The Slow Reveal

Sometimes when I look back, I see all that has unfolded and I am a bit surprised how much it was. At times it is pretty overwhelming in the midst of it. Other times it just feels like life. Then after time passes and we aren’t in the middle of it anymore, it doesn’t seem so bad. I learned awhile ago that there is definitely times that God slowly reveals bits and pieces of what we are up against. What is in store for us. I think sometimes we think we want to know what the future holds. We want to know it all. Well at least I do 🙂 We think we are ready for it and that it would make life easier if we just knew the outcome. I have come to realize however, that our approach would be way different if we knew what we were going to be up against. Knowing the future wouldn’t make it easier, it wouldn’t make us stronger. On the contrary, I think it would make us weaker and more scared. I think we would miss out on many of the things in life that mold us into who we are and teach us the wisdom we need. It is human nature to want to take the easier road.  So remember the next time you feel that God isn’t revealing enough, just trust Him. Take the leap and realize he will reveal what you need to know, when you need to know it.

Later this month, it will be 5 years since Danielle came to live with us. When I think about the last 5 years, I know that God knew what he was doing (of course) when he didn’t reveal what our future would hold. I know that we were beyond thrilled when this time finally came (although overwhelming with the fall out that was happening right before she came “home”).  However, we really didn’t know what was in store for us. That I am thankful for.

I thought since we are just at about five years since Danielle came to live with us, it would be a good time to review that journey.

A Look at the Past Five Years

Shortly after school started in 2009, Danielle overheard her mom (on the phone) that she was thinking of moving to the Sandusky, Ohio area. Her mom had recently visited an old friend there over Labor Day weekend. This really bothered Danielle. Aside from the the normal reason of not wanting to leave her family and friends, Danielle was upset that she had learned this from overhearing it. Danielle was used to having a “friend” relationship with her mom and couldn’t imagine her mom not telling her first. She felt betrayed. Now I know that isn’t healthy or correct but to Danielle it was normal. The interesting thing is that this is one of the few times that her mom DIDN’T give her too much information. Normally she tells her things before they are in the final stages and either disappoints or excites Danielle for no reason. Things don’t pan out like expected and Danielle is left hurting. Danielle was hurt and angry. We told her (as we always did) that she was always welcome to stay with us. I don’t even remember if we gave much thought to what we would do if she moved away.  We knew Danielle didn’t want to move (partially because of an upcoming school trip to Washington DC) so we hoped that was enough for the transition to our home. I was quite upset that her mom would be willing to uproot Danielle knowing of her school struggles and Danielle’s struggle with change in general. We just kept making sure she knew she was welcome in our home, whether permanently or just for the school year.

Danielle’s mom on several occasions told her not to worry that it would be quite a few months before anything would happen. What was supposed to take months to transform, ended up taking weeks. By mid October, Danielle was living with us. At that point, it was temporary. It was for the school year. Todd and I had always wanted this to be permanent and just knew in our hearts that once she got here she would stay. Thankfully, we were correct. However, that is about the only thing that happen the way we expected.

More Than We Bargained For

Danielle came to our home bitter and upset, which we understood. What I didn’t anticipate was how she dealt with that anger. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. This was a big difference from the Danielle we had been accustomed to. We sometimes dealt with teenage attitude, but not the blatant disrespect, disobedience and anger issues. Danielle was, for the most part, very well behaved for us. In fact, it was a bone of contention between her mom and us because she often wondered why Danielle “put us on a pedestal”. We had our issues, of course, but not near the ones she had at her mom’s home.

Within months, it started to become evident that aside from anger issues, we were also dealing with some brain development issues. We always knew that she struggled in school and of course knew about her health problems. Danielle had an IEP since 3rd grade, so we weren’t clueless to her struggles. We just didn’t realize the extent of it. We didn’t realize how much it affected most areas of her life. However, we were dealing with anger still, which seems to be our focus.

