I experienced technically difficulties while I was away for Christmas so I was unable to blog last week. With the holiday’s over now....... I’m back. I am excited that we have our fingerprinting appointment next week Jan 11. I am praying that once that is done they will be able to process our fingerprints and mail us our I-171 form 2 weeks after we get our fingerprints done.
As we continue to wait, I have been reading many different blogs about peoples adoption experiences. While reading I came across this story describing what it's like to have a child with special needs. This story really resonated with me because I think this story can be about any life situation that has not panned out as originally thought. Plans like having children, marriage, illness, going to school, raising children, friendships, jobs, living situations, church membership, volunteering, the list could go on. In any one of those situations we move forward with a plan or at the minimum we have an idea of how we think “it” will work out then things happen, that thing is what I like to call life. Life happens and situations or circumstances don’t work out or we don’t end up at all where we thought or even imagined we would. I think this story really captures that feeling that many of us might go through, when things don't go as planned.
WELCOME TO HOLLAND By Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with special needs and disabilities- to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this… When you are going to have a baby, whether biologically or through adoption, it’s like planning a fabulous trip- to ITALY! You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting. After months or years of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go! Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland." “Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland??? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy! All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy!” But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease. It’s just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while you catch your breath, you look around… and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills… and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned. “And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss. But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things… about Holland
As I read this story again it reminds me, of how many things in my life and maybe yours to, are like this story. I don’t know about you but I know there have been times in my life when I have gotten so caught up in where I wanted to be but did not end up that I missed, some of the gifts of where I was had to offer. I am reminded of how important it is to not lose sight of how special what I have or where I am is, even if it is not where I signed-up to be.
For me, sometimes that can be easier said then done. I know in my head the truth mentioned above, but choosing to live that truth out and put it in to practice that at times can be a challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment