Journeys of Grace

Bill and I had our first official class on Aging Parents and Loss a couple of days ago.  More than ever, I know this information is needed.  I remember bringing our first child home from the hospital, setting her down, and then Bill and I thinking, "Now what do we do?"

I don't know that it is that different when we face the journey of aging parents.  When we bring that baby home, our hearts are so full of love for them.  We want to do everything right so our child's life will turn out well.  We want them to feel loved, feel secure, and be happy.  With aging parents, we feel the same way.  In both situations we realize how little we know.

I have had many conversations with people since Bill and I felt called to approach this subject and started educating ourselves.  As acquired disabilities start to emerge, we wonder how much to protect our parents, as well as how much independence to give them.  The common feeling that has been expressed is, "I feel disrespectful thinking there may be something wrong.  Why am I even thinking there may be."  On the coattails of feeling disrespectful, is the feeling of guilt.

What is different about raising children and raising parents is that the journey with parents will most likely get harder, not easier.  They may acquire more disabilities and medical issues.  Their cognitive abilities may become more impaired.  The role we have played as a child may suddenly necessitate the role of a parent instead.

The best way to handle this journey is through education.  The more we prepare for the steps ahead, the better off we will be.  In addition, it helps to be surrounded by others who have either walked the journey ahead of us, or are at the same stage and can be supportive.  

Finally, I think the most important thing is to grant grace to our parents, as well as ourselves.  Every new stage of life has its challenges as well as its joys. It is only in walking in grace and faith that our parents will receive the respect they so richly deserve.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  

Colossians 3:12

Aging Parents and Loss This Saturday!

We have been receiving e-mails from a variety of friends that are concerned about their parents.  It can be difficult to open up the conversation about adult-onset disabilities.  Sometimes it can feel like we are being disrespectful but in reality it is because we care about them and their well being.

Bill and I are looking forward to sharing what we have educated ourselves on and learned over the last 16 years.  We look forward to open and honest discussion that will help participants feel more comfortable, as well as knowledgable.

Send us an e-mail at gracewithoutmargins@aol.com if you are interested in attending.  We will be covering a variety of topics.  We hope you will be able to join us, but please let us know if you will be attending so we will be properly prepared.

Aging Parents and Loss 
Issues & Decisions Rarely Talked About

Presented by Bill & Deana Boggess, Managing Directors,
Grace Without Margins, LLC

Presentation will be held:
Saturday, January 27, 2017 
1:00 pm - 6:00 pm Cedar Park, Texas
Location and specifics will be given when you register.
Register at:
gracewithoutmargins@aol.com

Registration fee $35 to cover training, materials,
and refreshments

Limited spots Register soon!

Training Topics

• Acquired Disabilities of Aging
  
• Keeping the Elderly in Community
  
• Independence
  
• Home Care vs. Facility
  Placement
  
• Role Reversal
  
• Stages of Dementia
  
• Respect
  
• Guilt
  
• Forgiveness
  
• Sudden Loss/Stages of
  Grief
  
• The Long Goodbye
  
• Final preparations
  
• Wills/Trusts/Medical
  Advanced Directives
  
• Last Wishes
  
• Personal Applications
  

Bill and Deana have served in disability ministry for over 20 years. For the last six years they have provided training to churches and schools on a variety of disability issues. After walking through aging and loss with their parents, they felt the acquired disabilities of aging is a topic too often neglected. Join them for video and oral presentations, as well as group discussions and hand- outs on how to support your parents through the aging process and eventually prepare for your own.

Understanding The Loss Of A Child

I read a post today that a sweet friend wrote.  It has stayed with me all day.  I can't imagine the pain she has experienced, but I am so glad she shared about her loss, as well as her sweet son.

So often we feel compassion for another's pain but we have no idea what to say.  I encourage you to read the story .  It will give you better under-
standing and compassion for someone that has lost a child.

There will never come a day, hour, or minute that I don't stop thinking about Colby. Today, 14 years ago, he lost his short battle to Leukemia. Something that no 3 year old child, or child of any age should have to endure. Disease in children is the most gut wrenching, heartbreaking, and unsettling thing to see and experience. Really, there just are no words.

