Better than I could imagine one year ago.
This year Boomba plays outside, has play dates weekly or more, and he even goes grocery shopping with me.
This is last year's future.
My heart is less laden with the immediate pressure of keeping Boomba safe (read: alive), and now more consumed with wonder, worry, and fear for the future.
I've suddenly realized recently that this day-by-day living we've been doing. The redirecting, controlling the circumstances, all the things I and Husband do, will some day be Boomba's responsibility. He will have to make the decisions. He will have to make the phone calls. He will have to resist kissing the date who can't for sure say what she just ate. He will have to teach his friends how to use the Epi. He will have to stand up for his own quality of life. I pray we can teach him to do this with poise and grace, but also strength and confidence.
We're doing a lot of sitting and waiting. I think that breeds worry.
Husband will be, God willing, getting his first call as a pastor of a congregation. We find out where we will be spending a good part of the rest of our life in 5 months. After moving nearly every year of knowing each other for the last 8 yrs, staying in one place for a while sounds divine. One home. No moving boxes. Friends. Honestly, I think I'm most excited for having the same doctor for a stretch. Someone who knows us and doesn't speculate that my son has been mom-diagnosed because he has a tummy ache. I wish that's all this allergy was. But that is not what God has given to us. I do know God has given us, thus far, the tools and support to take care of and love Boomba.
The point though, is that this year has been good. Kinda eerie good. The good that makes you wonder if it's real. The kind that makes you fear for what lay ahead.
Last night I lay in bed and tell Husband in a question "God says don't worry". As the wonderful husband Husband is, he jumped on this and said "YES! Of course."
Of course.
Yes.
Last year was a trial of God's providence. It was such a difficult time that I even broke my no-new-year's-resolutions resolution and resolved to focus on God's providence.
I must say, even though this whole lengthy post is about worry, this year, I usually remember God's providence and find strength and calm there. What a gift to know that nothing in the world can change our future with Him.
That's a future to look forward to.
All of us parents are caring for God's children for however long He lends them to us.
That is a future to look forward to.
No matter the heartbreak this world hands us, we will be healed in perfection and joy in our Father's arms, in Heaven.
That is a future to look forward to.
Thank you, God, for the beautiful future that lay ahead.
