Acceptance Doesn't Happen Once
Reflections from a retreat talk on being called, chosen, and sent as daughters of the Holy Spirit. I used to think acceptance was something that happened once. That eventually you reached a place where you made peace with the hard thing and then moved forward. I’m a wife and a mom of six. And five of my children have some level of disability—autism or Down syndrome. One of my daughters has both. My life has been full and beautiful, but also very different than what I imagined. And it didn’t all happen at once. In 2003, I was already well into navigating life with my twin boys’ autism diagnosis, while also raising their older brother. We were just figuring things out as we went and letting go of what I thought life would look like. I really thought I had found my footing and was handling things pretty well. But I’ve come to see that acceptance doesn’t happen once. It comes in layers. And over the years, there have been other layers too: Infertility… adoption… other unexpected heart...