Day 61
Ezekiel 24 - 35
Today was a very discouraging day in "Life with Autism."
Brandon was sleeping later than usual, which is never a good sign, but I remained hopeful as he woke up at 11am that if I can get him to hurry, (ha! that has never happened) we can make it to school for lunch, and I can speed over to the pool to swim laps before that opportunity comes to a halt at 1pm. But alas, as I went to get things ready while he was eating, he had a seizure.
So while he was resting and I was scrolling through FB, all I kept seeing were posts from people in the autism community bashing others in the autism community. Intermixed with that, were the countless posts of the missing for ten days now boy with autism who wandered from his school and has yet to be found. It was sad. Heartbreaking. We should all be united to stand against our true enemiess: Pharma, Monsanto, CDC, the Vaccine Industry, -- working toward some type of infrastructure that will care for our children when us parents are worn out and dead. Helping to ensure that no other child will be poisoned and left to suffer without medical treatment as so many like my son have. Looking for Avonte... But no. Lines drawn and innocent parents made to choose which side of a fence to be on, in a pasture that should have no fence. Lifelong friends in this autism journey, un-friended because of those lines drawn. And still, more pictures of Avonte. More stories of more Avonte's. More autism, more wandering, more bickering. And Avonte's mom....she most likely doesn't know of these fights in the autism community. All she wants is to find her son. But with all the bickering, lines being drawn, friends being un-friended, -- who is left looking?
It's all I want, too. To find my son. I want to find his health under all the toxins and poisons he's been exposed to and injected with. I want to find something for his future -- where he will live, what he will be able to do. And not anything at all in any of that negativity helps me do that. It only hinders it. And then staring at me on my desk I have my husband's health insurance enrollment package. I have yet to be brave enough to open that to see how much more I'll have to pay to get hardly anything that helps him covered. I'll have to pay a lot to have insurance, and also know that most of my expense in healing my son is not covered by that insurance. So I'll pay a lot more out of pocket. And then there is the "Shutdown" fiasco in Washington.
Discouraged, I turned to focusing on this days reading. But darn-it-all if I wasn't understanding that either! Until I came to Ezekiel 34. Like, all of it. I'll share some of it...
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
That so applies to all the topics that have discouraged me today! We today, are just like they were in the writing of those words in Ezekiel. Woe to our Autism Community organizations who only take care of their own interests and not those of the whole flock! Woe to our elected officials who eat the curds, clothe themselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but who do not take care of the flock. Woe to all who purposefully scatter the autism community leaving everyone so wrapped up in that division that there is no one left to search for the 1 in 50 whose health has wandered away. The countless like Avonte who actually wander away. Most often never to be found.
We are scattered in our country because there is no credible presidential shepherd.
We are scattered in the autism community because shepherds are backstabbing other shepherds harshly and brutally.
We Christians are scattered because we have abandoned God.
Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
I'm so encouraged by that. These past few books of the Bible have been filled with such turmoil. Much like the autism community, much like our country. But there is such HOPEISM to be found as well. The people of Israel will be reborn. God will return and dwell among his people again.
Our autism community will unite and be strong again.
Americans will take back their country.
Christians will turn their hearts and lives back to God.
For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the place where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.
I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
I will save my flock and they will no longer be plundered.
I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety.
You my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, are people, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.
The Shepherd will search for his sheep, find them, rescue them, and forevermore look after them.
I find such REVIVAL in that. For my autism community, my country, my church.
I so want my autism community as one powerful flock united together. The 1 in 50 and counting, are counting on that. My adult sheep is counting on that. I'm counting on that.
To the HOPEISM of that!
HOOYAH
&
HALLELUJAH
