Beautiful Flowers
My sweet, 19 year old son, has schizophrenia. It is a new diagnosis. His illness has progressed and manifested itself quite clearly. The good news, this does not define him. He is a child of God first.
I won't go into detail here about what he suffers daily, but I will briefly mention it because it is our current and ongoing trial. And although it is severe right now and all encompassing, it does not define our family either. We belong to Christ, we are His and He is ours.
This first, always.
Nor am I, as his mom, defined as an activist, advocate, caregiver, etc. These things change. Sometimes in a humbling way, as you can see me here leading a protest against the Federal health care mandate:
And now, due to a series of unfortunate events, we are recieving state funded health care for my son.
Would I still protest given what I know today? You bet, only LOUDER!! But God has a way of leading us to be empty of ourselves, breaking our hearts us as we see individual lives, reality and ideas converge and mess with our seeming rock solid notions.
Good thing my identity is dependent on another. The One who never changes.
As for my son, our gift from God. Pray for him when you think of him.
The brain is beautiful and terrifying all at once. I am choosing to focus on the beauty here. Ever since he came home from the hospital, Seth has been picking flowers on his frequent walks in our neighborhood. He places them every other day or so in unusual places throughout our home and never says a word about it (above he placed flowers in a green apple! Could not have come up with that if I tried).
It makes me smile, and I love it. Beauty in the midst of affliction. This is our God at work, reminding me that He is transforming the broken into the whole. Filling the empty (oh, how we need to be emptied!), with Himself. In all of us.
So I'm not going to say too much more about my son on this blog. I don't think he would like that.
But when you see a post with a random photo of a sweet floral arrangement, just smile and say a prayer for Seth.
I won't go into detail here about what he suffers daily, but I will briefly mention it because it is our current and ongoing trial. And although it is severe right now and all encompassing, it does not define our family either. We belong to Christ, we are His and He is ours.
This first, always.
Nor am I, as his mom, defined as an activist, advocate, caregiver, etc. These things change. Sometimes in a humbling way, as you can see me here leading a protest against the Federal health care mandate:
And now, due to a series of unfortunate events, we are recieving state funded health care for my son. Would I still protest given what I know today? You bet, only LOUDER!! But God has a way of leading us to be empty of ourselves, breaking our hearts us as we see individual lives, reality and ideas converge and mess with our seeming rock solid notions.
Good thing my identity is dependent on another. The One who never changes.
As for my son, our gift from God. Pray for him when you think of him. The brain is beautiful and terrifying all at once. I am choosing to focus on the beauty here. Ever since he came home from the hospital, Seth has been picking flowers on his frequent walks in our neighborhood. He places them every other day or so in unusual places throughout our home and never says a word about it (above he placed flowers in a green apple! Could not have come up with that if I tried).
It makes me smile, and I love it. Beauty in the midst of affliction. This is our God at work, reminding me that He is transforming the broken into the whole. Filling the empty (oh, how we need to be emptied!), with Himself. In all of us.
So I'm not going to say too much more about my son on this blog. I don't think he would like that.But when you see a post with a random photo of a sweet floral arrangement, just smile and say a prayer for Seth.
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