Sunday, March 22, 2009

Glimpses of Parenting a Child With Special Needs

I've mentioned before about the list of duties that parents deal with when caring for their children who have multiple medical needs. It goes beyond having to fight for things that are already promised. Constantly having to educate those around you on the differences your child has compared to other children with special needs can wear you out. All of that is nothing compared to the underlying stress that we all feel to some degree caused by the fear of losing our child.

They say it is every parent's nightmare. Too many parents are closer to it being a reality than those who only have typical children. With fragile bodies tied to fighting spirits, they come close to leaving more times than any of us want to count. When someone in our community, loses their precious child, it become one more reminder of just how precious these lives are. It adds to the daily, underlying stress we live with because we know, it could so easily be our child without any notice. We have a deep knowledge of how precious every day is, take less for granted and know that we can't always count on doing something next year, next month or even tomorrow. When one of our families faces this kind of tragedy, we all feel it deeply. We can so easily put ourselves in the place of those parents because we have ran it through our minds so many times.

Please pray for those you know who are walking this path. Tonight you can pray by name for Bryant Paquette's family. Dave, Cheryl, Emily, Julia & Liam.