Challenges, Hope, Scripture, Special Needs Parenting
Kara Dedert
When Thankfulness Seems Impossible

Are you scrounging for thankfulness this holiday season? Holidays can be a challenge for those walking through hard days. Perhaps you feel like you've been handed the short-end of the stick; your child is struggling, you’re exhausted and it seems like everybody else has life with a bit more gravy. It’s easy to focus on our circumstances, take stock of what we have and where we are and end up feeling completely void of thankfulness. Is there a cure for this? 

When Thankfulness Seems Impossible
Autism, Caregiving, Challenges, Hope, Special Needs Parenting, Spiritual Growth
Sunita Theiss
Discovering What God Already Knew About Me, ...

I first suspected I had ADHD as a teenager, but finding the right professional to take me seriously was much harder than I expected. Previous attempts only ended in frustration and tears.

Discovering What God Already Knew About Me, Through My Children’s Diagnosis
Caregiving, Challenges, Living Life Daily
Jolene Philo
Enjoying the Holidays with a Food Allergy

Enjoying the holidays with a food allergy sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? After all, eating together is an integral component of the holiday season. I looked forward to making our traditional holiday foods until I was diagnosed with a dairy allergy in 2012. What was to enjoy about the holidays when the foods associated with it were off limits to me?

Enjoying the Holidays with a Food Allergy
Caregiving, Challenges, Grief, Hope, Special Needs Parenting
John Fela (Felageller)
A New Home

It was a short, ten-minute drive from the hotel to the residential facility. I maintained composure while I navigated the busy public roads, and then residential streets. I had a whole range of emotions racing through my body, mind and spirit as we pulled into the campus. This was not just a pleasure drive or a routine errand, this was a significant milestone in the life of my son and our family.

A New Home
Autism, Caregiving, Challenges, Special Needs Parenting
Mark Arnold
Halloween & Special Needs: How to Make it ...

While Halloween is a fun time of year for many children, it can be a really difficult time for some, including many children with additional/special needs. For them it can be a confusing, anxiety-inducing, or even utterly terrifying time. But it doesn’t have to be like that. If we stop for a moment to think about the things they might find hard and how to put things in place to help them, children with special needs can safely join in the fun, too. So what are some of the things about Halloween that children with additional needs can find hard?

Halloween & Special Needs: How to Make it Fun for Every Child

Challenges

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Practicing Gratitude in Hard Seasons

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Practicing Gratitude in Hard Seasons

 Only when challenges slap me upside the head do I return to practicing gratitude in hard seasons. I was about to tumble into a pit of depression––a condition that has rarely reared its ugly head in my life––when God brought to mind a practice my husband and I first used decades ago while caring for our son with special needs. Every day I have been practicing daily gratitude in a hard season. Finding reasons to be thankful instead of wallowing in the hard bits took some getting used to. But eventually I got the hang of it and ended up with a long list.

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Multi-Generational Caregiving

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Multi-Generational Caregiving

It’s sometimes even hard to fathom, but I am now a caregiver caring for multiple generations of my family. Like me, there are many finding themselves sandwiched between two generations and caring for both. It is without a doubt, one of the hardest roads to walk. I’m thankful for the strategies that I’ve learned along the way which have helped me to not merely survive but thrive on my journey as a caregiver.

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Can I Have an Easy Day Please?

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Can I Have an Easy Day Please?

I would like to drive up to some magical office building and order into a speaker, “Yes, I’d like to order an easy day for my family please.” Then my daughter, if only for a day, would have a fully functioning heart and lungs. Many healed in the Bible, while healed in a moment, suffered for long before. This gives me hope to press on another day, and to keep praying for the Lord and His healing.

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The Time Warp that Is Disability Caregiving

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The Time Warp that Is Disability Caregiving

Personal experience taught me that disability caregiving is a time intensive and worthy endeavor. It is emotionally intensive as well, filled with grief, fear, uncertainty, frustration, overwhelming love, and guilt. Caregiving is the hardest thing you will ever do, but it is also the best thing you'll ever experience, the holiest act you will ever perform, the purest love you will ever demonstrate, the most Christ-like sacrifice you may ever make.

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Do not FRET!?

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Do not FRET!?

Oswald Chambers said, “It’s easy to say, ‘Fret not,’ but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able not to fret.” In today’s post, Cindi identifies the key that makes a life without fretting possible, even for families with disabilities and special needs.