This morning, I gave the sermon at my parent's church in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Here it is:
Good
morning. I want to quickly explain
why I am here. A few months ago,
Father Jason and Sarah were having dinner at my parents’ house. Somewhere in the back of my mind has
always been the idea that I could go to seminary. Jason found out about this, probably from my dad, and said I
should give the sermon Sunday.
This being a Friday night, I told him that he was crazy; there was no
way I could give a sermon in 36 hours.
I thought that was the end of it until Jason called me a few days
later. He told me that he still
wanted me to come speak, and that when the idea of going to seminary was
floating around his head, someone had let him preach. So we set a date, and here I am.
My
son, Cooper is fifteen months old.
He was born a month early, and at first, he looked a little funny. So we had some genetic tests done on
him and he has a chromosomal abnormality.
However, there isn’t much they could tell us beyond that. He doesn’t have a defined syndrome, so
the doctors don’t really know what to expect from Cooper. By the time he was six months old, we
knew things really weren’t right.
Our pediatrician thought we should look into putting him in a
developmental day care. We went
and looked at a couple of places, and found The Allen School. They performed some tests on him, which
meant they asked us a bunch of questions and played with him, and determined
that his developmental age was between 1 and 2 months. So he started school and therapy in
April. And everything was
great. He received physical, occupational,
and speech therapy 3 times a week, and he was working with the most amazing
people. Then at the end of May, we
hit a big stumbling block. He was
diagnosed with infantile spasms.
Infantile spasms is a type of seizure disorder. Most children that have it go on to
have mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy. Essentially, this was the worst
diagnosis he could’ve gotten. It
basically guaranteed that Cooper would never be “normal.”
For
me, this diagnosis was the last straw.
This was when I finally got really angry. I just could not figure out why God gave me Cooper. And why 15-year-old girls still in high
school get normal, healthy children.
I ranted and raved at God.
I yelled and called him terrible things. And then I figured out a few things. One, God has been called many, many
things, but I don’t think “fair” has ever been one of them. And maybe it’s not fair to my husband
and I that we got Cooper, but maybe it’s fair that Cooper got us, and not a
15-year-old mother who had him while she was still in high school. Cooper needs US.
Another
thing I realized was that this was the most honest conversation I had ever had
with God. I have always believed
in God, but I have never really needed God. I took him for granted. Sure, I prayed for a win before the big game, I prayed that
I wouldn’t fall when I was walking down the aisle on my wedding day, I prayed
that I wouldn’t be late on the first day at work, etc. But those were shallow prayers. They were meant more for me than for
him. But now, we were really
talking. And I felt that I was
getting things in return. Somehow,
He pointed out that Cooper needed me.
He made me realize that I could deal with having a child like
Cooper. While I was the most angry
with Him I have ever been, I realized just how much I needed Him.
And
almost just like that, I got over it.
I told myself to would love Cooper for Cooper. I would stop comparing him to other children, I would stop
stressing when he didn’t meet milestones, and I would just love him for
him. I’m so proud when he does
meet a milestone, no matter when that happens. I have learned to be at peace with him. In 1 Samuel, it says, “The Lord does
not look at the things man looks at.
Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the
heart.” I try every day to see me
as God must see me. He must see me
as strong, loyal, and fierce or he would not have given me Cooper. When things are bad, when Cooper spends
3 weeks in the hospital, stops eating and has to have a tube put into his
stomach, or develops a milk allergy of all things, I take a minute to look in
the mirror and try to see me as God does.
Somehow, it makes me able to face the next challenge God throws at me.
The
holiday season is now in full swing.
For the first time in my life, I find myself thinking more about Mary
than about her Son. She knew, from
the beginning, that her son would be different, that He would be an outcast. But she agreed to love Him, to support
Him, and to treat Him like a normal boy.
And in order for Jesus to become Jesus, that is exactly what He
needed. He needed a mom who loved
and supported Him, who taught Him that to be Himself is ok. If He hadn’t had that, would He have
found the human race worth saving?
I find it unfortunate that the Christmas story is all about Jesus. I wish I knew more about Mary. I hope that she had someone to talk
to. I am fortunate in that
way. I recently read an article in
the New York Times called “Notes from a Dragon Mom.” Her son has Tay-Sachs disease. He will develop normally for a while and then he will
regress until he dies, usually by the age of three or four. Her parenting is not “future-driven,”
she allows her son to eat and do pretty much whatever he wants. And why not? But the thing that stuck out to me was this sentence: “Conversations
about which seizure medication is most effective or how to feed children who
have trouble swallowing are tantamount to breathing fire at a dinner party or
on the playground.” Cooper has
both of these issues, but unlike the dragon mom, and perhaps Mary, my husband
is a pediatrician, so I do have people to talk to. Pretty much everyone we know in Little Rock is a doctor,
married to a doctor, or dating a doctor.
To them, discussing Cooper is just what they do everyday. They don’t think he’s strange; they
just think he’s cute. I also have
an amazing Bible study composed of women who are also moms to children with special
needs. The day I met them was
amazing. We speak the same
vocabulary and sometimes that is all that matters. The teachers and therapists at Cooper’s school have also
been wonderful. His physical
therapist even calls Cooper her third grandchild. I am so lucky that we ended up here with these people. I don’t know what I would do without
them.
It’s
when I go to real parties that things get uncomfortable. Here is how conversations go: “Oh, you have a son? How old?” “15 months.” “Oh, he must be in to everything,
running around. How many words is
he saying?” “No, he has a developmental
delay. He acts like a six month
old, just rolling over, almost sitting up.” And then there’s an awkward silence and the subject is
changed. No one wants to talk
about a child like Cooper. As the
dragon mom says, “Parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be
superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see
what [parents of ill children] see. The long truth about their children, about
themselves: that none of it is forever.” “Parenting,” she goes on to say,” is
about loving [your] child today. Now. In fact, for any parent, anywhere, that’s
all there is.” Mary realized
this. She must have, or she would
not have been chosen. She raised
her child in love, not to make her child, and therefore herself, look good. She had to parent without thinking of
the future. She had to act on pure
love. And I hope that this is what
gave Jesus His humanity. This
holiday season, remember that.
Remember to love your children for the now. Take time, create memories. This time of year is when that sentiment should have to most
meaning. I love Cooper for Cooper
every day.
And
in good news, he has been seizure free for several months now. He is continuing to develop at his own
pace. He is getting stronger every
day and his personality is getting bigger and bigger as well. Please keep Cooper, and his family, in
your thoughts and prayers.
Let
us pray.
O God of
all seasons and senses, grant us the sense of your timing to submit gracefully
and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
In this
season of short days and long nights,
of grey
and white and cold,
teach us
the lessons of endings;
children
growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving
over,
grudges
over,
blaming
over,
excuses
over.
O God,
grant us a sense of your timing.
In this
season of short days and long nights,
of grey
and white and cold,
teach us
the lessons of beginnings;
that such
waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a
planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something
right and just and different,
a new
song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the
fullness of your time.
O
God, grant us the sense of your timing.
Amen.