There are parents, and then there are bereaved parents. We are both. What many people don't know, is that I love to hear Colby's name, just as much as my living children's names. I want to speak of him, share things that he loved, and so much more. There's a taboo to this, and it's not anyone's fault. There's an awkward silence when it comes to a deceased child. It makes others uncomfortable. In no fault of their own, it's just how society has worked. 

The truth is, there's no "getting over it", there's no, "time makes everything better". I will always grieve the loss of Colby. The reality is that time just gives you the "time" to learn how to live with it. Time to learn how to not look for a third child at the playground. To not set out a third set of clothes in the morning. To not buy the snacks that he enjoyed when you're shopping. Time to re-create your day to day of being a mother to three littles.

I share this not for sympathy, but in hopes that others might see how bereaved parents live from day to day, and to maybe help fill some of that "awkward" silence. The silence comes when we make new friends, attend new churches, and even when we get asked, "how many kids do you have". And believe me, that happens A LOT. The other one that happens a lot is, "wow, you waited a long time to have a second child". That's a fun one to explain!

Every holiday, birthday, and significant date are reminders. They are reminders that we will never see him play baseball, drive, graduate, get married, have kids....Just think...Can you imagine Christmas without your child? Or your child's birthday, but no child here to celebrate with? 

Bottom line. There's no end to grief. What there is though....is a loving almighty God that has carried me through each and every day. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

As a bereaved parent, I am flawed. I grieve like no other, but I know what true joy is. The joy that I received from being Colby's mom is incredible. The way Colby never met a stranger and the way he always loved, is true joy! He made my life more rich and so much more full. He was a gift. A gift from God even in the midst of grief.

Don't take life for granted. Experience joy. Don't be afraid to support someone during their loss. Don't be afraid that you won't say the "right" thing. Just love them. Love them where they are. That's all we need. And I thank God that He has provided me with incredible friends through the way and through each season. 

Here are a few fun things to know about Colby:

*He was a big boy weighing 10 pounds and 5 ounces when born
*He LOVED everything Spiderman
*He was always happy and always smiled
*He wanted to be just like Blake, but he def had better dance moves
*He loved my friends, and called my best friend Lupe, "Wooopie"
*Colby and our lab Maggie were un-seperable
*He called Chloe "BooBoo". At first he didn't like her getting all the attention, but he became her biggest fan
*He was adventurous and creative with a ton of energy
*His skin color was very dark, more like my dad
*He had a blanket that he took everywhere at all times. It happened to be my brother's blanket. He would stand at the washing machine crying while I washed it and often it didn't even make it to the dryer.
*When he drove his jeep around the yard, he would put his hand behind Chloe's head when he accelerated
*He loved all superhero movies
SO much more, but here are just a few fun things that stand out!
*Hats! He loved hats.

Written by Myra Lundstrom

Aging Parents and Loss

Bill and I have been serving in disability ministry for over 20 years now.  During 16 of those years we have been on the journey of aging parents and loss.  Just as we felt unprepared for parenting, we also felt unprepared for the acquired disabilities and challenges of aging.  We are still discovering the numerous ways the elderly are being moved to the margins of our churches and communities.  It is with education and understanding that we can help the elderly stay in the center of our families and communities.

Over the years we have experienced the immediate loss of a parent as a result of a car accident.  We walked through the diagnosis of cancer, only to loose the parent nine days later.  We have been on a journey of many goodbyes through the challenges of dementia and lastly have learned to navigate the challenges and adjustments of the typical aging process.

Every person, personality, and diagnosis in the aging process is different, but most likely there will be acquired disabilities along the way.  There are many things we wish we had known beforehand.  Over the last ten years we have taken classes and educated ourselves on a variety of preparation for aging issues.

On January 27 we will be teaching a five-hour course in Austin on Aging Parents and Loss.  We also have plans to present in Denver on March 10.  If you have any questions about our course or would like to register, please contact us at gracewithoutmargins@aol.com for more information.

Wendy and Katie Made Perfect

You just have to be grateful when an amazing person walks into your life and I have been since I met Wendy over 20 years ago.  We were in our mid 30's when we met.  Our children were young and we were both trying to navigate our roles as wives, mothers, and women of faith.  I must say I was a little envious of this tiny, beautiful woman but I was truly inspired when I got to know her from the inside out.

