Pieces of the Puzzle

Eli is sitting in my lap right now cuddling which makes it incredibly challenging to type. He is content where he is for the moment and I am sure soon he will move on to something else. I am grateful that he is so affectionate. I am so heart-fully grateful that he cuddles and holds onto me and loves me and lets me tickle him and rub his hair and all of those beautiful mommy/kiddo things that a mother should do and that a child should accept. I am most grateful today because today wasn't supposed to happen yet. Today wasn't supposed to happen at all. 

Or it was supposed to happen after three or four evaluations. They were supposed to look at my little  and say he was fine. That he was just like every-other-barely-three-year-old out there. Sometime after today, sometime after many todays, they were supposed to tell me he was okay. 

Today a very kind and absolutely wonderful child psychologist was supposed to play with my Eli and give him the all clear or tell us we needed to do this again and maybe again to get a bigger picture - like what they told me at the start. 

Today I was not supposed to sit in an office surrounded by toys that all serve an evaluative purpose and hear a diagnosis. 

That wasn't supposed to happen today. 

At least not to me. That wasn't how I planned it. This wasn't how C planned it. I didn't want to have to tell him over the phone while he sat in an airport outside D.C. waiting to spend two weeks at Fort Stewart. I wanted him to be here. I wanted him to be sitting beside me, holding our son. I didn't want him to have to be. I didn't want to hear this. How do you process? How do you listen and take it in when you weren't expecting it. 

On the drive home, I put my whole heart into finding the good. Into seeing the bigger picture. Into understanding why we were here, why this was happening, what this would mean. Driving along the little highway in the middle of no where, going up and down the hills, up and down, I understood how grateful I am for this place, how much the puzzle pieces come together. I am grateful - for the first time - truly, truly grateful for this career change for C. I am grateful that we should be in one place for a significant amount of time. I am grateful that he will be here - both on American soil but also home every night, at a reasonable time, on a consistent basis. I am grateful that before we could know the plan, this was placed before us. I am grateful that we made this decision. I am grateful that in a chaotic lifestyle, in an emotional lifestyle, we can offer a child who will very much need routine and structure and the physical presence of both of us ... that we can give him that. That we can start this very challenging road physically together, without wondering when the next move is, where we will go, how this will all happen. 

One in ninety military kiddos. One in ninety are diagnosed with Autism. 

I am grateful that this diagnosis - if there had to be a diagnosis - came quickly enough that we can not waste any time. That we can start the process. That we don't have to wait. 

I am grateful. 

Even when it seems like too much, you are given just what you can handle. I do not believe you are ever given something that is more than you are able to thrive through. I don't believe we are given anything that isn't meant to teach us and grow us and bring us closer to our Maker. In all things there is a reason to give praise, a reason to rejoice.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

And never has He failed me.