Spirit, to bless my husband/wife. In ways that only You can, Lord, would you also make a way for my husband/wife to get some breaks. Create a way for us to get a break together as well!

Please use the disabilities in our family to strengthen us, not weaken us. You are God. You can do this! Thank You, in Jesus' name. AMEN

Something to pray for a friend's marriage—

MERCIFUL GOD, thank you for the cross which not only saves us but proves your understanding of every burden that we carry each day. Today I lift up the families I know who are caring for a loved one(s) with special needs. Thank you, Jesus, for their servant hearts and for the joys they gain from their experiences. But Lord, You also know the burden is often heavy and lonely. It can be a great weight on a marriage. Please strengthen these friends of mine helping them to share the joys and responsibilities as a team.

Refresh them with energy and discernment to share burdens and nurture each other more effectively.

Help them to communicate with each other freely and listen to each other with their hearts. Would you please make a way for them to get some breaks, Lord? You know how critical it is for them — individually and together — to get some time away. Show me what role I might play in lightening their load or supporting their marriage.

Please use the disabilities in my friends' families to strengthen them, not weaken them. You are God. You can do this! Thank You, in Jesus' name. AMEN

Carly's Golden Birthday!

Tomorrow — May 13, 2011 — our youngest daughter Carly is 13 years old! She’s going to have a sand castle birthday cake because she loves swimming. I might even add an icing drizzle this year. Usually, I try to minimize the sugar that can upset her system but because it’s such a special year and because continued healing has made her less vulnerable, we’re going to cut loose and live it up!

Birthdays for the parents of a child with special needs are often a bittersweet celebration. Some years are harder than others and sometimes at unexpected moments or for unexpected reasons. After Carly was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome at 2 1/2 years old, Larry and I began to notice an ebb and flow of emotions as each birthday would come and go. These are some of the ways we make Carly’s birthday experiences sweet for the whole family.

· Do something to celebrate the day that brings encouragement for each member of the family. Birthdays are usually focused solely on the person having the birthday. In a family with special needs, the celebration may need to extend blessing to the whole family, especially if it’s a year that has been more challenging or when someone is struggling with more grief than usual. I like to survey each member of the family with this question: What is one special way that YOU would like to celebrate Carly’s birthday this year?

· Honor the feelings and expectations of the siblings. Over the years, I discovered that Carly’s siblings felt sorry for her if I didn’t put much effort into her birthday. My justification for reserving my energy or downplaying the occasion to avoid triggering my grief was that Carly wouldn’t notice whether we had a party or not. I didn’t realize that her sisters would care. They wanted the party and needed the family celebration experience more than I realized.

· Stack the day with her favorite simple things. The simplest things that bring Carly joy can be so easily taken for granted as part of the routine. But when it comes time for her birthday, we stack the day with as many of those things as possible. She gets to have a bath, go on the swings, eat more fruit, enjoy a chicken and veggie penne pasta dinner, play Tickle, snuggle up for an episode of Veggie Tales and dance with the whole family for a while all in the same day!

· We give Carly the “ROYAL birthday bumps!” This is a tradition I learned while growing up in Canada. The bumps can take many forms from an affectionate spanking representing each year in age to a full-fledged bouncing on the bed. Carly can’t appreciate its meaning but certainly enjoys the rough-housing! Greeting Carly in the morning with such a silly start to the day sets a helpful tone for Larry and I. Standing on each side of her holding her arms and legs while bouncing her like a sack of potatoes on the bed is a joyful metaphor for the partnership we share in parenting her. Those giggles (and sometimes tears as we lock eyes across the wiggly bundle of smiles) are like a healing salve to our souls.

· Spend some time before the big day bearing my soul with Jesus. One of the most valuable ways I’ve learned to prepare myself for the big day happens in the few days or even weeks leading up to the actual birthday. It helps me to sit down a time or two with my journal and prayerfully make a list to God of all the things on my heart about Carly — hopes, dreams, longings, disappointments, discouragement, challenges, fears, ways God has surprised us with gifts from her life, things I am grateful for about Carly, needs (hers, mine and ours), and things I’m excited about as it relates to parenting Carly. Sometimes I will sit down at our piano and tearfully sing songs that remind me of God’s deep love for me. These special one-to-one times with my Savior are a precious freedom of expression and bring comfort to me through the Holy Spirit. Giving my grief full release with the only One who fully understands and doing it prior to Carly’s birthday means that once the day arrives, I am more fully able to genuinely celebrate. In fact, my celebration becomes as much about who Carly is as it is about who God is — and that is truly a gift!

Psalm 139 expresses a couple of very important things for anyone celebrating a bittersweet birthday. It reminds us that God knew EXACTLY what He was doing when He carefully, lovingly and gorgeously created each one of us. It also reassures us that God is fully present to each of us and is deeply concerned about our most intimate thoughts and feelings.

Highlights from Psalm 139…

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Happy Birthday, Carly! Mommy loves you so much.

Life on the Bumpy Road #1

It always amazes me how full our lives get. We live in a culture frantic to keep up with “The List,” the Joneses, our needs, the kids, the high expectations. After a mission trip to a very laid back culture in 2008, I became even more aware of how my personality and culture repeatedly drives me toward my calendar and steady doses of urgent matters.

I feel justified but frequently frustrated to find myself staying up late into the evenings because there are so many “worthy” and urgent things on my plate. You know what I mean. Your list looks different than mine but we all have one that challenges us. I have a child with severe disabilities, three teenagers and a graduation coming up, a husband prone to life-threatening infection due to a chronic health condition, a vulnerable back that requires me to make a simple work-out regimen a regular part of most days, a non-profit ministry to run, and our family is now into eight months of unemployment. For Larry and I, it’s a crazy pace to keep up.

I stumbled onto this verse the other day and it brought me, once again, a good reminder about where I place my priorities — and TRUST.

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. PSALM 127:2

To me, this verse begs the question: “How much do you trust God, Lisa?”

It is good to be continually evaluating priorities and pruning out of my life anything that keeps me from bearing the best possible fruit. John 15 has been a great guide for me. Jesus said (with my emphasis):

“Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit….the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

First and foremost, I must take time to remain firmly rooted in the relationship that anchors and nourishes me. Then I have to periodically cut some things loose or life just keeps adding more and more. A life without regular pruning is an unreasonable and undoable way to live.

God created the whole universe and life itself and then He RESTED. God provided enough manna for the Israelites in the desert each day for six days of the week but commanded them not to try to save any for the next day. He expected them to trust Him to supply enough, one day at a time. But on the last day of the week, he would give them enough for two days so that they could rest for a day. On every other day of the week, if they tried to save any manna, it would spoil by morning. But at the end of the week, God kept the manna fresh overnight so that they could stop gathering and just enjoy His provision and each other.

I suggest here that we’re all being stretched to consider how much we trust our God who repeatedly urges us to rest in Him and to take breaks from our toil. If we have our priorities straight and are working on them in a focused manner while plugged into a relationship with our Savior, has He not promised to honor our best effort and make that enough?

There will always be more work to be done, more time to be given to a worthy cause, more people to help, more emails to read and more great stuff to plug the kids into. I see marriages and families being ripped apart every day and the slow, subtle deterioration started, at least in part, because folks were so stretched doing good and valuable things like ministry and community service and countless activities for their kids while their marriages were getting the last dregs of their energy and passion. You know what? Satan LOVES that!

Let us receive the gift of rest from a holy God who is always sufficient — and we are not. He doesn’t allow us to be entirely self-sufficient because if we were, we wouldn’t need to trust in Him.

Do you trust Him enough to let some things go?