by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
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."
And the pain of that will never, ever, 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.
A lot of times we can get to Holland when we want to be in Italy. The things the Lord gives us aren't the things we want! But he always knows best. I remember at the beginning of my mission when I was always sick or getting robbed or not having any success whatsoever that I was REALLY upset. I mean I was just sick and tired of being a missionary and could only think "why would the Lord let all this happen to one of his servants?" I was obedient and working hard, but all that happened to me. So one day I told my dad "Dad, the Lord isn't giving me what I need" and my dad definitely jumped right on that and corrected me, telling me that the Lord was giving me exactly what I needed, but it definitely wasn't what I wanted. I'm grateful now that I've passed through those trials and I've learned from them. So instead of just complaining and having the mentality of "woe is me" we should try to learn from all the difficulties we have in life. The Lord wants us to learn and progress, and that's why we're here.
Thanks for reading everyone! Next week or the week after I'll share some more profound thoughts. Writing these letters is just getting more and more difficult haha. But only 19 more! So make sure to read them all haha. Love you guys, have a great week.
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