Come make a cup of hot tea and sit down for a bit, EDS Mama. I know how much you have been carrying and how hard you fight everyday for your child. You fight with doctors and insurance companies, even with the school. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NIV. Just take a deep breath and let those words feel good for a few moments.
As a mother, I felt tremendous pressure surrounding school while my daughter was in junior high and high school. With all her health issues, it was difficult for her to attend school. On top of that, we had no diagnosis which made her absences really hard to explain. I even worried that I would get in legal trouble for her truancy. I knew that I could home school her and probably get around this attendance issue. I practically begged my daughter at one point to agree to homeschooling and she adamantly said she hated being home and wanted so desperately to go to school and see her friends. She did NOT want to be home schooled! Great for her, but not great for my anxiety on this issue! During high school, the absences grew into two to three month spans of missed school and I began to consider having her drop out. Kids in my day did it all the time! It was the school counselor who told me about Homebound Services. With a note from our doctor, the school assigned her a Homebound teacher. This teacher would talk with all of her teachers, gather assignments, bring them to our home, and take completed assignments back. He was able to see the actual state she was in and advocated for her to have the workload reduced. Some teachers were more understanding than others. When she could not do any work at times, most teachers simply took the few assignments that were completed and gave her a grade for the marking period based on those assignments. In this sense, her fairly good grades were not really reflective of the state she was in. In fact, one difficult and disbelieving doctor would later look back at her grades and argue that she did exceptionally well during high school. Oh, how I wished at that appointment that we had made her drop out! It made me question if I had done the right thing for her. But looking back, I'm so grateful that she was able to complete her high school diploma. In spite of this, we were so blessed by her Homebound teacher. He was her favorite teacher and even though he had a sarcastic, joking nature (which my daughter also had and appreciated), he had compassion as well. I could see it in his eyes. It was many times the highlight of her day to see him and I can say that over the years, she has talked of him often even during times she has been very sick. He had a way of helping me think that everything would be alright as far as the school was concerned, and it was. God continued to provide for all of our needs over the years and Homebound Services was part of His loving care. In the big scheme of life, completing high school isn’t as big of a deal as I made it out to be. It is always an option to go back and finish it later. So, when you are feeling overwhelmed with school, Mama, sit and remember what a short time this life really offers compared to eternity. In James 4:14 NIV it says, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” GOD will provide everything your child needs. It is not all on your shoulders. Will you allow Him to be God today?
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