superman

Insist in hope! When we join people who believe in God, we are saying... there is an answer, there is another way, there is still mystery/something unexplainable. That in our suffering there is someone going through with us. Through it. not stuck in it. It means staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is.
On Thurs. nights my son McKay, whose brain and body have been devastated by a terrible virus, goes to hippo therapy. Crazy name for therapy on horseback. Not hippo back. McKay suffers from many things one of them being sensory disfunction, which mean his whole body withdraws from any kind of touch. Basically he can't even stand his skin. The worst of this issue is in his hands and head. To ride his horse he must where a helmet and to get his horse to move he must pat pat on the horses back. This is one of his goals. He must get the horse moving. Touching the horse hair for McKay is something like us reaching our hands into a bowl of slithery snakes. This last Thursday night I stood by the training ring and watched him in awe. Two other issues McKay works through to be able to ride is that he struggles to find his body is space. Especially his torso. This is our fifth week of therapy and they have been working on getting McKay to hold himself up, centered on top of the horse. He keeps wanting to allow gravity to push him off one of the sides. After a few weeks of trial and error they have realized that he seems to slide off one side more than the other and so the put a stirrup on that side. They have also recognized that somehow his sweet little damaged brain becomes more functional on the horse riding backwards. Lastly it takes a leader to direct the horse, 2 physical therapists to hold onto a belt around McKay's waist and an occupational therapist to put a hand in the middle of his back to remind him to sit up and to encourage him to use his hands to get the horse going. On this last Thursday, I was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit to just stop and realize what had been achieved. McKay was riding a trotting horse as these four ladies ran along side it for over and hour. He was laughing his belly laugh. And when the horse would stop McKay would lay his whole body down, on it's hind end, ( he's sitting facing the tail ,remember) wrap his arms around the belly and just nuzzle in and love his horse. When he would sit back up his little face was covered with horse hair. It was in that moment that I realized all the possibilities we have in Christ, in hoping. I never would have guessed that my son would enjoy or even be able to ride a horse. The moment was surreal, moving, he became invincible, my superman. My husband said it was the equivalent to an out of the park home run.
I know that on this journey we are taking with McKay there will be more suffering, But I hope I can realize the force of that suffering and know I'm not alone in it and use the emotion to push me forward. To insist in hope for others in their journey. I want to be apart of a people who improvise and adapt and innovate and explore new ways to get things done. I know His vision for my and McKays will take everything I have. It is calling me to greatness. To be a superman, women. I only hope it is somewhere inside of me, that I can find it, and that I know there many in it with me.