My stick and stone

There is a great temptation, when living with a special needs adult child to forget the world around you, is bigger than what you face daily.  And feeling alone in it, without realizing it, can cause you to despise the attention you get from it. We all seek to find "normal" as much as we can.

Until you "bump" into some one, who has weathered a storm, 

greater than your own.

I did that the other day.  I have seen this older gentleman 

walking with his stick and stone (you do that in the city)

 and he has seen Anna and I, too.  We would wave, and smile,

but finally he approached us the other day.  In less than a few minutes, I would come to know, he was the Father of twins older than my Anna (one with special needs, both with emotional problems).  And this touched me deeply on many levels.  I'm not sure, he would have approached me, without Anna there.  And you know what she did, right? Grabbed hold of him, with that smile, that ministers more than words ever could.  I saw a grace about this man, that encouraged me to press on.

And my lesson from this little encounter that day?  That our enemy comes to "kill, steal and destroy", and he starts doing this,

when our focus turns inward, instead of upward.  And he (this enemy of ours) is after our joy.

And my "stick and stone" that I will walk with, as I continue, alert and sober, will be aimed at an  ungrateful heart, like a dog barking a threat at my heels. And when I start to see the danger of Pity coming near, knowing  its aim is to drag me in a pit, and take me off this road I'm on.

I will remember, that 

" surely, goodness and mercy shall follow 

me all the days of my life"

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  ~Melody Beattie