What My Children Taught Me About God

My babies: Ty (blue shirt) and Benjamin

Before I was a mother, I had a plan.

Of course I did.

My first child, Tyler (Ty), was two weeks late.

We didn’t know he would be born with Down Syndrome.

I was twenty-seven, after all.

What could possibly go wrong?

He came into this world in his own time.

And he still does everything at his own beautiful pace.

Our family calls it “Tyler Time.”

And we’ve learned to set our clocks to it.

I’m sure God was laughing at my plans, because from the very beginning, Ty rocked the world of a type-A perfectionist who believed life could be managed if I just planned it well enough.

As is often the case for mothers who give birth to a disabled child,

I grieved the child that was never born.

A life I had already pictured.

All the images in my mind, the ones I didn’t even realize I’d created, faded.

Color to black and white.

Black and white to sepia.

Then, like an old Polaroid, they faded until nothing remained.

What lingered was heartbreak.

Then scars.

And something else I didn’t yet have words for.

Something sacred. 

And life went on.

Then came another loss.

I miscarried between my two sons.

And again, I grieved someone I would never meet.

That kind of grief is impossible to explain.

But it rips something open in you.

It was a pain that felt familiar.

Not the same, but close enough to recognize.

The grief of what I thought would be.

The surrender to what was. 

And still, life kept moving.

Then Benjamin came along.

Healthy.

Strong.

Colicky.

Incredibly demanding.

And somehow, I couldn’t complain.

Because once you’ve known profound loss, everything shifts.

Even sleepless nights didn’t feel like suffering.

They were just typical mom issues.

A crying baby didn’t rattle me.

It was proof of life.

Motherhood did not make me more in control.

Quite the opposite.

It showed me how little control I ever had. 

So I joined God in laughing at my silly plans.

I thought I would be the kind of mom who never saw a fast-food drive-thru.

Then came the days I barely had the strength to get there.

That wasn’t failure.

Some days, it was survival.

Ty struggled to hold his head up.

To sit up.

To walk.

Every milestone felt like something we achieved together.

Then came Benjamin.

He spoke late, and I worried something was wrong.

I watched.

Compared.

Held my breath.

And one day, he spoke in full sentences.

He walked late, too.

And when he finally stood, he didn’t take steps.

He ran.

At times, it felt like God was delaying Benjamin just long enough to make me wonder.

To compare.

To worry.

And then I realized what He was showing me.

Your sons have their own timing.

Respect it.

While I was working so hard to help Ty reach his potential,

Benjamin seemed to be pulling me forward,

a low rumble of energy,

ready to get on with life.

Ty was an easy Sunday morning.

Benjamin was Friday night lights. 

And somehow, between the two of them, I learned something I couldn’t have learned any other way.

When to run.

When to rest.

When to help.

And when to sit back and watch them figure it out.

My children taught me that life will not follow the script I wrote for her.

That life will throw her head back, hold her side, and laugh hysterically at my plans!

My sons taught me to find my knees.

Not just the pew.

Because the pew is where I show up.

My knees are where I surrender.

They taught me that dependence is not weakness.

Ty will always need me.

And if I’m honest, Benjamin will always need me too.

Just in ways the world notices less.

My job as their mother was never meant to end.

But it was meant to change.

Now it’s a phone call.

“Hey Mom, you got a minute?”

And he knows I do.

He knows I always will.

Because nothing has ever been more important than showing up for them, at every stage.

A quote from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has lived in my mind for years:

“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”

I’ve let those words shape my life.

All I did.

How I showed up.

Did I fail?

Yes.

More than I’d like to admit.

Did I try my absolute best?

Every single day.

And still do.

I pray that my perfectly imperfect sons will forgive my failures.

I pray they overcome my shortcomings.

And I pray they know this:

That every morning, no matter how old they are, I will get up and try again.

To be a better mother than I was the day before.

Because somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to raise perfect children

and started realizing God was using them to raise me.

To soften me.

To humble me.

To teach me how to love without conditions.

And in all the ways I thought I was leading them, He was leading me.

It will be a happy Mother’s Day.

It always is.

And I hope the same for you.