This is true
for every parent. We often envision our
son or daughter fulfilling some shattered dream we had for ourselves --- if you
are an academic, you might imagine your infant growing to become a Morehead
scholar, setting the world ablaze with her insights or research. If you are a shade tree mechanic, you may
imagine hours spent together with your son, under the hood of a ’57 Chevy,
extolling the virtues of polished chrome, or cubic inch displacement. We often anticipate our children turning out
to be a lot like ourselves.
However, we
are often surprised at how different our children turn out to be than we had
imagined. She turns out to be an average
student. He wants to be a dancer. As parents, our dreams for them are sometimes
disappointed, occasionally crushed, frequently requiring a reality check. As the book’s title suggests, our children
often fall “far from the tree,” that bore them.
This is especially true for parents of exceptional children --- children
born differently-abled --- perhaps he is deaf, she is blind. The athlete you anticipated arrives into the
world with cerebral palsy. The pianist
you envisioned has Down’s syndrome.
Some parents
experience a period of grief as they come to terms with the dream versus the
reality. But what Andrew Solomon lifts
up in his book is the discovery that many parents make, that there is great
blessing to be discovered when we acknowledge and affirm the child that “is”
rather than the child that we imagined.
In my own experience with parents who have raised, or are raising
exceptional children, I have been encouraged to discover how they delight in
their children, even with the special challenges their child may present.
As a
Christian, I affirm the scriptural truth that we are all created in the image
of God; an image that is not marred by physical deformity, or mental slowness. There is a sense in which the voice of God
speaks to us the same words that God spoke to Jesus at his baptism, “You are my
Son, the Beloved; with whom I am well pleased.”
No matter how far from the tree we have fallen, we are precious in God’s
sight, and there is that of God in us.
Perhaps to be made in the image of God
is to be able to see blessing no matter in what guise it is hidden.
