In more ways than one, 'The Great Winter Apocalypse of 2017' was something to be remembered by the two ice storms Houston had, as well as yet another storm in my "Life with Autism, Seizures, and a side of PANDAS" that left me with a bad case of frostbite for sure.
It was as if at times my warrior spirit felt as brittle as the leaves on these pictures look. The "episode" of our first ever eruption of PANDAS this past year had me as frozen as my entire garden was.
The Strep-induced PANDAS attack came on as suddenly as those ice storms!
The experience left me paralyzed with fear for weeks after.
Functioning, yet still frozen in a sense.
I felt how the plants and bushes and vines in these pictures look!
But what I learned from finally being brave enough to go in my back yard and face my gardens to clean up after winter's carnage - is that when we're going through those hard times, these pictures are truly all we see. At least it's all I saw that endless night where my husband and I were being thrashed around by PANDAS like we were rag-dolls. It's all I saw when our son was so out of control and seemingly out of his mind. It's all we thought we would forever after see...
That dead, brittle, ugly, of what vaccine injury has done to our son.
What I had forgotten during that winter - is that hidden among the dark and decomposing, there is new life. Hope found in life buried under the dormant. Tiny flowers I cannot yet see just waiting to poke through the leaves piled in drifts from the winds that have come and gone...
And that is what I must always remember about HOPEISM...
That it exists in winter too.
That it exists under all the injury, under all the autism, seizures, and most especially under the horror of PANDAS.
That it exists in those deepest, darkest, most frigid of moments in the dead of night when you feel you cannot take one more moment of what you are going through.
My faith would be much richer if I could only remember I have it in those moments.
If I could look at the obstacle, the challenge, the hardship, the absolute horror where I see nothing but death and destruction - and see instead what was. What will be again once this moment passes. Once this season passes. And we are promised, that this too shall pass...
The sunflower that is now withered and brittle was once majestic and stunning.
If I could rely on the pictures of what was and will be again when faced with what is, - oh what a heap of hardship I could escape! And what a bigger heap of HOPEISM I would have!
Not only is there a deeper level of HOPEISM in that, there is also a unique kind of beauty in it as well.
While these pictures are not what would win the cover of any gardening magazine, they do have purpose.
A beautiful story to be remembered.
In that no matter how bad the bad moments of 2017 were, and how many of them there were, there were still good moments.
And as I was drawn to take these pictures, I'm oddly reminded of that.
Of the perspective to be found in them.
So easy to admire the pictures of my sunflowers in full bloom on a clear summer day. So easy to find the HOPEISM ripening and blooming in all of my gardens.
But these pictures, as in life, one sometimes has to draw on hopeism known and promised, not seen or experienced.
And that is hard.
But it's where the strongest faith is forged.
Out here in my garden, much as in my "Life with Autism, Seizures, and a side of PANDAS" -- I am thankful for the lessons learned in seeing the beauty in all seasons and stages of life as it is truly seen through the lens of my camera --- where HOPEISM blooms.
Where it did, and where it will yet again.
Where no matter how ugly the winter --
The Spring of HOPEISM always beautifully blooms.
Where no matter how beaten, bruised, or broken we are by life --
HOPEISM always heals.
