One of my husband's friends sent him an email attachment that gave us both a chuckle. The attachment said something like, "Next time you feel like yelling at your teenager, be thankful..." Then it showed a close-up photo of a teen's face covered in piercings and gruesome tattoos, with a cigarette dangling from rotted teeth. Any parent, after seeing the photo, would likely count their lucky stars if all that was driving them batty that day was their son's perpetually messy bedroom or his need to shower more frequently.
While I was at the pediatric dentist this week, I had one of those "thank my lucky stars" moments, too. We were there early because it takes quiet a while for five appointments in a row. As my kids were seen, each in turn, from 16 year old Jed down to 3 year old Nellie, I sat in the waiting room watching other parents come and go with their kids. The first walked in the door carrying an infant and towing a 12 year old girl. The girl was light on her feet and gestured excitedly about the toys in the waiting area. She gestured because she could not speak. Her facial deformities were too severe. The entire right side of her face, from forehead to chin, sagged and twisted in grotesque angles...obviously the result of a major birth defect.
Over the next two hours, I saw four more parents come in. One with her six month old son and her four year old son. The four year old was in an infant seat...so autistic that he had to be carried. His screams from the exam room literally brought me to tears. They were full of terror...absolute terror. Then a big burly man walked in the office with his Down's syndrome son, and another woman behind him with her daughter who's mouth and nose were deformed and swollen from surgery on her cleft palate The final parent struggled through the door with a reclining wheelchair carrying her son with cerebral palsy.
I discovered that day that the early morning appointments aren't just for large families. They are also for special needs kids, who would rather not come later in the day or after school when they will have to sit in a crowded office and be stared at. Dr. Bisese was great with my kids. She was amazing with these.
I went through an emotional roller coaster that morning. Feeling an immense pity, sympathy, sorrow, admiration, and awe. Then I was hit with wonder at my own beautiful, healthy children bounding out of the exam room and cheering each other at their united lack of cavities. (It meant a trip to Burger King). Was it wrong to feel such relief again that they were "perfect"? Had I lost some of that wave of gratitude that washed away all the pain in the delivery room when my children were born and I counted their fingers and toes and considered myself blessed? How quickly we lose that feeling of dodging a bullet! How soon we learn to become annoyed by their happy, playful noises and exasperated by their childish demands on our time and attention.
Instead of thanking my lucky stars, I was reminded again to be grateful to God for my quiverfull, and to regard the aches and inconveniences of parenting from a newer, more humble perspective. God bless the parents who love and nourish children that a growing number of Americans would rather have seen aborted in our "better dead than disabled" culture. May His presence be a comfort through their repeated trips to doctors and fears for the future, and may His promises give strength to weary hands that are up all night. There is someone who sees and someone who knows. Jesus has a message for you; "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me."
