The Best Worst Thing That Ever Happened to Me

Re-framing

There have been a few.

1. I received a scholarship for college right out of high school for journalism. I always wanted to write, to be a reporter, be a broadcast journalist...travel the world and write about what I saw, the people I met, the foods I tried. Maybe I would try my hand at working for a magazine, writing more entertainment-style articles versus news. Maybe I would write a novel someday (blogging had not yet been invented). I loved to write. I still do. 

Then my circumstances at home changed drastically, and not for the better. I had to work full-time while attending college. The option to stay home and go to school full-time vanished. I lost my scholarship funding while I struggled to pass classes and pay bills, could not commit the hours mandatory to the college's newspaper, which was a part of my scholarship requirements, and in the end, even made the difficult choice to change my major. I graduated almost three years later with my Associate's in elementary education, with an emphasis on special ed. Little did I know then that, more than ten years later, I would have Jeremiah and he would be diagnosed with autism.

2. After a change in pastors and direction, the church that we attended as a family for 23 years began to disintegrate right before our very eyes. It was devastating to say the least. One by one, families walked away. Children's and youth ministries became obsolete, as did women's ministry opportunities. Even all outgoing missions were canceled, shut down, frowned upon. We knew it was time to walk away as well, but the change was so scary, so hard. We had never been anywhere else. We became Christians in this church, our babies were conceived, born, dedicated, and baptized while we were members there. It was all we knew. We were all plugged in, serving, settled, comfortable.

Then God pulled the rug out from under us there and, after much prayer and many growing pains through the inevitability that is change, we landed at out new church home...where they had been praying about and in the infancy stages of beginning a separate but inclusive ESE children's ministry and were looking for a coordinator. Imagine that. Next to homeschooling/homemaking, it has turned out to be one of the most fulfilling roles of my life. And going back to my college circumstances, one I would not have been qualified for had I not changed majors as a result of much disappointment.

3. Then there's Jeremiah. Oh the ways I have grown and morphed, and God has transformed me as a result of being that boy's mother! I think each of us in this house can say that in relation to having Jeremiah as a child or sibling. It hasn't always been easy. Actually, it's never been easy. It hasn't always been joyful, pain-free, fun, or an adventure. Many years have been wrought with sleepless nights, crying in the shower, nursing broken dreams and bruised bodies, missed opportunities, and I am ashamed to admit, a coctail of anger, resentment, and bitterness.

But in and through it all, I can honestly say, I never once questioned the sovereignty of God. I always knew He was on His throne, in control of it all, and that nothing that ever happened to us was outside of his jurisdiction or authority. I have my former pastor and his wife being faithful disciplers to me to thank for that.

I may have wondered about the reality and truth behind Scriptures like Romans 8:28 and Jeremiah 29:11 at times though. How could having to pull the car over to keep from getting into an accident while I am being assaulted physically and verbally by a child in full meltdown mode work together with everything else that was going on in my life for my good? If God's plans were not to harm me and for a future and a hope, then how could He explain the 9-1-1 phone calls we made begging authorities to Baker Act our son just so we could get a respite from him and the autism? Sheesh, for that matter, and more simply stated, how could He explain puberty?!

But then you get perspective. Oh the gift of perspective! God brings you through to the other side of a circumstance and allows you just a glimpse of things from His point of view. He allows you an opportunity to work alongside Him and  re-frame your hurts and disappointments. 

Re-framing a picture requires patience, gentle hands, and the skill of being precise. You can't even begin the process until you have a new frame to transfer the picture into.

You have to be patient while you search for a frame that will fit your picture perfectly. In the meantime, every day that you see it hanging on the wall, you long for that new frame to be found and envision what it will look like once you find it. You can almost feel your fingers running across the smooth, unsplintered edges of the new frame. It's hanging straight and secure from it's hook attached firmly to its back. You squint, imagining the glare of the light off the shiny new, streak-free glass. You randomly check resale shops, thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales, and even your neighbors' trash at the curb after they spring clean...all hoping for that unveiled treasure you know is out there just waiting to be discovered.

Finally, you find your frame. It's perfect. You could not have ordered one made specifically to fit your picture more beautiful than this frame. Now it's time to extract the picture from its old worn frame and transfer it to your new one.

You carefully flip the old frame over on your lap, gently prying up the prongs on the back of it to release your picture from the dilapidated home that once was good enough to care for it. You have to be careful and gentle because the frame is old, worn, has cracked glass, water-stained and wood rot edges. Even the hanger spins aimlessly on the back, its glue disintegrated to the point that it can no longer serve its purpose to display the picture proudly on your wall.

Finally, you free the picture from its old home. You remove it ever so gently from the frame so as not to scrape it along the rough edges or sharp fractured glass on its way out. You can re-frame a picture, but you're no artist and you know you are not qualified to re-paint the picture itself.

You cleared a section of table in front of you to lay the picture  on until the new frame has been prepared to receive it. You removed the clutter and even used a damp cloth to wipe down the table's surface, following it up with a dry lint-free towel to keep your picture from getting wet or picking up unwanted particles it will take into its new frame with it. You even washed your hands before this step in the process. With the old frame now picture-free, you replace it's backing, not quite as gently as when the picture was still in it, and you set it off to the side, now turning your attention to the new frame.