Although not our focus, it was becoming evident that there was more going on with her brain development than what we originally thought. It was a frustrating time, but I kept trying to take note of behaviors and access the situation.  At one point I thought maybe she was high functioning autistic or maybe had Aspergers. I took a lot of time interpreting her behavior, her school work, her interactions with others.   I consider myself fairly observant and intuitive so I just went on high alert and paid even closer attention to what was going on. Then we hit a detour. We had another issue to concentrate on.

Here Comes a Curve Ball

In March of 2009 Danielle decided she wanted to live with us and not move back with her mom once school was out.  We were so happy to see her make this decision. We made sure she was confident so we didn’t get our hopes up prematurely. She was going to visit her mom for a week during spring break. We all decided it would be best to not say anything while she was there, but to wait till she was home. Shortly after she came back, she called her mom and broke the news. It didn’t go over swimmingly, but probably as good as could be expected. It was a relief just to have that part complete.

About a month later, Danielle confided in me that she was abused by her step dad. This came out of left field for us. It wasn’t something we saw coming, but we definitely had to deal with it. As we pondered how to handle it, I received a call from CPS. It was a little confusing, but once I pieced things together, I realized Danielle had also confided in her school counselor, who reported the situation.  CPS became involved and an investigation began. We spent several months on a long roller coaster ride of waiting to see if anything would happen to him. In the end they had no proof, even though everyone that we worked with believed Danielle.

Even though he never paid, there was definitely big losses from this situation. Danielle and her mom’s relationship has never been the same. Her mom never really asked for all of the details or information on the accusations, but in the end she didn’t believe Danielle anyway. That took a couple years to really sink into with Danielle. She gave her mom a free pass for a long time. Danielle also has nothing to do with her step dad anymore and is never in the same location as him. That has made visitations trickier. Danielle sees her mom an average of 3 times a year. The phone calls have decreased and might average once a month now. There was a variety of emotions (and different degrees) from Danielle since this all went down. We worked with her through them as they arose. Some easier to process than others.  I am still not sure her mom realizes the magnitude of what that means or what she has lost.

Source of Influence

2010 was a rough year. The investigation took us into 2010 and we were dealing with that, the counseling that went with it, the fall out of  no charges being filed and the issues with Danielle’s mom.

Since we both worked full time, Danielle was spending close to 4 hours by herself each school day. This limited our time with her to about 3 hours a night. During this time she had a lot of time to think, process and obsess. It wasn’t helpful for her behavior, attitude or self confidence. It became hard to really be in tune with what was going on in her life because she had already downloaded and processed it by the time we were home. She acted out and didn’t really confide in us. I wasn’t able to see the heart of a lot of the issues because I wasn’t around to observe them. School was tough on her both academically and socially.  It was hard to help her with such limited time and understanding. We also had limited influence over what she believed or how she processed things. School, TV and other worldly influences were taking our place. As we learned more about parenting and tried to help change some bad habits, it was hard to get her to “buy what we were selling” because it didn’t line up with what she knew, saw on TV or witnessed at school. I know that the devil was using this situation to his advantage. It was creating wedges in our family where they weren’t already and intensifying ones that already existed. It was becoming increasingly evident to me that because of all of these reasons, the extra time Danielle was spending alone wasn’t good for her, and therefore not good for our family. By the end of the year it was becoming clear that she needed me home more. She needed more attention with her school work. She needed us to be more influential and the worldly influences to be limited. She needed more “mom” time. I needed to be present more.

By the beginning of 2011, all of this with Danielle along with my feelings of incompleteness (as a mother), I started exploring the idea of going part time. During this thought process, someone asked me if I could just stay at home. I laughed that off because there was no way we could afford it. However, that planted the seed. Even though I never thought it was possible, that didn’t stop me from exploring it. After lots of prayer and support from our life group, in March of 2011, we decided that I would quit my job and become a stay at home mom. This was actually something I had always wanted, but never thought would be an option. Towards the end of March, I went in to tell my boss that I was giving them a two month notice and that at the end of May, I would be quitting. Before, I had the chance, they laid me off. At first, I was really upset. I was disappointed, confused, mad, hurt – all of it. However, a little part of me was happy to be done. Although it messed up OUR plan. We had planned to save for 2 more months AND we had a vacation planned at the first of June. We were creating a time table that didn’t line up with God’s plan, so he created a way for my “stay at home mom” days to start sooner. Funny thing is, I CONSIDERED quitting sooner. I remember saying to Todd that I thought maybe Danielle needed me home sooner than May. In the end we decided that May wasn’t that far off and it was best to save the money. God however, had a different plan.

