“I’ve got a sinus infection,”  I texted the friend who was picking me up at an unfamiliar airport in an unfamiliar town. “Do you have any antibiotics?”

“We’ve got your back,” she replied.

She wasn’t kidding. When she delivered me to our destination, she and my other friends had arranged an array of medications on the bathroom counter–everything and more than I needed to beat the nasty bug that reared it’s ugly head on a way to the Inclusion Fusion Live Conference where I was speaking before joining my friends for some R & R.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by their response.

Each of the friends is the mom, and most of them are moms of kids with special needs. They made sure I took my medicine and whisked me off to bed. “Don’t even think about going to church in the morning,” they said. “Sleep in and get better.” A single thought passed through my foggy mind as I fell asleep in the comfy bed made up with fresh sheets.

Sometimes, a mom needs to be mothered.

After 41 years of marriage, 36 years as the parent of a child with special needs, and 12 years of caring for my own mom I had forgotten the wonderfulness of being mothered. I had forgotten how lovely it is to be fussed over, to surrender control, to be given permission to rest, to turn off the alarm and sleep until my body would wake of its own accord.

To read the rest of this post, visit the special needs parenting blog at Key Ministry.

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