Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger…Ephesians 4:31
Only the foolish would think his journey free from all bitterness, rage or anger. We are too human, too frail, too broken by what has transpired to suggest we can easily dispatch such powerful emotions.
Our child is less than whole. Our dreams for him and for our life are shattered. Our future stretches out with more uncertainty than we can imagine. The holes that have been punched in our plans, in our future, in the very fabric of our day-to-day lives make it easy for every kind of emotion to spill into us.
Our spirit, our heart, even our faith is put at risk, threatened by such as bitterness, rage, and anger.
But we must not let them win. They cannot be allowed to overtake us, to become the defining traits of our character. We must not permit them to squeeze us in such manner as to make of us an empty, to make us any less than we were before this child arrived.
Buried in the line from St. Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus is this abiding truth: You can be a in a storm. You don’t have to let the storm be in you. This is a truth that we as the parents of disabled children must hang onto, claim for ourselves and live out in the days and months ahead.
Make no mistake: Life with a disabled child is a storm. It’s a big, angry, dark storm filled with pelting rains and rolling thunder and frequent lightning strikes. The winds blow long and hard and threaten to peel away our hope, our peace, our faith. The rains threaten to erode the foundations of our lives.
We find it easy to lose our way in such darkness.
We find it possible to navigate such tough times by taking hold of the promises of God, by letting the very hand of the almighty take us and guide us and our child. When we do this, we keep the storm from welling up within us.
It’s not an easy or a carefree time. The road will never again come easy. The storm will come and go in its ferocity. So we must always do what we can to keep the bitterness, the rage, the anger far from us. They are emotions that have no place in our lives and they can not be permitted even the smallest of footholds within in our hearts or spirits or even our words.
When you find even a hint of them, dig them out by the root, cast them far, and see to it that you flee from those who would encourage you to make them a friend.
