Dear Jackson and Maddie,
When Jax was a toddler you were enamored with the movie “Nemo”. Well, really your dad was. So we watched it — a lot.
Dad said he loved the relationship between the father and son and how the dad was completely committed to caring for the son. Secretly, I think his favorite part was the moral of “listen to your father” which he would repeat to you frequently. “Remember what happened when Nemo didn’t listen to his dad,” was dad’s favorite phrase for a long time!
Nemo and his dad were pretty great but it was Dory who really spoke to me. I felt a real connection to her during those days. I was pretty sure that my grip on reality and sanity were about as firm as hers.
But one day as you were watching the movie for the umpteenth time, the wisdom of Dory hit me. “Keep swimming, just keep swimming.” Dory was right. She might be the smartest one in the movie afterall.
In the middle of the crisis, you just keep swimming, doing what has to be done at this moment. While that sounds simple enough, it can be hard to do.
It is so hard to keep swimming, to be faithful, when you are tired of swimming. When you know that today will be just as difficult as yesterday and have no reason to be believe that tomorrow will be any better. Logically you know that you will not be living like this in 20 years. But that never seemed to help me much when I knew that life would be exactly the same for the coming weeks and months.
This stage was the hardest part of me. When there wasn’t the adrenaline rush of an emergency but the day-to-day grind of enduring. Of waiting for the storm to pass.
To keep the faith that God was still on the throne. To believe He still had a plan for Maddie and our family. Those were the days when I had to cling to:
Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
Focusing on these verses, while continuing to swim, got us through.
As long as you do what must be done at this moment, and then what must be done in the next…well, eventually you find the crisis has ended.
And you survived. Maybe not pretty, but pretty is overrated. Survived is good enough.
Remember to just keep swimming.
Love,
Mom
learnedonthejourney 