Spooky Hens

Catchy title, eh? That's what a friend of mine calls women who seem so "spiritual" they are barely here. Recently, I unwittingly sought out a spooky hen. Ever since giving birth to Eon, people in our circle have been encouraging me to call this woman since her daughter has Down syndrome, too. I was unready to cold call a woman that I'd never spoken to, until a few weeks ago when heart surgery was looming. I knew that this woman's child had undergone heart surgery and thought I'd drop her a line.


Admittedly, my expectations were probably a bit high. I thought we'd immediately connect over shared experience and brag on our children, discuss doctors and therapists, and reminesce about the moment of diagnosis. A full 90 seconds into the conversation and I knew I'd made a big mistake. She seemed so intent on discussing angel visitations and heavenly things that she made little earthly sense.



Throughout the conversation, it became abundantly clear that she really had very little knowledge of Down syndrome, which was very surprising to me given that her daughter is four years old. Most of the moms I've connected with have become experts on the subject by the time their kids are a few weeks old.



Unfortunately, at the close of the call, the reason behind the ignorance was shockenly apparent. She informed me that her daughter is being healed of Down syndrome, that even the physical therapist has noticed that she has less and less features of the diagnosis. And then she assured me that my son will be healed as well.

I was speechless. I so wish that I had stuck up for him. I wish that I would've told her that Eon is perfect, that he was created in the image of an Almighty God, that Down syndrome is a wonderful part of who he is. Instead, I mumbled something about needing to attend to my children and hung up.

In telling this story to other Ds moms, I've had some think that my point is that healing of Ds is impossible because a third copy of the 21st chromosome is in every cell of his body. Not true! I know that God could very well eliminate that extra copy if He chose to. He's God. My point is: Why would he want to? As Psalm 139 points out, God formed Simeon in my womb. His days were set before him before one of them came to be. God created him for a purpose and for His pleasure. I am blessed to be a part of it.

I'm sad for this woman's daughter. The best thing we can do for any of our children is to embrace them fully. I wonder what kind of message she is sending to her by insisting that she needs to be healed of the building blocks that shape who she is. Another friend of mine defended her by saying, "Well, she has a lot of faith." Does she? Is that what faith is - claiming that reality is different than it actually is? I don't think so and I'm pretty sure scripture backs me up. I'll get to that in a future post.