All Things Work Together for Good

 

Pretty well every weekend Chelsea comes home to stay. Once in a while we want to go camping or take a weekend trip somewhere and it disrupts her schedule. She is an extreme creature of habit! She always knows what day and month it is and always needs to know what comes next. Every Monday morning when I drop her off she will say, “Wednesday night supper?” and then “Friday sleep over?”

 

So sometimes it’s good to disrupt the schedule so that when it’s needed it isn’t too hard on her. A couple of months back we decided to do just that, and I told her that I was going to be busy on the weekend and that she would be staying home (at the group home) for that weekend. Of course, her dad often picks her up for dinner or overnight too, as he did on this particular weekend.

It had been way too long since we had been to church - what with Covid and also even before that we didn’t go often because if Chelsea came with us she would just lock herself in the bathroom the whole time, plus we would need to take two vehicles because she wouldn’t ride in a vehicle with my husband and I together. – so this weekend we decided it would be the perfect opportunity to go to church. We had been wanting to try out the church 20 minutes out of town in the little village of Rolla.

 Sunday morning came and it was snowing. Chelsea’s dad texted me and asked if he could drop Chelsea off with me for a couple hours so he could plow snow. I told him I had plans and that he could just take her back to the group home. We got ready and went to church. As we are pulling into the church parking lot Chelsea and her dad pull up. (I guess he didn’t have to plow until the afternoon)

Chelsea wanted to sit close to me so I pulled a chair over where she could be close but still have lots of her own space. She did really well that first Sunday. No meltdowns. No locking herself in the bathroom.

 The following Wednesday evening when I picked her up for dinner I said, “wasn’t that a nice church? That’s where we are going now.” And so the precedence was set! That was it! Now we had to go! We couldn’t wait a week or skip a week. Otherwise Chelsea would think, “well maybe we won’t go. We didn’t go last time.”

 Sunday morning I woke her up and told her, “we are going to church, but you don’t have to

come. You can go back to the group home until church is over or you can go with dad.” Immediately she said, “Dad!” I could see she was not in a good mood and very stressed, but I went about getting ready and just let her process everything on her own. About 20 minutes later she quietly says, “come with you?” I said, “Of course you can.”

 I was shocked at how well things went. There were no signs of anger or stress for the whole 20 minute drive and as we pulled into the parking lot she giggled and said, “out for lunch after?” Ummmm ….. No! I’m not quite ready for that yet. You see I have anxiety from past trauma too. We have had many incidents of throwing things and hitting and restraining that were really not pretty and have left a lot of trauma. Anyway, she did so amazing that first Sunday. Remember how I said the precedence was set? That means we have to go! Every Sunday. If we skip one she will think we can do it again and the battle will start again. Most Sundays she has still not enjoyed the idea of going but has gone with no incidents or tantrums. Until this past Sunday. She got up and put on “Sunday clothes” and didn’t even try to suggest that we not go!

I expect we will still have some rocky Sunday mornings but a huge hurdle has passed. However, it’s not just that we can now take her to church. We also get to take her on a 20 minute drive every Sunday each way! There’s a huge back story to the whole driving in a vehicle thing and maybe I’ll do a separate blog just for that, but for now I am rejoicing in how all of the circumstances turned out just how they should.