Titus 2 Men And Women

Dreams
Kathy Kidd

As a child, did you dream of what you would be when you grew up? Mary Lou Retton and Sarah Hughes dreamed of Olympic gold. Others dream of seeing their name on the cover of a book or making closing arguments before a judge and jury. Some dream of a hut on a mission field or of typing President and CEO on their resume. I had one of those dreams. I saw myself as something like Susannah Wesley, with 13 children and an apron over her head while she prayed. I dreamed of a son or daughter who would, in the hands of God, impact the world. I dreamed by the adage, "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."

I married right out of Bible College and taught in a Christian school for two years. That was long enough to convince me I belonged at home with babies. At the end of my second year of teaching, God blessed my husband and me with a beautiful baby girl. My dreams were coming true. I truly LOVED being a full-time mom. I planned to stay home, feed my family only nutritional food, be frugal enough to live on one income, homeschool my children, and live happily ever after.

The first check point came when I tried to use cloth diapers. I had been given a few weeks worth of disposable diapers as gifts. As we neared the end of that supply, it was time to break out the good ol' cloth diapers. Four hours and 26 diaper changes later, I was faced with a choice: Invest in Dreft and pollute the remaining water supply in the state of Texas, or make Proctor and Gamble rich buying disposables and contribute significantly to a couple of landfills. I had to figure sanity was worth something in the equation-mine in having time between diaper changes to use the bathroom myself, and my husband's, who does not tolerate such things as a house smelling of wet diapers. The disposables won out.

Lesson #1: Your children will teach you more about parenting in one month than you learned in the previous 20 years.

So I began the journey of doing what I loved, what I was made to do. But the picture looked so different than I had expected.

Three years later, God blessed us with our second daughter. With this addition came another realization. While I might be a mom of 13 like Susannah Wesley, my husband was not the father of 13. I love Jim dearly, but it is true that opposites attract. It is one of Jim's unique characteristics that he needs, not likes or wants, NEEDS order. Did you ever notice that order and lots of kids do not tend to go together?

Our second daughter turned my husband's world (not to mention mine) upside down. By 3 weeks of age, she was crying all night. We assumed she had colic. When it didn't go away, we had to consider other options. We settled into a pattern and so did she. She slept from 8 a.m. until 11 a.m. every day. Then she was awake and progressively more distressed for the next 21 hours. When Lerryn was 4 ½ months old, we learned a new term-infant insomnia. There were days when this child was awake for 30 hours straight! Eventually, we did learn the source of her problems and she began sleeping but it was 7 more months before she was out of our bed and 2 years before she had good sleep patterns.

My wonderful hubby declared there would be no more children.

As I came out of my sleep deprived haze, I began noticing some health concerns with our 3 year old. I had grown up with siblings who had asthma and was sure I was recognizing the same symptoms in my child. The pediatrician did not agree. Six months and a very serious attack later, we finally had a diagnosis of asthma and began seeing a pediatric allergist. For the next four years, we lived on nebulizer treatments, daily medications and lots of doctor visits. This encompassed the time when Kate would be starting school. As the time drew near, I knew we could not send her to school. She was sick with upper respiratory infections at least once a month without being exposed to other children's germs. In school, she would have missed more days than she attended. So we began home schooling. About this time I began to question our pediatrician about Kate's development. My three year old was talking circles around my six year old. The pediatrician assured us that some kids are quiet and some are talkers. They were both perfectly normal and I was being a paranoid mother. If Kate had any problems they were due to her asthma and/or the drugs she was taking for it. Eventually we changed pediatricians, and were told the same thing when I approached the subject.

Finally in 1995, Jim was offered a wonderful job in Missouri. Everything about the job and move had God's fingerprints on it. So we packed up and moved to St. Louis. We loved the job, the city, and having four seasons.

Two months after we moved, we were running out of one of Kate's daily medications. I called our new pediatrician and asked for a refill. The doctor told me that they were no longer prescribing theophylline for asthma. I was frantic. "You don't understand, my daughter needs to breathe!" She wouldn't budge but offered to send us to another pediatric allergist to find a new medication. In the mean time, I began stretching out the medication, giving her one dose instead of two per day. Then I gave it to her every other day. Then one day the pills ran out, and Kate had no problems breathing. Apparently, Kate was allergic to something in Houston and not in St. Louis. I was thrilled.

A full year went by. Kate was no longer having asthma trouble other than occasional activity induced attacks, and she was no longer on daily meds. No more excuses. I went back to the pediatrician and approached the subject one more time. "I think my child might have a learning disability. I'm a teacher by training and I've been home schooling her since day one. These are the symptoms I am seeing."

And our wonderful pediatrician agreed! She had been an elementary teacher before going back to medical school and recognized the problem. She became our most aggressive advocate. She set up appointments with a developmental pediatrician and made sure our insurance would cover everything.

One month after Kate's 9th birthday, we sat across the table from the developmental pediatrician, a diagnostician, a pediatric neurologist and listened to their diagnosis. Nothing could have prepared us for that moment. Reality hadn't really changed, but our awareness of it had.

I managed to get my children home and occupied. Then I found a corner and began to cry. When Jim came home from work, we cried together. I cried for hours, then intermittently for days, then daily for weeks.

Unlike other people's stories where God was nearest in the midst of a crisis, a message from God was clear to me that first day. "I'll see you on the other side." God seemed to be telling me that I had His Word, His truth, and that would be enough.

For the next 4 years, I grieved. I grieved for the child I thought I had, for the dreams I had for her. I grieved for what I thought my life was supposed to look like. I grieved for what I thought my family was supposed to look like. I grieved for what I thought my child was missing and would miss in life.

Thankfully, a friend had given me a book on grief several years earlier and I recognized the process: the anger, the loneliness, the need to fix everything, the guilt, the sadness. And I knew if there was to be healing some day, I could not take any shortcuts.

Now 5 years later as we come up on Kate's 14th birthday, I look back and see a series of miracles, in Kate's life and in mine. I asked her if I could write about this journey. She said that I could on the condition that she read it first-something she was never supposed to be able to do. She's the person I want to write it for, so that she can never question the hand of God in her life, the God Who made her who she is, the God Who is working His plan for His glory in her life.

As a child, I accepted God's promises by faith. In the past five years, that faith has taken on a life, a color, a purpose of its own. It has changed and grown, and in the process, changed me. Since creation, one all-encompassing purpose of God has been to reveal Himself. God has invited me on a journey of discovery-about my child, about myself, mostly about this God in Whom I have placed my trust-a God of wisdom, a God of love, a God of hope.

Today, the sunshine is driving away my shadows. I am living by a new verse. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven...a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance..."

I hear the strains of music faintly in the distance. My feet begin to move. Lord, I want to dance. Teach me to match my steps to Yours. Show me how to follow Your lead. Please, Jesus, teach me to dance.

Kathy Kidd-with eternal gratitude to God and my wonderful husband, Jim, for making it possible for me to fulfill my dream of being a stay-at-home mom.

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