A couple of months ago I asked Wendy if she would share her experiences and heart with a group of directors of special needs ministry.  Wendy and her husband have a beautiful daughter with special needs, as well as two sons.  I have loved watching their family grow and develop.  Over the years Wendy has been open and honest about the challenges, as well as the joys, of being a family affected by a disability.  I knew she would be able to give insight to directors and share ideas on how to support families.

As she shared about her journey yesterday, my eyes started to well up with tears.  A conversation we had many years ago suddenly came back to me.  At the time she had been struggling with feeling like the mission field she had served in, and felt called to, had been taken away from her.  She and her husband had been serving in Romania.  You could feel the heaviness of the loss she felt.  But as she shared yesterday, I was overwhelmed with the joy of seeing that God had given her a mission field and a beautiful one.  It was just different than she had imagined.

As Katie grew up and was getting closer to aging out of the public school system, Wendy had started thinking more about the future and how Katie could use her gifts and interests as an adult.  She started doing research, pulled a group of trusted friends together, and began brainstorming on what God might be calling her and her daughter to do.  Having been on the sidelines of their life, I didn't know all of the ways God had blessed their family and business.  I was amazed by how much had happened in such a short period of time. 

At one point Wendy shared, "I have never been so comfortable in my weakness."  Wow!  She has never been so comfortable in her weakness.  In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."

Wendy proceeded to share all of the powerful things she had seen God do.  She shared that she is not trained in business or in the culinary arts, but God keeps growing Katie's Snack Cart.  Watch the video and you will see how Christ's power has rested on Wendy.

             

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMAQOGIdRs0&feature=youtu.be

The unknowns and fears of ushering our children into adulthood can be frightening, especially when the world doesn't understand the perfect design of all people and the gifts they have been given.  Wendy and Katie are an inspiration as a mother and daughter that serve together and as ambassadors to a watching world that EVERYONE has a gift and a place in this world.

I am so happy for Wendy.  I am inspired by her courage, her humility, and her confidence in God's power to use her and her daughter in such a powerful way!

If you want to know more about Wendy and Katie, go to https://www.facebook.com/pg/Katiessnackcart/reviews/

(and be sure to "like" them!)

I Love January 1!

I love January 1.  To be honest,  however,  I woke up a little overwhelmed by it.  I have a few personal goals from last year to carry over to this year.  I want to support every member of my family in reaching their goals and I have numerous goals I would like to see accomplished for Grace Without Margins, LLC.  After 35 years together, my husband knows me well.  He helped me to slow down the train a little, talk about the possibilities, and give me the time to put a plan on paper so that my mind is no longer overcrowded.

As much as I would like to be in a cozy little cabin on top of a mountain in Colorado to dream and make plans, my warm kitchen with homemade cookies on the counter and my computer on my big round table will do.  There will be four main goals for Grace Without Margins, LLC this year:

1.  Provide at least four courses this year on Aging Parents and Loss:  The Effects Of Acquired Disabilities In Aging.  Two of them will be held in Austin, Texas and two will be held in Denver, Colorado.

2.  Complete the writing, editing and publishing of My Castle Is A Classroom.  This book will include training on how to teach children about children with disabilities and how they can be a supportive friend.

3.  The completion of video presentation and course on Teaching Kids About Kids.  This course will include interviews of alumni students who have been through a month long unit and fundraiser supporting children with disabilities.

4.  Develop and implement a series of courses for in-service training for teachers on disability and inclusion in the classroom.

5.  Add a course on communication strategies for the hearing impaired and their loved ones.

Years ago this list would have overwhelmed me, but now it excites me.  It excites me because I know how important the issues and conversations are.  It excites me because children are readily available to love and include people of all abilities, they just want their questions answered.  Lastly, it excites me because I know God makes it possible.

I appreciate all of you that read this blog and have played a part in the development of Grace Without Margins, LLC.  You are an invaluable part of the vision.

Watch for new resources as they are released.  We will be offering, Aging Parents and Loss,
January 27, 2018.  Details will be released soon.  

The resources we currently have released:

Grace Without Margins (Second Edition)

https://www.amazon.com/Grace-Without-Margins-Journey-Through/dp/0578106744/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514851065&sr=8-1&keywords=grace+without+margins

Disability Education and Training

https://gwm.digitalchalk.com/dc/learn/grace-without-margins-elements-of-disability-ministry

Grace Without Margins Blog

https://specialneeds-deana.blogspot.com

Happy New Year!