This Side of Invisible

Published on the Liahona Project, link here I took my oldest son back-to-school shopping the other day.  It was.... awesome.  sad.  exciting.  funny. inspiring.  surprising.  mama-heartbreaking. Big Brother was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in 2009, when he was eight years old.  It was years of evaluations and developmental preschools and speech therapists.  Years of teachers bringing their concerns to me and me taking those concerns to doctors and, and, and...  years of misdiagnoses.  It was years of meltdowns and vomiting and aggression and wondering feet, running feet and hearing him say things like "I'm a bad son.  I'm going to let a car hit me," as those feet took him out the front door. And then that moment, that singular sentence, "Your son is on the spectrum," that changed everything, that changed nothing.  That bitter-sweet recognition that he was, in fact, atypical. And we've had years in between that the...

I read somewhere recently a simple proverb that has had a profound effect on my mentality: Every flower and every tree must grow through the dirt. and some even have enough courage and fortitude to grow through the rocks... Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. ~ J.K. Rowlings This is something that I once again reflected on during Sunday School today.  We were talking about trials and afflictions and those inevitable questions and attitudes we can develop when going through hard times.   Why does this have to happen to me?  What did I do to deserve this?  Why does a loving God allows such tragedies to occur?  How can He sit by and watch and not intervene?  Why won't He step in and help me/us/them?  When will it ever end?