Surrendering our children with disabilities to God can be challenging. It’s also crucial to future spiritual development in us and our children. Guest blogger Kelly Simpson explains what’s involved in our surrender and how it can draw us closer to God.

Having a child with special needs or a disability often feels like a heavy load. I’ll be honest—it feels like a burden when I try to make it through on my own energy and my own will. You can try for years and still feel drained or worn out, filled with doubts and questions like these:

• • What is life supposed to look like now?
  • Will this particular opportunity that we have been waiting for even be an option for us now?
  • I have been working so hard for… How will we make it now?
  • Will our dreams be put on hold because of this condition?
  • How does this diagnosis affect the plans I had for my own life?

You may be past the “why me?” or “why us?” phase but still deal with ever-present anxiety. To you I want to kindly ask a question:

If you think you have it all under control, why is anxiety still a huge presence?

The answer could be that we never really have full control and we were never meant to.

Matthew 11:28-29 says, “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.”

When I surrender to the Maker of the stars, I give Him full control and I receive His true peace.

Matthew 11:29 says that I can also find rest in God. For me, some things have been easy to hand over. I’ve held onto others tightly for years. Once I let go, I wonder why I held on so long. He created the whole world just by speaking and can provide me with peace and rest.

Not surrendering our children with disabilities to God may look like:

• • Replaying thoughts and questions over and over until they become all you can think or talk about
  • Refusing to pray at all or consciously choosing to not pray about certain things

Surrendering our children with disabilities to God may look and feel like:

• • Verbally or mentally handing a situation over to God because you know you have no control of the situation or other people
  • A heavy load lifted off your heart
  • Realizing that God doesn’t promise to make life easier due to surrender, but he does promise to always be at your side
  • A change in outlook even though circumstances don’t change
  • A sense of peace

Recipients of peace:

• • Know they need Jesus during every second of their day
  • Know Jesus will provide for their needs
  • Could feel blessed and know they are along for the ride or journey God has designed for them

Paige Ferrari says this in a devotion she wrote for Grand Canyon University:

Peace is knowing that the Lord of the universe is by your side and resting in that. It’s not just knowing, but it is also living it out. Peace is sitting in comfort and knowing that God is next to your side no matter what. Peace is something that you can’t attain physically because the world is almost always going to be a rocky place.

As Ferrari explains, those who know his peace still live in comfort.

Whatever you’re going through—whether it’s caring for a child with particular needs or wondering if you’ll ever be a parent, I challenge you to surrender every detail and circumstance so that you may live in God’s peace and rest.

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Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash