I see the pregnancy tests on the end of an aisle out of the corner of my eye. I’m just here for eyedrops, I think to myself, just eyedrops. But as the line inches forward and social distancing gives me a few extra minutes to stand within arms’ reach of the pink boxes, curiosity - or maybe it’s premonition - gets the best of me. I throw one in my basket, behind the back of my seven year old, who will surely have a dozen justifiable questions about this little box if she sees it.

I just need to rule it out, so I can stop imagining things. Nine dollars is a small price to pay to have my sanity back.

I purchased the little box undetected, but I did not get my sanity back. 

Baby #6 will be here in February.

//

There’s a well known story about Jesus in the gospels, when he takes five loaves of bread and two fishes and miraculously multiplies this meager serving of food to feed thousands of people. The awe of this event causes the people to call him a prophet and a king, and beg him to overthrow the oppressive Roman rulers of their time. If he can make food just appear, surely he is capable of all kinds of miracles, and these people were there for it. I get that. I would be, too.

But I can’t help but sit with a small detail of this story that comes a bit earlier in the day. Jesus and his disciples had gone up on the mountain to sit down for a bit. From their vantage point, it wasn’t difficult to see the huge crowd following them. Jesus sat there unbothered. The disciples on the other hand, they saw reality. It was Passover, one of the most sacred holidays of the Jewish people, and there were thousands of them making the long trek toward their small crew to learn more about this mysterious Jesus figure. 

So when Jesus asks his disciples where they might be able to buy food on the top of a mountain, you and I can certainly understand the skepticism of their response. Are you serious, Jesus? They had to be thinking, You did notice we are not exactly near a market, yes?   

Andrew, one of the disciples, finally voices what feels obvious: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”

What are they for so many? Like, come on Jesus. You aren’t really thinking about feeding this crowd, are you? This is enough for one, maybe two people. It’s certainly not enough for what you are thinking of doing. We have to face reality here. 

At least, that’s what I would be thinking. 

So I get Andrew on this question. I really do. I’ve asked it of myself a hundred times in the last three months, since that small premonition in the line at the drug store became a stark reality. Who am I for so many? I am already giving all of myself, every minute of every day.

I don’t have enough for what you are asking us to do, Lord. 

//

I took the pregnancy test late in the afternoon, but I had already planned a fun evening with my oldest daughter that I wanted to be so present for, and because we would be gone for the night, I waited until the next morning when we got home to tell my husband. We pulled up to the house just after breakfast, and Alex already had the other kids loaded in the stroller to head down to the park. When we got there, our big three ran off to their favorite spots, and we stayed back pushing the littles in the swings. 

I had been sitting on news that I had to tell him for 18 hours. That’s the longest I have ever held this secret from him. I wanted to tell him. He’s an incredible dad, and one of the most selfless men alive. But this would be our 6th child. All of them under eight years old. We never planned on more than four. Did I mention we were already giving all of ourselves, every single day? Special needs, two busy toddlers, a curious seven-year-old with incessant (but very good) questions about life, and a four-year-old still learning to write his letters and control his anger - it takes all we have. 

The smallest, apprehensive fear of how is he really going to feel about this? caused me just the slightest bit of trepidation, but because I could not do 18 hours and one more minute of secret-keeping, I decided to jump in with no introduction.  

“Babe, I took a pregnancy test last night.”

“What?!” he responded, wide-eyed and confused, but rightfully, more concerned with the result than my motive. “Are you pregnant?”

I smiled/grimaced/braced myself and said, “I am, Babe. It was positive.” 

He laughed - laughed - which was the best thing he could have done in that moment - and then wrapped me up in a hug. Despite my anxiety, my heart knew he would react this way. The worry was more about our coming reality than my husband’s attitude toward it. We both know what a miracle this is, and it’s one we never have taken for granted. 

“Wow! Ok. Well, not sure what you’re doing here God, but…” he stopped for a second, looked down at me and said, “are you doing ok?”

