I wrote a bit about Jeffrey’s “supposed” college plans back in my post Whose Child Is He?. I say “supposed,” because there were so many times when I really just had no idea of what the future held for Jeffrey, in spite of knowing that God had him in His caring hands.
Since we didn’t want to dissuade Jeffrey from pursuing his dreams, we decided to ramp up our home efforts to get him stronger and more self-reliant.
Besides getting him his front door key holder and his cell phone (Whose Child Is He?), we also started really focusing on trying to teach Jeffrey to get out of bed and into his wheelchair all by himself. Jeffrey agreed that he really needed to work on it, so he was trying really hard every morning to do it by himself (with me standing by) – sometimes more than once.
But it wasn’t going very well.
It was summer break before his senior year of high school, and we knew that once school started back up our time would be very limited.
Part of the problem was that we didn’t have all the equipment we needed to help him get out of bed – but then again, we really didn’t know everything he needed! His therapists all would give us ideas, but as far as coming over to the house and really help us troubleshoot, well it didn’t happen.
I was grieving this particular morning, as again I could see how hard he was trying to do it all by himself. His body, however, just wasn’t cooperating.
As Jeffrey laid back down in bed to try again, he looked at me and said,
It’s just going to have to be a miracle.
Yes, it did…
After awhile I had to go to another room to have a meltdown, and as I was praying, two verses came to mind:
For we live by believing and not by seeing (2 Corinthians 5:7 NLT);
and
My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness… (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT).
Yes, we needed to keep our focus on Him! We had to continue to walk in faith, believing that if Jeffrey was supposed to go to college, somehow God was going to pull it off – in His way and in His timing. But, oh so hard it was, to keep that at the forefront of my mind.
Other things were going on at that time too, which made me start to wonder if maybe God was orchestrating events for us to move closer to wherever Jeffrey ended up – if indeed it was going to college in another state.
Gary had been really struggling at his job. It was tough for him to keep traveling from Central Oregon to the other locations he needed to visit as a district manager, since there was just a small local airport which meant a lot of the times he was unable to take direct flights. Plus, if he were going to locations which were drive-able he always had to keep an eye on the mountain passes because snow could come at any moment, and he didn’t want to run into another disaster like we’d experienced earlier in the year when we got into a mess coming home from the ocean (Could I Please Have Another Piece of Humble Pie?).
To top it all off he’d gotten a new boss at his job, and they weren’t clicking too well.
Then one day he heard from a friend of his who worked for a competitor that there might be a job opening in Florida for a district manager. Perhaps Gary could apply for that position if Jeffrey was bound and determined to go to Embry-Riddle? After all, one of the campuses was in Daytona Beach!
Ah, all the scenarios were going to make my head explode!
Some days all I could say was: Lord, increase my faith! (Luke 17:5).
Let me tell you, the Lord was indeed working a grand plan, but it took many more months before we finally saw clearly what it was to be.
The God Of All Comfort 