Lessons Learned

My family has just finished a roller-coaster ride of a week and a half. I have cried more tears and felt more anger than I have in a long, long time. (Maybe not the tears, but definitely the anger.) I'm not going to go into detail about what has happened to us - and many of you know - but what I've learned these last 10 days are pretty huge life lessons.

* Listen to the voice of truth! God is the voice of truth and the rest of the world will try to undermine and undercut what God is saying. I have listened to so much "advice" these last few days, and the voice of truth kept repeating in my mind and despite what other people said, I knew what I needed to do.
* Revenge belongs to the Lord. This is what I want other people to know. Mark learned this lesson last year when he had difficulty with an old job. When someone hurts me or my family, I can not retaliate. I have to trust God that make things right. This is a tough one, but forgiveness is soooo important!
* I learned why the Bible says to forgive seventy times seven. I think that is how many times I am going to have to forgive a particular person before it actually sticks in my heart!
* Often times the enemy is myself. I think this goes back to the first one... Ryan's therapist wasn't my enemy, my interalizing of the situation was. The negative self-talk is my enemy. God takes care of the enemy - and in this case, the voice of truth was louder than the voice of the enemy.
* Nobody will ever understand what it is like to raise special needs kids unless they have personal experience. Walk a mile in my shoes... Sometimes it's easier, but often times it is much, much harder!
* Everyone wants to help the underdog but sometimes you are up against a brick wall. I want the "system" to change, but it might not. And that really sucks for parents of special needs kids.
* Mark and I have a huge network of people who love us, believe in us, and support us.
* I am going to have to be much more paranoid about my children. I can't be so trusting and I have to learn to live with the fact that the rules are different for us. Even if I don't know the rules!
* Starting over is harder than starting from the beginning.
* I am not alone - much of what I'm facing, others have gone through this before.
* Raising kids and trying to make the best decisions for them is really, really hard!
* Know who your friends are (or who is on your "side") and when you are right - they will stick by yourside like glue.
* Not reacting, but thinking through things is really, really tough!
* God is so faithful and good!!!
* I need to be more tenacious!

Now I have to figure out where to go from here with all of this and pray that God gives me my next steps.
Kristin