This wasn't the plan!

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I know we have all gone through circumstances in our lives where we think, "This wasn't the plan!" and we wonder why God is sending us down another path.

I heard this story at a women's retreat I went to a couple weekends ago & finally got my copy in the mail yesterday, so I thought I'd share it with you all. It is about having a child with a disability (which I don't) but the concept can be easily related to any circumstance in our life where we find ourselves in a place we didn't plan on! Hope you like it as much as I did.

Welcome To Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley c1987 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.

-- heather (h.m.metheny@att.net), March 17, 2002

Answers

I love that! Emily Perl Kingsly wrote a Sesame Street story that my kids loved so much I have it memorized now-she must be a wonderful lady. Sometimes I feel like I missed even Holland and ended up in Outer Mongolia!

-- Kelly (homearts2002@yahoo.com), March 17, 2002.

Kelly and I , the kindred spirits.... I think my plane landed in Death Valley. Really hard to find beauty there.....

-- Kristean Thompson (pigalena_babe@yahoo.com), March 17, 2002.

What a wonderful story and how true. I can take that very literally since we have a darling grandson who suffered a stroke just before he was born. He almost didn't make it and at 20 months is considered a quadraplgic although he has movement in his upper body. He has brought so much to our entire family, we are blessed indeed. It puts everything else into perspective real quick! His little cousins adore him, he is always smiling and happy. He works so hard at therepy sessions and his determination is amazing for a one year old. He has changed this family so much for the better, we certainly don't sweat the small stuff anymore thats for sure. He just got his first wheel chair so its look out world!! We are having a great trip to Holland!!

-- Judy S (wawoman@home.net), March 17, 2002.

Dear Judy S.-------Thanks sooo much for shareing about your precious Grandson---What a blessing!!!!!!!

My Hubby & I had a foster son for quite some time/ who was blind & mentally retarded & phy. handicaped. We learned so much from him---- he didn't speak--but had a beautiful laugh!!!!!!!!! He was not that much youngier than my hubby & myself---we all grew so much from haveing him as part of our lives!!! I under stand Holland also!!!! Sonda in Ks.

-- Sonda in Ks. (sgbruce@birch.net), March 18, 2002.


Being the mother of a handicapped child, I had read this story some years ago and could really relate. Thanks Heather for sharing, I had forgotten about the story. Erma Bombeck had an article years ago that I still have on my refrigerator. The subject of the article was on God choosing a mom for a handicapped child and one of the parts of it I liked the most, was this...."She will never take for granted a spoken word. When her child says "mommy" for the first time, she will be present at a miracle and know it. When she describes a tree or sunset to her blind child, she will see it as few people ever see my creations".

For some reason, and God only knows, He shows us a different way. In mine, it was my daughter. He has taught me to never take for granted even the smallest miracle. A child walking and saying the simplest word, is a miracle. When you see Holland, you know this. Mothers in "Italy", please don't ever forget.

Judy, what a blessing you are as a mother and grandmother. It's hard to imagine now, how much, but your love and support will be greatly needed and apprecitated as the years go by.

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), March 18, 2002.



The first time I went to visit my future wife's parents, as we walked in the living room, a little boy of four or five sat in the floor propped up against a chair. With thick glasses hanging on his nose and both legs in casts, Tim (as we'll call the foster child) looked up at me and said, "Hi, what's your name?"

Tim eventually learning to use a walker. He helped "manage" his stepfather's fruit stand and knew every trucker that stopped by name. He never let anybody get by him without a chat.

-- Randal in Brazil (randal@rhyme.cjb.net), March 18, 2002.


I haven't woke up yet. *Yawn* My father-in-law was not his stepfather, but foster father.

-- Randal in Brazil (randal@rhyme.cjb.net), March 18, 2002.

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