Fly, Little One, Fly

.

(my two little men)

Swoosh, bump-de-bump, up and down it goes as little sandy feet scramble after it, trying and hoping to make the kite fly. I watched from the deck this past summer and captured the moment on digital film. As my thoughts swoosh, bump-de-bumped within.

Are dreams like kites? Dreams for our children? Like my dreams for my child with special needs?

So many ups and downs, glorious triumphs that send the spirit soaring...and tumbles and sudden dives that tempt to despair. Oh, the journey! Yet the winds that beat and buffet are the very whispers upon which we can soar, when we remember that all is directed by holy hands of our Heavenly Father.

He makes no mistakes. His glory is never diminished. It is only magnified...through weakness.

How my heart breaks and exults in the same moment as I watch my eldest son scamper along the beach, determined to see his kite fly. How his needs have shone a light on dark corners of my own weaknesses and brought down walls of resistance within me so that I would see my even greater need of the Savior's healing for myself, not just for him. How I have been brought to the end of myself, again and again, as we peel layer after layer away of this boy's challenges, to find that the place of rest, the place of solace, is in the eye of the storm where it is actually calm.

Oh, precious one, what dreams I have for you! They cause an aching bliss that I would not trade for anything. How much greater our heavenly Father must long and ache for us to be fully transformed into the image of His Son, into all that He originally created us to be before the Fall. For we are all "special needs" people. Will we accept that we have our own neediness, lack, poverty, even greater than we know, that we might receive His provision, fullness, riches untold?

Our journeys continue, this little boy's...and mine. Intertwined by God's wisdom and providence. Only Jesus truly knows what burdens I bear. Burdens for my precious child. And burdens of my own. He knows. For He bears its true weight. And promises hope...that one day, we shall soar, as a kite flying on the wind. For now, it is enough to know that the fragile string of our lives are always held, anchored, in His nail-scarred hand.

.