Friday, February 6, 2015

Why God? Why?

The other day my mom shared with me an interaction she'd had the night before with a friend at church. This friend, who knows about Julia, was telling my mom about another woman she knew who had a son with special needs and about how difficult life had been for this woman because she never was able to accept her son's challenges. She seemed sad and in a state of regret throughout her sons life, continuously asking the question "Why God? Why? What did I do to deserve this?"

I asked my mom how she responded to this story which sounded very sad and her answer surprised me, "Well," she said, "I told her, 'I understand, we ask the very same question: Why God? Why?'"

This threw me off for a second because this did not sound like my mom or the way my mom usually talks about Julia. But she went on...

"But I told her, we ask 'Why?' for a different reason. We ask 'Why God did you pick our family to receive such a blessing? Why God did you see us as worthy of your beautiful gift? Why God did you chose to change our lives in such a magnificent way through Julia?  Why God? Why? What did we ever do to deserve her?'"
"Mimi and Jules" photo by Steve Stanton

My heart nearly stopped beating.

Here was my precious mom, the woman who raised me and prepared me for this role, standing in her kitchen in front of me, speaking the most beautiful and important truths into me about who God is and how He cares for us. And reminding me, once again, that God is so good at loving us in far better ways than we could ever imagine, but we have to be willing to adjust our eyes to see it.

And I can imagine as I write this, how to some stranger's ears my sweet mom's words could sound like super religious, "church-y" jargon, or perhaps they could sound arrogant, like "look at how good we are doing with this whole thing, do it like us." But I promise that is not the case. Her words were genuine. Honest words from a humble and wise woman who feels blessed beyond her wildest imagination through the life of her little granddaughter. And she is grateful. Nothing more. Simply grateful.

Her honesty and gratitude are the result of realizing that being needed is not the burden our culture makes it out to be. And that dependency is not a curse. To be needed gives us purpose. Caring for another is when we are most alive. God gave us Julia and in doing so made all of us more fully alive.

How can that be anything but a blessing?  

Why God? Why? What did we ever do to deserve her?

24 comments:

  1. Wow, that is should a great prospective and so your mom.

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  2. This made me cry. It is all about perspective. My son's special needs aren't that bad compared to what a lot of special needs parents go through, but we have our struggles. I remember crying and feeling sorry for me (how selfish) when our son got his sensory processing disorder diagnosis. His speech delay/articulation issues/all other speech related diagnoses did not phase me, as it was obvious he was not on track with his speech, but the other hit me hard (in speech and social, he has many autistic tendencies, while not enough to be on the spectrum, enough to cause strangers to assume he is autistic). At first I felt like it was a curse, but it is a blessing. Yes, he struggles, and we struggle with him, but he wouldn't be the awesome, well loved, easily remembered and adored (by teachers who have never had him but have seen him), fun, silly kiddo without his quirks. There are days I question why God didn't give me more patience (more so for his younger "typical" although feisty brother), but I never question why God gave us such a special kid. :)

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    1. You are so right Stacey, it is all about perspective! Great job momma! <3

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  3. Thank you for this. We ask the same why's as your mom. We are so blessed. It's not easy, but that's the case with a lot of things in life.

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    1. So very true - blessing and easy aren't the same thing! Maybe realizing that alone is what allows us to see the blessing?

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    2. The past few weeks had been tough for me.. But God had somehow given me peace. Now, I wake up happy and thankful each morning. And I ask the same why. Why have you given me such a beautiful blessing? How did I deserve such a loving and supporting husband? My family is such a blessing to me!

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    3. Oh Viviene - your comment makes me happy - God is so good at giving us that peace in the midst of stormy times. Thanks for sharing in this thankfulness with us!

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  4. I am an autistic Christian and I am a flutist in high school band. I have a questioning personality, so I decided to research my faith. All the evidence points to God. This just makes my faith stronger as I know it's a bridge between the physical and the metaphysical, not one or the other. One of my teachers once said that anyone who knows me is a better person from it (but that's just God through me.).

    It was not this man who sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. John 9:3

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