Good morning…
Today many of our hearts hurt for an autistic boy who is forced to bury his father after a tragic death. A mother of another autistic child in our community introduced me to a story, a story that teaches us all about loving the unique life sitting upon our lap. “Welcome to Holland” is a thought-provoking, creative way to celebrate Plan B.
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Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – 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’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation 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 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 some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place. So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. 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 and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, 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.” The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a 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.
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I love a fresh perspective on adjusting to Plan B. Holland has windmills, tulips, and Rembrandts all its own. Am I willing to let go of my Italian dreams to embrace the life teeming before my eyes?
My heart aches for this autistic boy, whom I have never met. He is a boy well loved by many of the people I am grateful to call friends. When my heart aches it begins to pray, so I lift a prayer for this young man, asking our LORD to comfort, to shepherd, to heal this special person who has invited many loved ones on a trip to Holland.
How are this boy and his people supposed to live past today?
“Put the question to our ancestors, study what they learned from their ancestors. For we’re newcomers at this, with a lot to learn, and not too long to learn it. So why not let the ancients teach you, tell you what’s what, instruct you in what they knew from experience? Can mighty pine trees grow tall without soil? Can luscious tomatoes flourish without water? Blossoming flowers look great before they’re cut or picked, but without soil or water they wither more quickly than grass. That’s what happens to all who forget God — all their hopes come to nothing. They hang their life from one thin thread, they hitch their fate to a spider web. One jiggle and the thread breaks, one jab and the web collapses” (Job 8:8-17, MSG).
Remember God.
Remember this autistic boy.
Let’s bond them together in our continued prayers.
…Sue…
