jillianbenfield.com/down-syndrome-blog

Having a child with a disability has changed my politics. Now, I try to vote for who I think will do the best job of looking out for my child and his peers. Having a child with a disability has changed my religion. And any good news that is not good news to them is no good news at all.

The strongest among us are those who can hold more than one reality in their hands. I was speaking to an old friend recently who is going through something so tough, so disappointing, and at times, crushing. It’s hard when something is so heavy, so filled with worry to see the beauty still present. But when you look around and can hold the darkness in one hand and light in the other, when you can share your current sorrow while also sharing your current joy, when you allow yourself to feel the depth of despair but also feel hope still flickering from within, that is when you know-

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about what it means to trust Him. And I think it means no matter where we choose to go, or no matter where life chooses to take us, we trust He will be there to provide endless amounts of grace. I think to trust means that when we find ourselves in the pit, in the darkest of dark spaces, that we know we wo And eventually when He is ready, and I am willing, His grace will help me walk towards the light.

It was the stage mic as a child, a reporter mic as a young adult, then filtering my life through an Instagram lens. It took being hit by the unexpected, it took recognizing my fate is not in fact entirely up to me, to realize that success and worth are two different things. And success in the eyes of God looks very different if not the opposite of the American Dream. , it’s a life of giving yourself away instead of building yourself up.