Testing Begins

Once I made the decision to stay home and we got settled in that new way of life, I started spending more time observing Danielle’s actions.  I had concerns for quite some time now, but wasn’t really sure what to do about it. It wasn’t easy being the step mom that comes in and sees all these issues. It was hard to be concerned and not be seen as negative Nancy. I have always been the type that would rather know what I am up against than to have someone sugar coat the reality to make it look/sound better. This is not the normal approach (from what I have seen). In the end I knew I needed to do what was best for Danielle in the long run, even if not the popular choice.  I decided that I really needed to look into this further. It was causing lots of problems at home (behavior), challenges at school and I knew it was going to be a challenge going forward as we looked to Danielle’s future.  I shared my thoughts with her Neurologist who didn’t act on any of my concerns. I sought out a developmental Neurologist. I told her my observations, she evaluated Danielle and then ordered further testing.  In the end, they confirmed there is no autism to worry about. We did find out some more specific information and received a clearer (yet not too clear) picture of what our future looked like. It was in November 2011,  that we really grasped the fact that Danielle had a disability. They let us know that we were looking at SSI and guardianship in her future. This is when our eyes were opened to the idea that Danielle would require extra assistance and her independent living was in question. It was a lot to swallow. Some of which took years to be the right time to discuss with Danielle. We still don’t really know what the future holds. There is no time table to know when she will accomplish certain milestones or steps of adulthood. We just figure it out God reveals it.

God, you want me to WHAT?

By the time we had all the results from these tests and they were explaining things to me about what she needed in school and beyond, God was already preparing our path to home school. That was most assuredly NOT a path I had every considered, let alone planned on. Had you told me this even one year prior to this I would have thought you were crazy. This would not have ever come to pass without the prayer, wisdom and support of our life group. I have no doubt in my mind that without the individuals in the group at that time, this path would have looked different.

So fall of 2012, I took Danielle out of school and I home schooled her for her Junior year. I had so many reasons. There were times that I thought, how did I not do this sooner? How did I not see how harmful school was for her? Danielle was (and still is) influenced very easily. I was putting her in a situation in which it was easy for her to be taken advantage of. I am so thankful God was looking out for her while he was preparing our hearts for home school. I knew that the school work and the teaching methods weren’t working for her. I knew Danielle needed our protection. I also knew she needed our wisdom and teaching instead of soaking in everything the world had to show her.

The process of deciding was a little bit of a challenge. Although we had great support, many other people questioned this decision, especially because of our rocky relationship. I will say others that I expected push back from, supported our decision. By the time the fall came, I knew what we had to do.

In the end, we only home schooled Danielle for a year, but I know in my heart, it was the best decision. That year, although not easy, was well worth it.  By the end of that school year, we found out about a self contained program that would spend more time on life skills and less on academics. That was what I had wanted for Danielle all along. When I first found out, I was a little upset that no one had told me about the program a few years back. However, I know that I wouldn’t have chosen home school if we knew about this option. God’s plan again revealed itself.  He knew she needed that year of home school. That year was as much for her academically and life skills wise, as it was for our family. Our family needed that year, we needed the protection and shelter. We needed each other.

So Danielle spent her senior year back in public school, but in a much more protected environment. It wasn’t perfect by any means. However the life skills and social interaction was a great way for her to finish out her school years. She graduated with her class which was most likely huge for her, even if she doesn’t realize it.

Job Search

In case you are wondering, here is a little update: Next month Danielle will start a job at FCC in their DD Clerical Work Group. This was actually something I have wanted for her for a couple of years. It didn’t look like it was possible. When there was an opening, Danielle wasn’t feeling as convinced as I was. We both prayed about it and she spent a day observing. She wasn’t overly positive going into the observation, but I asked her to keep an open mind. After the observation, she didn’t have anything negative to say, which was quite different from the week prior. I am excited about this opportunity. It might not be what she imagined for herself, but I think she will find it rewarding. The idea that she isn’t working just to make some big company richer is important to Danielle. I think once she really sees that her job isn’t about money, but about providing an opportunity for people to concentrate on their ministry, she will feel that she has purpose. I love that she will have a chance to work for a church she loves. A place where she can see the results. We all know Danielle is valuable and has purpose, but I feel this job will allow her to see it and in turn increase her self confidence.

This wasn’t an easy find. It might seem that way since I already work for FCC and she already attends. We spent months (going back to while she was still in school) working with BVR and Stark DD to find the right next step for Danielle. It isn’t about the end result, but the next step. Last spring we decided that going straight to working in the community was too big of a step. The pressure and stress wasn’t an environment that Danielle would find success. Danielle was presented many options, but not too much that we felt were promising. At first I wondered why this chance didn’t just come up first, but I see now that God needed her to look at other options so that she could feel confident in her choice. The slow reveal again. This way she knows a bit of what is out there and what she needs right now.

The Future

Of course we don’t know what the future will hold. We still have several challenges that we haven’t figured out. Some things we know about and others we don’t. Some things that will be new and some things that have been ongoing. Some of those issues are 5 years in the making. However we are trusting God to reveal that when the time is right.

Present Day

It has actually been quite a bumpy couple of weeks. It has consumed me as of late (which unfortunately, pretty normal for me). However, last week, I saw some Facebook posts from 5 years ago. I was reminded how overwhelmed and stressed that I was 5 years ago when all of this started. Even though I really only knew a slice of that pie, I still felt overwhelmed. Now that initial unknown when Danielle was “maybe” going to live with us and the emotions Danielle was feeling at that time, was just a small part of this journey. So I am trying to focus on how far we have come and how much progress we have made and not how far we still have to go.

God Knew

So when I look back 5 years, I see a roller coaster ride. Here’s the thing, I don’t really like roller coasters – literal or figurative ones. I thank God that He revealed each of these challenges, and each of these paths a little at a time. I think I might have run and hid had I known. Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been all bad.  Far from it. We have had our share of  happy family moments. There is a ton of love within these walls. Looking back, I can remember many of the challenges, but when I look at the whole picture, it doesn’t seem so bad. Looking back is much easier than looking forward. Had I seen a list or a time line of all the issues (behavior, development, disabilities – not to mention normal teenage stuff), it would have seemed overwhelming.  Had God revealed that we would take Danielle in, deal with anger/bitterness/disobedience, abuse, CPS, fall out of a mother/daughter relationship, school issues, development issues, finding out about the depths of Danielle’s disability, the emotions dealing with the future of what it means to have a child with a disability, quitting my job, home school, back to school, job search and all of the lovely teenage baggage in between, all of that would have been pretty overwhelming. I am not sure I would have willingly took that on. I think I may have been too scared and lacked confidence in us and ultimately in God to tackle that.

Here is the other thing about this journey. Several months prior to this Todd and I hit a low point in our marriage. I can now see that God needed us to do that so we could address some issues and rebuild some things. We needed that healing time so that we could be stronger to continue out this journey. We have had a lot of challenges in the last five years and we needed a marriage strong enough to endure it.

I am still learning that I need to trust God with this slow reveal stuff. I am a control freak and often feel a need to know. In general I think I would like to know what the future holds. I am a planner by nature and it would be logical to think that if I knew the future, I could plan for it. However I am trying to remember that God knows when I don’t. Plus would I plan for the future, or would I run from it? Maybe I would plan for it, but what learning opportunity would I miss in the mean time? I am glad God is in control because if it was left up to me, I know it would be way different. I would be way different.