“I think so. I have... complicated feelings, babe.” I got quiet for a minute, still unable to name it all, sitting with the very real tension of gratitude and overwhelm, sorting through what I thought I was allowed to feel.

“Ha!” he chuckled back. “I think you’re allowed to have complicated feelings right now.”

“Thank you for saying that,” I said through an insecure smile. I’m sure I mumbled a few other unremarkable things, but mostly I remember us being ok, just not saying much; pushing our two toddlers on the swings to the background of giggles and squeals and requests for help reaching the monkey bars from our older three.

“It’s going to be ok,” Alex pipped in. “One day at a time, that’s all we can do.”

//

I wonder what the disciples really thought after Jesus fed all those people in such an improbable manner, as they cleaned up after the crowd and had twelve baskets of food left over. 

Were they shocked, but not surprised? 

Were they shocked because they saw a miracle, something they could never manufacture on their own. They did not believe it was possible to meet the physical needs of so many people, and who could blame them - it did not look possible. Until it happened. 

But were they not surprised because it was Jesus, after all, the man they left everything to follow because they believed that in Him, they would find everything they were looking for; they would find life. This was not the first time they had seen something miraculous, they could not have been too surprised Jesus made it happen again.

I think that’s where my heart is, somewhere on that vacillating line between shocked and not surprised, if it’s possible for a heart to live in that paradox. 

//

We know now that two fish and five loaves of bread was indeed enough to feed more than five thousand people on that Passover holiday all those centuries ago. It was sufficient “for so many.” 

Will I be? 

The news of a 6th baby shocked me, because my husband got a vasectomy a year ago, I only have one fallopian tube, and we still got pregnant anyway (while I was breastfeeding!). I'm shocked that we now own a 12-passenger van, as if I'm running a summer camp or working for the HVAC repair company. Nothing practical in me says this pregnancy is possible, or that my capability is enough. 

But I'm not surprised either, because there is a sovereign God behind every detail of life, and statistics have never been in the way with him. It is Jesus, after all, who feeds the masses with only enough for two, and comes back to get us every time we wander away thinking that He just isn’t facing reality when he puts good work before us, forgetting how safe we are with him - a God of unexplainable miracles.

Who am I for so many? I don’t know the answer. But every day I think I'm not capable of raising six children, I’ll take comfort in knowing someone much greater than me says otherwise.

I hear the scuffle from the basement as I am putting laundry away. “No, Cannon! It’s my turn to pick the show!” our four-year-old, Jordi, yells in frustration as his older brother fights him for the remote. I know before I go back upstairs who will win this battle.

“Nooooo!” Jordi continues, frustration now turning into sobs and anger as his big brother refuses to give back the tv remote. I walk in the family room and he begins pleading his case with me in one breath between the sobs. “Mom, Cannon took the remote and it’s not his turn it’s my turn and he just took it and I was watching sumfing!” 

“I know Jo, let’s ask him nicely and with self-control if he will give it back.”

“Nooooo!” Self-control be damned, Jordi takes a swing at Cannon’s back, who yells a little bit but continues trying to navigate the buttons on the remote without acknowledgement of his brother’s feelings. 

Jordi’s cheeks grow redder and redder and his voice more and more upset. He and I both know what will happen if we force the remote back out of Cannon’s hand: aggressive swings and high pitched yells and a little boy who will be unable to calm back down for who knows how long. 

Finally, Jordi finds the sentence, the thing that makes him more upset than just having the channel changed in the middle of his show: “Autism boys don’t get to pick! Only boss boys get to pick. I am the boss boy! Cannon is an autism boy!”

I stand there looking at my boys, one wildly upset and the other seemingly indifferent just two feet away. It is the first time I realize Jordi knows his big brother has autism; the first time I understand that he is well-aware of the differences in his brother, and that those differences feel frustrating and at times, very unfair to a four-year-old mind. 

