Hello guys and welcome back to my blog! 🙂
I hope you all are well. Since I am the co-author of the upcoming book The Tri-wisdom Effect, I figured that this week I would share a short excerpt from chapter 5 of our book titled ‘stepping out with what if scenarios’. This chapter is meant to be used as an exercise for readers to Triwisdom their experiences, reduce stress and maximize their effectiveness. This particular poem that I will be sharing may be specific to a parent losing their child, however, the message can be applied to various situations you may experience throughout your life. It is designed to encourage you to think positively, appreciate where you are in life plus truly enjoy the journey and fruit of everything you have been given.
Losing the perfect child – Welcome to Holland
You are grieving the difference between your perfect child and the one you now have. She is permanently maimed by a recent motor vehicle accident and the driver who caused the accident was acquitted. She is in a wheel chair and is totally dependent on others for her daily needs. You love your daughter just the same, but she is no longer the one you had envisioned. Instead of cheering her on to the greater heights that she had dreamed of, you now have to toilet her, tube-feed her, teach her how to speak again, how to use a wheelchair, and so on. Your family is busting at the seams with the myriad of responsibilities necessary to keep your daughter alive, growing and dignified. Accommodating your family functioning to her situation is taking a toll on everyone. Your freedom to come and go as you please, and your freedom to sleep when you want, is gone! You are tired but you must carry on….
***
Now, you may want to relate this situation to Emily Perl Kingsley’s 1987 essay, titled “Welcome to Holland”
Emily describes how expectant parents (of one who will be born disabled), prepare to welcome and cherish their baby, just like their friends would have done. They have envisioned the ‘great joy ahead.’ Excitement is in the air. Kingsley likens this to preparing for a journey to Italy only to find out on the day of fruition that you have landed in Holland. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.” “Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
So you realize that you now have a special needs child and he is yours to keep. “The important thing is that … [who you have for a child isn’t horrible] Its just a different place” to be. “…theres been a change in the flight plan.” You must learn new ways that you had not anticipated, to deal with the situation you had not prepared for. You must learn the language of care-giving and meet different people who might not have met had you not had a special needs child. The excitement you have is a different one. With time you catch on and appreciate who you have. She is different, yes. And has essence -yes. So yes, you begin to enjoy the blessing and the journey.
“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, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very, 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.”
So take time to enjoy the Journey ❤
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to enjoy your journey in your life. It may not look like that of the IG models you follow nor look like what you may have envisioned for it to be right now. But God states in his word that all things work for good for those who believe in him {Rom 8:28}. Besides we do not go by our own strength but our paths are directed by God himself and we must be trusting and faithful of what he has in store for us {Prov 16:9}. Let hard times be an opportunity to strengthen your faith and draw closer to the healer, the author of your journey. For he has plans to prosper you, plans to give hope and a future {Jerem 29:11), and he makes all things beautiful in their own time {Eccles 3:11}.
Thank you for reading this weeks blog, If you wanna be one of the first people signed up for our book due to be released by the end of 2018, feel free to check out our website triwisdomvillage.com Follow us on the gram and like our page on Facebook @triwisdomvillage.
Subscribe to my blog post so you can stay current when new content is posted. Comment down below if you felt this was helpful for you and any thoughts you might have had while reading it! Till next time guys, stay blessed and love you ❤
learn-grow-prosper 