Blog » Welcome to Holland

                                                   Monday, June 17, 2013 Jeff Lampl

NOTE: Yesterday in worship Marty Sarkissisn shared his story of being diverted by God from the life he had planned. As you read Marty’s story maybe you, too, will be able to see the sweetness and beauty of Holland, not under your circumstances, nor beneath them, but in the midst of them.

“I want to share a story of hopeful brokenness today.  It’s a story of a journey that my wife and I experience in the wilderness of parenting a child with special needs and developmental challenges. This is a story of imperfection and mistakes, and one I trust the Lord will use to speak to each of us today in our own trials, and above all to advance the Gospel. 
There's a tale in the world of parenting kids with disabilities called "Welcome to Holland."  It asks you to imagine that you have spent a lifetime planning for a wonderful trip to Italy.  It asks you to imagine your excitement as you plan to see many of the beautiful aspects of Italy - its art, its history, its coliseums, its coastlines, and so on.  It's all you've ever wanted and hoped for.  Midway through the story the writer asks you to imagine the Captain of the plane coming in the intercom to inform you that there has been a change in the flight plan that you cannot influence - and advises you that you will be rerouted to Holland; and says you will never to get to Italy. So the reader is encouraged to answer some tough questions... 
How would you feel?  How would you react?  Most would say, "I'd be angry", or "I'd cry", or "I'd do whatever I had to get to Italy" - and you'd be normal to feel all those emotions.  But in the end, you can't get to Italy.  And In time, the author says, you will learn to appreciate the beauty of Holland: its flowers, people, countryside, windmills, and everything else it has to offer. 

I trust you get the picture.  The itinerary I created about what my child, my son, would be, the things we would do together, how life would go, said something different than where we have landed. And I can tell you that learning to love "Holland" for what it is, is easier said than done. 

- The truth, is that I've been angry at the Captain for years about our situation.
 - The truth, is that my wife and I cry together often about having to live in Holland instead of
    Italy.

- The truth, is that I have been consumed for years by trying to figure out a way to make our   
   situation look and feel more like "Italy".

- The truth, is that Italy isn't coming.

- The truth, is that until the past year or so, I've missed so much of the beauty that Holland has
   to offer because I've never accepted that Holland is the destination.

-  And the truth, is that because I have been so controlled with what IS NOT, on occasion
   I've overlooked the beauty of what IS.

To be clear today, these revelations come not through my own efforts, but by The Lord revealing more of Himself to me through some who sit in this room this morning; through His prompting that what's expected of me is a faithful perseverance in the midst of life's storms; and through His Insight that reminds me that best way to love one with Special needs is to first recognize that I have my own - and that I need to deal with them first and foremost in order to begin to appreciating "Holland" more. 

The men's retreat this year was fertile ground for some real awareness around my own challenges preventing me from more fully accepting who my son is.The Lord spoke to me through Ken Strawhecker around the reality that the Jews took what should have been a short trip, and made it a real long one because of their unfaithfulness and turning away from Him time and time again.  The lesson for me was that my Unfaithfulness - my Golden cow, was NOT that I pursue how to better help my son, but that the pursuit itself comes at the expense of time with God - of seeking more of His wisdom on how to "Father" well through adversity.  And so I've wandered much longer than I've needed to because of ME, not my son or my God.  I remember the moment the insight hit me.  As Ken was speaking, I remember thinking, "boy the Jews were stupid - how could they forget all of God’s blessings that brought them out of Egypt, all the daily provisions, the parting of the Sea,..." (Hey ....wait...that's me!). 

Through Jimmy Herman, the Lord revealed to me that my views of "protection" are an illusion - that I need to put more faith in the belief that the Lord has my son's future in His hand much better than a trust fund ever will.  Not that the latter isn't important, but rather that it shouldn't eclipse the priority of trusting in Gods protection and provision first. 

Through Andy Moran and Skip Cheek - The Lord revealed that being consumed by worry and fear for his future, leads to a stronger urge to control, and that control is, in Andy's words, a "chokehold" that is getting in the way of how The Lord wants to use my son to heal this broken world. 

God's feedback hurts sometimes. 

As I returned from the retreat, we decided to sign our son up for AG little league for the first time. The truth, while it hurts, is that we've avoided leagues until this year for fear of how kids would treat or accept him. But with the Lords prompting, and the words "release your chokehold" in my ears, we forged ahead. 

And lo and behold, God blessed us with a coach who has a boy with similar needs, teammates who encouraged and included our son game after game, and the other players' families who cheered him on game after game. At the end of the season party, The Lord spoke again through a Father of another player. As we talked together, he said "I can’t say enough how much Jake has blessed us all this season". 

I want to share with you some of the sweet fragrance of Holland - some I've noticed since the retreat; some that I missed before but reflected on after. 

1. A Latin American missionary named Reuben came to our home group one night and my son Jake was running around the house, kind of wild, Reuben pulled Jake aside and held Jake’s face in his hands without saying a word. I’ve never seen Jake so still! Reuben didn’t say a word, but then said to me – “I see Christ in his eyes”.
2. At another time I had become sick with the flu and ended up in bed for four days. When Jake was younger I had read scripture to him before bedtime, but as he became older I had gotten away from that. But then I began again to read Proverbs to him, but when I became sick I couldn’t do it. But one night I heard Jake making some noise. He was pulling a chair into my bedroom. He said down and said, “Dad tonight I’m going to read Proverbs to you. ” My friend Fran said it well, “that’s better than a home run”. 

Please hear me - Holland ain't perfect. It has its arguments, stress, disagreements, and failures- many of which are mine. 

But our choice, with certainty, is to stay in Him, to stay together, and to share our story so that His good news can be advanced. 

I stand here today with hope for our situation through God’s wisdom, given through this church family. 

Our stories of trust in God, and perseverance in life matter to each other. There are other people in Holland too I've found; some with similar issues - but some with ones surrounding cancer survival, broken relationships, addictions, unmet expectations, and so on. 

If you look around you - it's likely that the person next to you is not where they expected to be in life, with their jobs, their families, their relationship with The Lord. 

So ladies and gentlemen- this is your Captain speaking through me. It's going to be a long flight. Love God, Serve Each Other, and Share the Gospel. It will make a difference now, and an eternal difference toward the final destination.