And it is the first time I realize I need to help Jordi figure out something I am still very unsure how to do every single day. 

“Oh JoJo, come here,” I say as I pull him into our bedroom and onto my lap. We sit there in silence for a few minutes, as I pretend my big four-year-old is more like a baby so he can snuggle up really close. His body isn’t the only thing I am holding; the heavy feeling of his sadness about his brother and mine at not knowing what to tell him next felt like more weight than his body. 

“Hey bud,” I finally break the silence. “Let’s talk about Cannon, and about why you are sad, and how we can help him learn to do better.”

Jordi sniffs a little, then nods his head. 

//

For the last four and a half years, our family has been learning how to live with autism, and for almost all of that time, I have seen the struggle through two sets of eyes: the parents, and my son’s on the spectrum. I’ve sat and held him tightly to keep him from hitting his own head on the wall. I’ve reacted in anger when he slapped me in the face for asking him to put his clothes on. I’ve researched and googled and read books and spent a lot of money on oils and supplements and vitamins and anything that promised the slightest glimmer of hope that tomorrow would be better than today. And of course, I’ve wondered how impossible it must feel for a little boy to be living with a mind that will not form the words he needs to tell me what hurts, why he is sad, what he wants to do, or what happened at school today. It’s been me and my husband, and it’s been Cannon - the three of us living in this little complex word; and because our other children were so young, I have enjoyed a few years of compartmentalizing my parenting into two categories: autism - with it’s stringent therapy schedule and special diet and separate classrooms - and “typical” children - with social rules and manners and reasonable expectations for what the day will bring.

But now, I see there are not two categories. There is just us.

Special needs is a road the whole family has to walk, but the truth is—separating the paths is easier, for my heart and for my hands, than bringing everyone on the same one. But here we are, my husband and I leading the way with a trail of Cannon’s siblings behind us, who are too young to fully understand developmental disabilities, but plenty old enough to know it makes them frustrated. And right now, I have to find the words to tell another little boy what it means for his brother to be an “autism boy”, and after more than four years of searching, I still don’t know the answer.

//

I sat there with Jordi on my lap, still reeling at the injustice of having his tv show taken from him so abruptly, and knowing full well I would never let him do that to someone else. I truly thought when the time came, I would be ready for this moment, this delicate conversation that introduces two opposing truths to the world for my kids: Cannon is a good boy, but autism is a very hard thing. 

Paradox is hard for everyone, but it can be especially disorienting for a child. 

Alas, I’m not ready for the conversation, because on any given day, I deal with that paradox differently as well: sometimes with solid faith in a good God and other times with desperate cries and genuine anger that sovereignty could allow a child to struggle so much. 

“Jo,” I whisper to him as I scratch his back and watch his sad breaths slow to a calmer cadence, “I know this is so hard sometimes, to have a brother who has different rules than you.” 

He nods again, lulled into listening with the magic of a mom’s light touch.

“And bud, I get upset too, but I also know this: Cannon loves you, and he loves jumping on the trampoline with you, and chasing you, and squirting you with the hose!”

“Yeah, Cannon loves that,” Jordi says with the slightest hint of a smile as he pictures the hose and the backyard and the laughter from the day before in his mind. “He likes to put it on my head!”

“I know, he thinks you are the most fun brother ever!”

“Mmm hmm,” Jordi responds, a satisfied smirk settling in on his face.

“So I think, Jordi, in the really hard moments when we don’t understand what Cannon is doing, or why he is doing it, we just have to work really, really hard to remember how much we love each other. Autism makes so many things hard for him that are not hard for me and you. But,” I lean my face in as close to his as I could get and heighten my pitch with a little bit of excitement, “God knew he needed a little brother exactly like you to make him laugh and to play with him, didn’t he? No one will love him better than you will, JoJo.”

Another nod and smile - not one of resolution, there will always be much to be resolved, but one of acceptance.