As carefully as you removed the picture from the old frame, you transition it into the new one, careful not to touch the glass inside the frame and leave your oily fingerprints behind. Happy with the positioning of the picture in the new frame, you replace its backing, secure the prongs in place, and hang it back on the wall where it once hung. You step back to admire the view. What was once an eyesore and an perceived embarrassment upon entering the hall is now the focal point and sure to be the topic of discussion for friends who come to visit, old and new.

Re-framing. It's what God wants us to do to our disappointments, our circumstances that we'd rather we didn't have to go through, question God's reasoning for, and can't see through the thick darnkess to the light that is most certainly awaiting us on the other side.

And God doesn't ask us to do the re-framing on our own. He is the Master builder after all. What's a little re-framing a picture job to Him? Easy peasy. 

God has a plan for just what He wants us to learn and how He desires to transform us in our difficulties. When we think He is taking to long to rescue us from them, He is fully aware of the exact moment He will, and how much longer our refining process needs to take our stubborn and rebellious hearts to be complete, the dross to be fully skimmed from the surface of our hearts. He only asks that we be patient. 

When He does begin the process of restoration in our lives, He does so gently, knowing that after all we have just gone through, we are fragile and frail, emotionally, mentally, and sometimes even physically. He doesn't just rip the dried blood-soaked Band-Aid off so to speak. He soaks it in some grace and mercy to loosen its edges and make the transition a smooth one for us. We may think we want Him to just snap His fingers and zap us out of our dark seasons, but He knows that we have lived in them for so long that our eyes have adjusted to the dark and it would be painful to simply flip the switch on full wattage without letting us adjust slowly to the new reality He has waiting on the other side for us. He is gentle.

God is precise. He doesn't waste one ounce of the pain He just allowed in your life to slip out of His hands as He re-frames you into your new likeness, one that resembles His Son a little more closely than the one that used to be comfortable in its old frame. He makes sure you fit in His new frame for you. But He didn't just find this frame at some half-priced noon hour yard sale. Oh no. He custom designed it just for you. He fired and melted the sand particles to make the very glass He encloses you in now. He sanded the frame and crafted the prongs of His love that will hold you securely in place. And He Himself is the hanger that will hold you in this new place, even as this frame will also begin to age and show signs of wear and ultimately decompose. Why? Because re-framing is not a once-and-for-all process. It is a continual transformation into something more beautiful, more Christlike, more usable and moldable and God-glorifying.

And remember that old frame that, once the picture was removed from it, we set it off to the side? We didn't throw it away. Neither does God discard of the old frames He so gently removes us from, no matter how dilapidated they may be. They serve a purpose. They remind us of how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. They have a perspective purpose in God's Kingdom. Keep them. Don't wish them away or try to forget them or block them out.

I said earlier that we work alongside Jesus as He re-frames our hurts and disappointments. I just told you what it takes to re-frame a picture and God's role in re-framing ours. So what is our role? What is our job in all of this? Simply put, it's faith and trust. We trust in our Master builder and put our unabondoned and unhibited faith in Him to make beauty from ashes (Isa. 61:3), to restore the years the locusts have devoured (Joel 2:25), and to transform us into a new creation through the process of sanctification (Romans 6-8). We trust. We have faith. And when God beckons us over with his wagging index finger and wait-til-you-see-what-I-have-for-you smirk on His face to the telescope of perspective aimed His purposes and plans for us, we take a peek. Then we obey whatever He asks of us on the path to those purposes and plans, no matter how far away they actually are in light of the magnification of His telescope.

The years between 13 and 16 were some of the hardest and darkest years of my life with Jeremiah. Puberty was hard on him, on all of us. I can still look around and see evidence of its effects...a patched hole in the wall where his foot went through, a reset diamond on my wedding ring after a stainless steel mug shattered the original setting, a medicine cabinet full of antipsychotics and antidepressants that never worked and still need to be disposed of. There are even emotional remnants, feelings of fear and dread that another similar and even more devastating season of darkness lies ahead as we enter adulthood with him. It's a daily battle to give them to my God who has always been faithful to carry them for me when I let Him.

BUT...PERSPECTIVE!

• Had we not gone through those formidable four years, we would not have received the diagnosis we did when we did that, once he was properly treated for, resulted in much anticipated and longed for peace for our family.
• One of my nieghbors might not have felt comfortable reaching out to me for help with her daughter who is struggling with anxiety, depression, and middle-school hormones.
• I would not be able to wrap my arms around another neighbor with a son on the spectrum smack dab in the middle of puberty and tell her, with all blessed assurance as a sojourner, that this too shall pass.
• I would not have taken the professional crisis management class to learn holds, defense techniques, and transportation procedures for people in crisis situations to keep Jeremiah from hurting himself and others.
  • Had I not taken the PCM class, I would not have heard about the roles of RBT's...registered behavior technicians. 
  • Had I not heard about RBT's, I may not have recognized the God-given desire to become one. And prayerfully, God will use the perspective He has given me as Jeremiah's mom and autism and puberty survivor to empathize with other parents still bumping into the walls of darkness looking for a hand to guide them in the direction of the only source of Light.

Trust the process. Have faith in the Processor. Re-frame your perspective. Be still and know that He is God.