Today is Friday

This blog was orginally published on Jeff’s Blog, goodnightsuperman.com, April 2013.

Today is Friday.

Someone today will leave a doctor’s appointment and go home to google the word “autism.”

Someone else will sit up in the hospital bed while the doctor explains a chromosomal disorder.

Someone will cry themselves to sleep tonight overwhelmed, discouraged, and sad.

Someone will tear up feeling like their friends are abandoning them now that they have a child with special needs.

Someone is going to feel like no one understands their burden or feels their pain.

Someone is going to go to an IEP meeting for the first time.

Someone else is going to clutch their head in despair trying to figure out how they are going to pay for all the therapies and doctor’s appointments.

Someone is going to sign the divorce papers because their spouse has just checked out ever since the diagnosis.

Someone is going to have a breakdown in the grocery store when their child with special needs goes into a meltdown.

Someone is going to pull off the side of the road because their son is going into yet another seizure.

Someone is going to lament that their own family doesn’t “get it” and has turned their back.

Someone is going to feel rejected, betrayed, and all alone.

Someone is going to feel like everything they trusted in, believed in, hoped in and expected was all a lie or an illusion.

Today is Friday.

But Sunday is coming.

Two thousand years ago, another group felt like their world had been rocked upside down. Everything they had believed expected, and trusted in was wrapped up in one person. They had staked everything on this person. And now his beaten, exposed, dead body was hanging from a wooden cross. He had died like a common criminal.

And when he died, a part of them died too. A part of their dreams, expectations, faith, and plans for the future died.

It was Friday.

But Sunday was coming.

The disciples did not know what was coming on Sunday. They did not know that the dead could be brought back to life. They did not understand that the only way to receive the blessing, the gift, and the promise of Sunday was to endure the breaking on Friday.

A lot of you today are in the same boat. A part of you has died, leaving you hurt, betrayed, cold, discouraged, and confused. Something happened that you didn’t plan for, expect, or even see coming.

This journey we are on as parents of a child with special needs is challenging, difficult, and even bewildering at times. We are not where we once were. And we are not where we will be someday. We are in the meantime.

The meantime is a frustrating place to be. What do you do in the meantime?

Today may be your Friday. What do you do when your plans and dreams died on a Friday?

You have to pick yourself up, and say to yourself, “It may be Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”

The plan and purpose God has for you and your child, the destiny God has for your child with special needs- you may never realize them on Friday. But never give up your hope and trust.

Because it may be Friday, but Sunday’s coming.