My birthday boy!!!
Today we have a special birthday in the house! Jackson turned nine today, and enjoyed being spoiled by everyone in the house all day long! Legos, Tsum Tsums (disney plushes), pizza, spaghetti, cake, ice cream, and balloons; It was a party in the house!
But the best part of being Jackson’s mom on his birthday is reflecting on how he’s changed my life in so many ways, and for the better.
In 2016, I was invited to share my reflections of a poem, Beautiful Is The Woman, about Mary, Jesus’ mother. (see poem below) After reading this poem, my thoughts immediately turned to Jackson. Motherhood is both joy and pain, and this poem reflects that well.
Beautiful is the Woman
Beautiful is the woman of honesty.
Like a flower petal unfolding,
she is given to delighting others with her pattern of symmetry.
She promotes a spirit of ease through her consistency in just being who she is.
Beautiful is the woman connected to her sense of inner peace.
Like a tranquil lake,
she reflects a calm that helps others when confusion abounds
and when life becomes difficult.
Beautiful is the woman who can energize others with fruitfulness of action and purity of intention.
As the sun absorbs the mist, she draws others to her
as one who avoids distraction and leads with a clear direction.
Beautiful is the woman, who like Mary, stands at the foot of Calvary firmly resisting the temptation to despair,
who stands as a reminder of God’s great love and forgiveness.
Beautiful is the woman who leads the way showing mercy.
As a seedling reaching for the sun,
she is ready to be patient in allowing the transformation from hurt to healing in herself and in others.
Beautiful is the woman who has learned the language of letting go.
As the trees shed their leaves in fall,
she trusts that life’s abundance will replace, rejuvenate and renew all that seems wasted or lost.
Beautiful is the woman who delights in God who hears every plea and who wipes away every tear.
She can embrace her future with hope and vitality.
I am by no means perfect, but I was much farther from these character traits before I had Jackson in my life. I believe God gave me Jackson because He knows my heart, and He knew where I had room to grow, and I still have lots of growing to do.
Almost four years on from the reflection below, he still challenges me in the same ways. He challenges me to show up, be present; show love, mercy, forgiveness, to search and find the goodness in others; to reject despair and anxiety about the future. He is a true gift to our family; to me, and I’ll love this little boy until forever.
I am humbled to have the opportunity to reflect with you today on the poem Beautiful is the Woman. It surmises the feminine qualities of Mary that she perfectly reflected for all to see. We all will forever fall short of her perfect examples of honesty, inner peace, fruitfulness, fortitude, mercy, forgiveness, and holiness, but as women we have the strength to continue to get up and try again and again to reflect these qualities into the world as often as possible.
In my life many things have come easily to me. I have never struggled with school, relationships, finding employment, having children. The world’s true bang ups, and hang ups have never happened to me. I am a lucky girl!
But despite my many blessings, that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle. God has called me to a vocation as a caregiver, and I have willingly served this role as a stay at home mom, and a working mom. Both have their unique challenges. I define care-giving, as more than mothering, I am the mother to four beautiful children six and under. Care-giving is caring for those that are mentally and/or physically unable to care for themselves, and in that capacity, I am the special caregiver to my two young sons with special needs. In caring for my sons, Jackson and Henry, my sense of honesty, inner peace, fruitfulness, fortitude, mercy, forgiveness, and holiness have all been tested.
When I am emotionally and spiritually drained from caring for my children I often think of Mary in Luke, looking for Jesus when he was lost for three days. Three days! If one of my children was lost for three days my inner peace, and my ability to be hopeful would certainly be challenged beyond measure! It would also take a great deal of mercy and forgiveness on my part when I finally found them! But Mary did not despair, she continued with Joseph and pushed on and searched for her son despite the overwhelming odds of finding him in a dangerous city of thousands, Jerusalem. She didn’t give up or despair, she moved through the crowds with a sense of purpose, to find her son in all the confusion and chaos. But while a lost child is an extreme event of motherhood and caregiving, the feelings and the pressure to despair, lose my center, be angry, and blame others for my failings are something that happen on a daily basis for all of us.
I have especially had these feelings raising my sons Jackson and Henry. Henry was diagnosed in Augusr of 2015 with type one diabetes at two years old. Every day I am faced with losing Henry to this life threatening illness. It has taken over a year for my husband and I to come to terms with having to poke his precious fingers, and not feel threatened by a simple cookie. But we have persevered through feelings of despair and watching our child suffer. We offer it up and learn from Henry’s example. He never complains, and bears his sufferings with a smile that would envy St. Therese.
My true spiritual challenge in life has come from raising my son Jack. He was born in 2011 a perfect bouncing baby boy, just sixteen months after his older brother. He continued to grow and develop the same as his peers until he was 13 months old, and then the easiest way to describe it is his light went off inside, he seemed lost. Jackson suddenly stopped making eye contact, learning new words, communicating, and in general connecting to the world around him. We sought help when he was 18 months old, and got him speech therapy for 30 minutes a week, and we had little to no progress. We sought further help when he was two years old, and we were told he was mentally impaired. This appointment brought us to begin therapies in addition to speech therapy. Jackson was receiving therapy for over three hours a week at 2 years old.
As a mother I knew something was wrong when he suddenly stopped making eye contact. I knew he was different every time I brought him into a room with other children his age. As Jackson struggled, I struggled. I couldn’t get him to eat normally, I couldn’t get him to tell me what he wanted, what he needed. Often my efforts to connect and communicate with my son ended in embarrassingly loud tantrums. Jackson was never safe, even for a moment alone, because he would dart off and wander. On one such occasion he made it from the cry room there in the back of church, all the way to the tabernacle.
Like Mary, I was forced to look for my son, even though he was right in front of me. I had to push forward and fight chaos and confusion to find him every day, and often lose him the next day to a new obsession, tantrum, or concern.This search and fight for my son often lead to exhaustion, worry, and anger, the opposite of the woman I was and wanted to be before Jackson was born. I was exhausted from hyper vigilance when in public, waiting and watching for Jack to run or start getting upset, worrying about his future, and anger at God for allowing my child to suffer, and even anger at Jack because his behavior was often frustrating and perplexing. Before Jack was born I didn’t worry, I wasn’t quick to anger, and I was rarely exhausted, the busier the better! It took three years of watching Jack take two steps forward and one step back in his development pattern to learn to speak, and be partially potty trained. It took three years of prayer and conversation with God to give me the strength to see through the negatives and find the beautiful soul that was within Jack waiting to shine. It took three years for me to learn to give myself grace and receive grace from others and God when Jack has pushed me over the edge, or I felt about to lose my temper or my sanity. It took three years of never giving up, even when they tried to tell me he was mentally impaired, forgiving myself, forgiving Jack, plowing forward to get to where we are today!
When Mary found Jesus in the temple she was relieved and delighted in God, and I am pleased to say, I am able to experience this emotion every time Jack moves forward developmentally, or looks into my eyes even for a moment, and tells me he loves me. Three years ago this felt impossible, and fills my heart, and brings a prayer of thanksgiving to my lips. Today Jack is five years old, and is labeled twice exceptional, once for having Autism, and the other for being exceptionally intelligent. A lot of the time he appears to staring off in to unknown space, but he is actually picking up on details and ideas many of us miss. He taught himself to read at three years old. He continues to have good days and bad days, but we move forward knowing that God is at our side and that he has a special plan for Jack in place.
I am not perfect like Mary, I have admittedly despaired, at times felt like giving up when the odds felt stacked against us, but the Lord in his mercy has continued to repair and shore up my heart and make it strong again and again, so I can face the future with hope and vitality, and delight in the tiny miracles God works in my sweet boy every day.