When Mary was a little girl, she loved to watch Barney the Dinosaur. We watched every episode and bought all of the Barney Movies. As Mary got older, we stopped watching Barney. We often wondered if we stopped watching because Mary lost interest or because we subconsciously decided she was too grown up for Barney.

Over the past several weeks, we talked about the unique and varied challenges that face a marriage when couples are parenting a child with special needs.

Well, the Hallmark Christmas movie season is upon us. Brian, who isn’t one for movies in general, has probably never seen a Hallmark movie; but I confess, that on more than one occasion, I’ve taken my box of tissues and watched a Hallmark movie.

Our blog post is a little later than usual this week because for the past two days we, along with 1.5 million other people, have been evacuating the Carolina Coast ahead of Hurricane Florence. 

Happy Valentine’s Day! You can’t have a Marriage Blog and not have an entry regarding Valentine’s Day – the day set aside to celebrate romantic love! Advertisers and retailers would like you to believe that Valentine’s Day has to do with gifts of chocolate, jewelry, flowers and lingerie.

Earlier this month we celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary! We have to admit that there were days early in our marriage that neither one of us thought we would make it this far.

We are shaped by our environments. My career centers on the tech sector and higher-education. Both worlds can be very performance-driven; the tech sector with its focus on company valuation, innovation and financial performance and higher-education with its focus on research, publications and teacher evaluations.

Recently, we had the opportunity to watch a tape of the funeral service of the Rev. Billy Graham. One of the speakers at the service shared a bit of advice that Dr. Graham had shared with him. Dr. Graham said that most people want to talk about themselves and as a pastor, he would be tempted to share his personal stories.

When you are parenting a child with special needs, there often is a sense of loss … a loss of dreams, expectations and your own independence. And with loss, comes grieving.

One Bible verse that has been helpful to me, especially when I feel as though I am being tested or under fire is Job 23:10, “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold”.

When we started our ministry to couples raising a child with special needs, our desire was to share truths or helpful ideas that we wished someone had shared with us when we were new to parenting.

We disagree in two ways. First, and of less importance, we disagree with the statement because it seems to imply that for us, raising Mary has been relatively easy. And if you are a parent raising a child with a disability, “easy” is not one of the words that come to mind.

Sometimes when you parent a child with a disability, it’s like flying an airplane in the fog. There’s a lot of “angst” in not knowing exactly where you are heading or what your life will look like.

Facebook, I think, has changed how we live and think about ourselves. I love that I have been able to reconnect with old friends on FB and find out what is going on in their lives; but I hate the fact that looking at Facebook can also make us feel worse about our lives.

Recently, Brian and I have been going through a difficult patch. Not uncommon in most marriages and not challenging our commitment to each other, but difficult nonetheless. Our differences in style and time management and personality traits (which has existed for 30+ years), now just seems to be a source of irritation. We’ve tried to talk through some of these issues, but haven’t been able (yet) to come to a “convergence of the minds”.

I remember the day my husband and I sat in the doctor’s office in Washington DC’s Children’s Hospital and received the news that the concerns we had over Mary’s lack of development were indeed due to brain damage.

We’ve all heard that song and possibly, it is the most wonderful time of the year. It also is perhaps the most stressful time of the year for families who have a child with special needs.

One of our kids (not sure which one) used to have a t-shirt that said “Believe there is Good in the World”! I think it is important to both the world and to believe there is good in BE the good in the world.

Often our blogs are about the unique challenges we face as parents of children with special needs. Although we acknowledge that there are indeed multiple challenges in raising our children, we also know that our lives have been forever changed, in a good way, – because of Mary.

We haven’t written our blog in the last few weeks as we were in China. We toured the country and visited our daughter, Emily, who lives and works in China. No matter how often we have said the words “our daughter lives and works in China” (and she has been there 3 years!), it is still hard to believe.