Caring Heart: Appointment Overload

This was written for all parents who are raising children with special needs: physical, intellectual, or emotional.

Too Many Appointments

I am sick of so many appointments!  Give me patience, Lord and endurance for this long haul.  It seems that each day is a new round of trips to counselors, dentists, psychiatrists, evaluations, family visits, court dates, social worker meetings, family team meetings, school meetings.  It just goes on and on and on and on!  Some days I can barely remember who it is that we are seeing and why.  Sometimes I am filled with guilt about that other appointment that I still haven't scheduled.  I get so tired of it all. I am tired of trying to give a sixty-second recap to introduce the situation without humiliating the child sitting and listening.  When I feel so tired of it all, please stop me, Lord. Remind me to imagine what it must be like for this young child who must be equally sick of these endless appointments.  Help me imagine what it is like to be the subject of all this investigation and evaluation and treatment and questions.  How fearful that may be.  What must that do to self-image, confidence, and hope?  Take away my frustration and impatience and replace it with empathy and with support.  Amen.

Excerpted from "The Caring Heart Speaks: Meditations for foster, kinship, and adoptive parents" by Gail Underwood Parker  Artwork from the book's cover by Anna Parker David