michelleponders

Happy birthday to me. God has graced me with 53 years on this earth.(Isaiah 46:4) I have been through and survived(and am still surviving) many seasons and storms in 53 years. I can look back through those seasons and see where God carried me through. I can not say that I have come out unscathed. I have many scars from being tossed back and forth during those storms. And when I thought the wounds would never heal, God showed up. I can also look back and see God’s grace and mercy too.

God gave me the strength and knowledge to help me raise a son with autism.(Leviticus 19:14) He actually did not get the autism diagnosis till he was in the 7th grade. At the age of 3, my son was diagnosed as being mildly mentally retarded. Of course, we know now that he has always had autism. He was just further on the scale that he needed many therapies to catch up on those skills. My son was capable of gaining many gross and fine motor skills. He was capable of gaining the basic academic skills of a 10th grader before graduating high school. Life when he was young was chaotic and crazy. Of course, it’s like that in raising kids to start with. Just add a learning difference or disability to the mix and it adds 100 times more chaos. My son’s generation was the generation that autism began to be prevalent. This led the way in what therapies were needed to help autistic children. Schools found ways to help autistic kids academically. Parents today whose children who are diagnosed with autism have so much more help at their fingertips than I did. And I can say my son’s generation led the way. Life was crazy and when you have a younger sister and brother behind you, mom stays on her toes. I delivered my 3rd child 5 weeks premature. My body started shutting down at 30 weeks and by 35 weeks he had to be born. And as it turned out, had I carried him one more week, he would have died in utero. Praise God I had a good doctor who cared for me during my pregnancy. He was only 4 pounds at birth. He had to have occupational and physical therapies due to his prematurity. He had major issues with his sight. He was small for his age most of his early life. He struggled with bullies due to his size. He has dyslexia that was not diagnosed until 5th grade. He slipped through the cracks in the education system and didn’t finish school. And my daughter, who was stuck between 2 brothers, was diagnosed with ADD in the 1st grade. This was secondary due to language incomprehension. She also had an attitude that would keep her in trouble when she was frustrated. And this was just the mom season of my life!(Psalm 127:3)

I married at 19, 6 months after graduation, to a man 5 years older than me. I did not truly know this man because he went into the military while I was still in high school. I was still a very naive Christian young lady who had no idea about the world outside my bubble. My then husband had many demons that I knew nothing about. I blindly went into marriage. By the time I was 24, I had 3 children under 3. I had a husband who would not keep a job and bills that struggled to be paid. But I believed in my vows(Matt 19:6) and I knew what the bible said about divorce.(Luke 16:18) I hated the idea of my kids dealing with their parent’s divorce. I came out of a broken home and I wanted better for them, so I stayed the course. I tried to be a good Christian wife.(1 Pet 3:1-2) I took classes, read books and prayed. Unfortunately, my ex-husband had addictions that he managed to keep from me as well as the addictions I knew about.(Heb 13:4, Prov 6:32, Exod 20:14) He was also abusive emotional, mentally, and spiritually. I later learned in my own healing that these are all traits of a narcissist. Once his addictions led to him staying in trouble, the marriage completely crumbled.(2 Pet 2:19, Rom 13:2) The decision to divorce was the right choice due to his addictions, abuse and infidelity. It was also for my and my kids safety. I learned the hard way that a person will not change unless that person wants to change. He did not want to change. So many lies. So many tears I cried. Pleading to God to change him. But unless there is real surrender, God can not change someone. And so that hurricane season of my life ended.

I entered a season of healing and restoration.(Rom 15:4) I learned a lot about myself and was not even worried about another relationship. It was only through God’s grace and mercy that I got through this season. While I was healing myself I was also raising 3 crazy teenagers. Needless to say, not having a real father figure in their lives made those years so hard. I had no one to bounce ideas. No one to help with disciplining them. Yes, teenagers need discipline too. I made so many mistakes during those few years. Listening to people who had no business telling me anything about raising my kids. People talking trash about me to my kids. Me and depression were best friends. Help from my home church and God’s presence in my life kept me from having a nervous break down. And that is the God’s honest truth. God healed my heart, scars not withstanding and I began thinking about maybe a relationship again.(Isaiah 60:22) God and I had a conversation. He had to put this person right in front of me. I refused to help Him. Just look at the mess I made before! God did NOT need my help! And as the old story goes, be careful what you wish for. It turns out that God already had someone in mind. A coworker whom I had known a year and a half at that point. We were already acquaintances. The kids already knew him from visiting my job from time to time. And that ended another season of my life.

My husband and I have been together for 13 years and married for 11 years. Both of us have been married before and knew what we wanted and did not want. Now, neither of us were looking for perfect. There are no perfect people. We are all sinful creatures. My husband does not have any children of his own. So my kids are his step-kids. He jumped into parenting with both feet. I really thought he would eventually take off running out of the front door due to my teenagers. But he did not. He stayed the course and we managed to finish raising the kids the best we knew how. Mistakes were made but the kids seen a united front. And to hear them tell the story now, it was what the kids needed. My kids have so much respect for their step-dad. They have appreciated how he treats me and loves me. We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And I can not think of anyone else I would want to go through the empty nest season.

Then a new season began. My mom has rheumatoid arthritis and was getting to the point where house cleaning was not possible anymore. The tiny apartment she was living in was dirty and being overrun by bugs. Pest control only came by every 3 months and property management wouldn’t do anything else. I work full-time and cleaning 2 houses was not in the program. My husband and I made the decision to move my mom in with us. The first 4 years were fine. Then major memory issues started. It was definitely more than just old age. She started believing she still had a home in Mississippi. She began to lose all sense of time. She would burn food no matter if it was the stove or microwave. She was forgetting where she placed things. She would forget she was not allowed to smoke in the house. She started needing help using the washer and dryer. She did not remember what medicine she was supposed to take or when and if she even took them. She started to become so confused that she would become angry. After some testing and observations I made, Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. And now I am in the season of caregiver to my mom. This is another season with many storms. And with each decline and loss of another skill, the storms are getting worse. I know God is with me in this season of caregiver as I honor my mother. My husband is also walking this road with me and is a shoulder to cry on and my sounding board. I praise God everyday for getting me through the craziness and chaos of Alzheimer’s.(Exod 20:12)

I have been through many seasons in 53 years. And I will go through a few more seasons before I leave this world behind. Seasons come and go and are different for each person. But I will always praise God through all the storms, spiritual battles and seasons of life.(Heb 13:6) Sometimes it is more than I can take. I will cling to the garment of Jesus when that happens, even if only by a thread. Thank you Father for another year.(Exod 15:2) On to year 54!