“We will keep learning together, Jo. And so will Cannon!”

Maybe the only answer to two opposing truths is a third one: we love each other.

And wouldn’t you know, Cannon walks in the bedroom just a moment later, holds out his hand and says, “Heee go, Jordi,” and hands him the tv remote.

“Fanks, Cannon,” Jordi responds, then walks back out to the living room to finish his show.

//

*This essay first appeared on the Coffee + Crumbs Patreon site.
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It had been an off morning for Cannon since I got him out of bed. He wanted to be put down but he didn’t want to walk. He kept reaching back for something in his room but got fussy when I turned around to walk back in there. He knew what he needed but I didn’t. He had thoughts and feelings but no words for either of them, and both of us felt the frustration of it.

Cannon, just tell me what you need.

Mama, I want you to name what I need for me.

These are the moments that hurt the most.

We had just thirty minutes before we needed to be out the door and on the road to therapy, but my little man just was not having it. Didn’t want his milk, didn’t want his Thomas trains, certainly didn’t want his siblings all up in his space. It took both me and Alex to get his diaper changed and clothes on, sixty seconds of fending off flailing arms and legs that were not without a side glance and biting comment among the two of us. You hold his arms. I got him! Babe, don’t let his leg go. He’s strong! After the wrestling match Cannon went right back to his corner on the couch and buried his head in his blankets. Then he took his socks off, of course. More wrestling ensued.

These are the moments that hurt the most.

I looked at Alex and said, “He gets more upset when we hold him down, when we force it, so let’s just give him a minute.”

“Well we don’t really have another minute; he needs to get dressed.”

“I know, but...” And I have no further rebuttal. I don’t know what to do, neither does Alex. Autism stumps us a dozen times a day.

These are the moments that hurt the most. When for all of our effort we simply cannot figure out our precious boy, which frustrates and shames us enough to get irritated with one another, and we go back and forth between being ten minutes late but having a calm little boy; and teaching him that being on time is expected of us so he needs to get going, upset or not. The first half an hour of our day and we are nose to nose with the incessant reminders that his life, our life, is not ‘normal.’

Then Harper came over with an apple for Cannon. “Cannon loves apples. This will make him happy.” He threw it back at her, but she was undeterred. “Oh mom, I’ll give him his puzzle, Cannon loves puzzles!” She set it in front of him, and he did not throw it- a step in the right direction.

I patted her little head and said, “Sweet girl, I love your kindness toward Cannon! Is that Jesus in your heart? I think it is.” She proudly beams a smile.

And then right there on the corner of the couch, we prayed for Cannon. Well, Harper prayed for Cannon, with all the childlike faith and precious gratitude one should pray. “Dear God. I thank you for Cannon and I thank you for puzzles. Please help Cannon be happy today. Cannon will have a good day at school. Thank you for school. I pray for Cannon to eat his apple. Amen.”

Let it be.

And as her simple yet beautiful words landed on all of us, I realized something she is still much too young to: God has called us all to this. He has given all of us this. And we will all be different, better, much more dependent on Jesus because of this ‘not normal’ journey. I think those can be the best kind of journey—it all depends on how we look at it. And wether we are truly, unashamedly, from our heads to our toes, thankful for puzzles and apples and school.

Cannon did move toward that puzzle. I’m not sure if he wanted it the whole time, or if it got his mind off of what he could not tell us, but he was happy, and we got his socks back on.

“Look Harper, your prayer helped him!” Another proud smile. I’m learning to believe in prayer right alongside my four-year-old.

These are the moments I love the most, when something like this reminds you that your life is perfectly, most intentionally, being lived out exactly how God wants it to.  

Hard and beautiful. Hurting and healing. The worst and the best. A moment my heart wants to feel pity and then explodes with gratitude immediately after. Impossibly, but absolutely, both.

Sometimes, life is just both.

Soli Deo Gloria.