What is HOPEISM...

Team Guppy has been going through a difficult season.  Our son with vaccine injury, aka "autism," also has seizures.  One such seizure was particularly horrific in that he fell so hard he broke his collarbone in three places.  Not necessarily that great a hardship for a young adult who would know to lay in bed and not move the arm -- take it easy until it heals.  But our twenty-two year old son has no sense of danger and doesn't understand the meaning of "be still and rest."  Add that to the fact that for nearly five weeks now, he's not been able to attend school.  Which has meant that I have been with him all day and all night, with few exceptions thanks to a few priceless friends.

To say it's been overwhelming is an understatement.

I typically turn to my backyard vegetable, flower, and Butterfly garden for inspiration and reprieve. But for me to go outside, would mean Brandon would need to. And I have a trampoline in the back yard which every time I have tried to go out there with him, he has tried to jump on it.  With a collarbone freshly broken in three places.   For me to go outside and leave him inside was out of the question.  The last thing we needed was for him to have another fall from another seizure and further break the brokenness.  So... it's been a while since I have been able to truly relish in the snapshots of beauty and HOPEISM of my garden.

But today, today I so desperately needed to be out there, and it's like my garden anticipated that and gathered all kinds of butterflies for me to behold.  A Giant Swallowtail, Passion butterflies, Monarch butterflies, Black Swallowtail and a Pipevine butterfly.

It was so good to be reminded of why I call my garden and this blog, "Where HOPEISM Blooms." Each Spring when I plant the seeds, when the Milkweed blooms and invites Monarchs to lay their eggs, when the vegetables ripen - it reminds me that things pass.  The barrenness of winter becomes the bounty of spring.  My garden mimics my life.  If you look at the whole, you will see dead flowers, weeds, unwanted pests.  The ugliness of autism so to speak.  But if you take your camera as I do, and zoom in on those snapshots of beauty among the muck and mire, you see joy, faith, hope, and love.

You learn to focus on the very beautiful and edit out the very ugly.

It's been a painful journey in learning that and I am so thankful that for me, God has used this blog, these pictures from my gardens, to teach me that.  It would be so easy to just let the darkness envelope me like a warm blanket in winter.  Some days it's very tempting.  But then I think about all the snapshots of light.  The message of HOPEISM I've tried to share through the mess that is my "Life with Autism".  The platform of truth that Brandon's pain from lies has given me to speak from.  The testimony I have been able to share each and every time we've been delivered from our trials.

Do I display those photographs of my life perfectly every time?  No.  Sometimes my lens is fogged.  Sometimes a thought out of focus.  Sometimes my battery dies and I need to recharge it.  But it is through those times that I more fully appreciate the perfect pictures.

As in the book, "Through the Eyes of a Lion" ---- from our family enduring Impossible  Pain we have found Incredible Power.

That power for me is the title of this Blog --- HOPEISM.

In the book, Levi Lusko describes hope (HOPEISM) as:
At its most basic level, to have hope is to believe that something good is going to happen.  That help is on the way.  That it's not over yet, and no matter how dark it seems, there's going to be light at the end of the tunnel.  Hope is a confident expectation.  A joyful anticipation.  An active, dynamic, energizing enthusiasm.  When you have hope, gale-force winds can blow and tsunami waves can smash into the hull of your life, but you are buoyed by the belief that the best is yet to come, that brighter days are ahead.  Hope quietly tells your heart that all is not lost, even as storms rage.  Our hope is a living hope, because Jesus lives forever.

Thank you Levi -- for such a beautiful snapshot of the HOPEISM that carries me through my "Life with Autism, Seizures, and a side of Trauma..."

NDCQ

HOOYAH!