The Battle for Contentment

These last few, very long months have ushered in sorrow, hardship, darkness, and anguish of soul for our family.  Having a child with special needs is never easy, but having to care for a child with special needs when the world turns upside down, health services cease, and community supports are ripped away from you makes life feel impossible. 

A child with Autism thrives on structure and routine and knowing what to expect.  When things become outside of one's control, anxiety ravishes the mind and body.  Enter mid-March: school suddenly gets closed disrupting the weekly, daily schedule of school, mental health supports and therapies at school, and keeping the mind engaged. In home therapies must turn to virtual Zoom meetings. Our oldest's world was turned upside down thus turning our lives upside down.  His only hope was that he would be going to Allegany Boys Camp, a therapeutic wilderness residential program on April 1.  This young man valiantly tried to hold it together with the hope of having a schedule and not hearing about the chaos of the world once he got to camp.  Enter April: Two days before admission to camp, we got the anguishing phone call that the Maryland Health Department has shut down the camp and all boys are to remain home until it's deemed safe enough for them to return.  In that one moment, the one thread of hope keeping our son from coming unglued was ripped away from him resulting in the worst melt-down ever and the worst night of my life where I was truly unable to help my son in his anguish.  I will never forget the helpless feeling of that dark night when my son locked himself in his room threatening to kill himself and kill us if we came in.  His soul was being tormented, and he needed skilled mental help.  I called the crisis line and was told the most horrific thing: most ERs are not taking mental health patients right now due to the virus, and if we called around and found one, only the patient would be allowed in (by himself without a parent - impossible for a child with Autism!) and that psychiatric hospitals were not taking in new patients.  My only consolation according to the therapist was that if my son killed himself, I wouldn't be held liable.  That was supposed to ease my fears????  I felt my heart die that night.

During all of this time, Tim and I still had to work.  I was becoming more busy since births don't stop, and some moms were switching from hospital births to home births.  On top of it, I have been filling  in for another midwifery practice while that midwife was on maternity leave since the end of April (I had agreed counting on the fact that Josh would be at camp). The juggle of work, trying to keep Josh calm, and the guilt of neglecting David began to overwhelm me.  It didn't help that we couldn't just access the help of community supports as we've been able to do in the past, although we did enjoy times of reprieve going to Tim's parents' house in order to save our sanity. As weeks turned into a month plus with no hope of the camp reopening, it began to become harder to pray.  I felt like a broken record with my prayers never getting past the ceiling.  I was losing hope of deliverance.  The prayers of friends and family carried us through and were a lifeline to us.  My prayers for the camp to open faded into, "Lord Jesus, please return today or call us home to be with you!"  Hope of deliverance from this current suffering faded, and I found myself just trying to survive each day trusting that God's grace had to be sufficient for each day. 

Meditating through a Precepts study on Hope helped to sustain me and remind me that no suffering in this present world can take away the hope (certain expectation) I have of God's salvation.  I have to remind myself almost daily that

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - II Corinthians 4:16-18

These troubles do NOT feel light or momentary, and it is so easy to lose heart.  The daily violent meltdowns wear me down and rob me of joy and hope.  To see my son in anguish and my other son silently hurting in the chaos brings sorrow and anguish to my soul.  I get discouraged for feeling discouraged and losing hope.  Then I am reminded that I am not alone in those feelings.  After all, the Sons of Korah wrote:

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:5 and repeated in Psalm 42:5 and 43:5

The NASB uses the phrase "why are you in turmoil within me" instead of "disturbed within me."  I think both translations appropriately describe the state of my soul.  Especially as bad went to worse resulting in our having to hospitalize our son once again (thankfully psychiatric hospitals are taking new patients out of necessity) just last week, I found comfort in knowing I'm not the only one to feel so low and distressed and that even in the midst of such feelings, I can still hope in God and praise Him.

In these low times, I can remember:

"But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.  We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.  May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you." - Psalm 33:18-22

As I search my heart through all of this, I have found a huge obstacle in my sanctification process.  A dear sister and fellow sufferer in Christ sent me an encouraging email and reminded me of an important lesson that Paul had to learn that is essential for each of us to learn and that is to be content!  That reminder spoke directly to my heart! Paul says in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances."  He goes on to say in Philippians 4:12b-13, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." It is so hard to be content when daily life is such a battle.  My life is easy to what Paul endured, so if remembering that he can do all things through Christ who gives him strength, then so can I!  My new prayer is now, "Please help me to be content in the circumstances of today."  With daily news of this virus nonsense and resulting (and unnecessary and damaging shut-down, in my opinion), it is so hard to be content!  Yet, somehow, I have to keep on going and remembering that God is in control and working ALL things for my good and His glory (Romans 8:28).  I may not like how He's doing it, but I must find a way to be content in His sovereign will for my life and that of my family's.  I have to remember Paul's words from II Corinthians 4:17 (passage shared above) that my "light and momentary troubles are achieving for [me] an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."  That battle for contentment is real, but I must keep fighting!

Until I reach my eternal glory, I must

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." - Romans 12:12

I resolve so to do!