Special needs

Messy Grace

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Today I wanted to share this beautiful post by my blogging friend Patty. To introduce you here is her tag line – I’m Patty, and my husband and I are living with our adult son who has autism and epilepsy. I love sharing lessons learned from life around me, especially life with Aaron.

I have been really enjoyed learning from Patty and Aaron about trusting God while dealing with special needs. We have a special needs grandson named Christian who is still young and we have worried about how we and his own mom and dad will deal with that as he grows up. Patty has been such a great encouragement to me that I wanted to share with my readers her latest post. Be blessed and have a wonderful weekend everybody! Here is the link to her blog  “He said What?”

 

https://hesaidwhatks.blog/

Patty hesaidwhatks's avatarHe Said What?!

Last Friday when I went into Aaron’s room to wake him up and get him going for the day, I knew that something was off. Sure enough, Aaron’s bed was soaked. He had a seizure the day before, but I hadn’t heard one that previous night, so maybe he just drank too much water before bed. Thoughts of that continuing issue with the amount of water he drinks made me a little irritated.

So did the fact that because of so many other things going on…and now tons of laundry to do…I had to cancel lunch plans with a friend I hadn’t seen in forever. This was our second time to cancel. GRRRR!

But I’ve learned to look at the positives at times like that. I have a washer and dryer, and they work. I have the time and freedom to change my day around. And now Aaron’s bedding would…

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The Gift of Joy

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For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 2 Corinthians 8:2 ESV

Our twelve year old grandson is named Christian. Whenever Christian is happy about something he squints his eyes, rubs his hands together and smiles as wide as he can. Christian loves to tell me a joke or to give me some small gift he has made. While he is doing that he will shout out my name and sometimes even jump up and down in excitement. Some say that our grandson has special needs; but I just think that God has given him to our family so that we will know what rejoicing looks like!

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Christian with his little brother

When was the last time you can honestly say that you experienced joy like that? In today’s verse we are introduced to the little church in a town called Philippi who had a giant giving heart. They were very poor believers who had befriended Paul but they discovered first-hand what being more blessed giving than receiving really meant. Perhaps because of their own poverty they understood hunger and when they heard about people who were without food; they eagerly sent as large an offering as they could. Like us in the Western world some of the richer churches groaned when asked to give, and just grudgingly gave what they felt they had to. But the Philippians saw this as a joyful opportunity to give their best and they discovered that in God they were really rich.   They found out just as our grandson has, that giving whatever they had gave them a chance of receiving God’s overflowing joy and that was way more than they could have ever imagined!

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New Book on Care Ministry

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“I gained a whole new appreciation for what new beginnings meant when my wife and I chose to retire last year. Our lives had radically changed direction the year before when Nancy had survived major cancer surgery; which was followed by six chemotherapy treatments over nine months. Then as summer rolled around while she was getting her strength back, things seemed to come into place for us to move to Florida.

At first we eagerly raced ahead towards what seemed an exciting though uncertain future. Driving away from chilly, rainy Pennsylvania, we both felt like shouting, “Wahoo we’re going to Florida! No more ice! No more snow!

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No more dark colorless months of barren and cold landscapes!!” But somewhere in the middle of making new friends, finding new doctors and settling into a new church we realized that the challenge of beginning again was much bigger than we thought it would be.

For me, one vital part of starting over for me was to begin to volunteer in a nursing home ministry…” (From New Beginnings in Care Ministry)

New Beginings

It’s been quite a while since I released anything new on Nursing Home Ministry. The book “New Beginnings in Care Ministry” is a reflection of my coming to see a wider view of Long Term Care ministry in my own ministry restart. Care ministry looks beyond simply the traditional nursing home setting into the lives and needs of special needs children, residents in special needs assisted living as well as those in memory care. If your life has been touched by long term care, through a family member, your job or as a volunteer this collection of stories and insights with lots of photos are just for you. It is my prayer they will both be a practical as well as a spiritual be a blessing in your own personal journey. This is available in both softcover and E-book formats through Amazon.

New Beginnings in Care Ministry