Often, as we homeschool, our children's interests spark something in us that was never alive until it is awakened in them. My middle son grew a love for birds at a very young age. When we visited parks, I'd find his little one-year-old legs clumsily waddling to chase after birds who sat oblivious, feasting on grass seed. His delighted smile and innocent determination to catch them made me laugh. As he ran closer, up the birds would scatter, fanning across the sky like a splashing wave of oval polka dots. Together my son and I studied birds in books and drew many of the colored feathered creatures from all around the world using our Prismacolor pencils. 

Hummingbirds, to me, are a great representation of our journey through sensory processing issues. Outside my kitchen window I have cat claw creeper vines that cover the fence and burst with big yellow flowers, sunny bells, each spring. Jubilee plants also sing out most of the year with a trumpeting orange flower. Hummingbirds of all kinds love the nectar found in these plants and visit our yard often. 

For at least two years, ages 3 and 4, we allowed our son to ride his tricycle and scooter in the house, fast as a hummingbird from here to there. He needed the movement and sometimes rode with alarming speed, especially on the scooter. Because of his inability to gauge his body in time and space (proprioception), he'd sometimes bang into the large rounded corner wall of our mantle. As hard as he hit, he'd often get up and go again as if nothing happened. When I first saw this, I thought, "Wow! He's really tough. All boy." But later I realized it was much more than that. His sense of touch was not working and he did not comprehend in his mind or body the pain he encountered. For these kids, they cannot feel pain in their body due to a dysfunction with their sense of touch (tactile). The central nervous system has an inefficient processing ability to feel sensations (pain) through the skin. Contrarily, the same child can be over-sensitive to a touch and react as if they are in the most excruciating pain. Water drops on the face or head were like this for my son. He'd cry out in anxiety if even the smallest of water drops touched his face or hair. We went for months and months without washing his hair-a battle what was not worth the heartache.

My heart was aching one morning over our child's difficulties and situation when I heard something that I will never forget, "God wants you well." I did a double take and looked wide-eyed at my husband. "What?" I thought. How could the man on youtube know that for sure? Many scriptures were listed to back up that statement. It was at that moment that my hunger began to be satisfied with new truth. The atmosphere of my mind began to shift into faithfulness and a bold, radical belief that it was true. God did want my son well and, even more profound, the cross had already accomplished his healing. 

1 Peter 2:24 "by His stripes, you were healed." was a phrase that my 4 year old began speaking over himself. I spoke it over him often as well, and we began to understand this amazing, beautiful truth. God's absolute healing for every disease and sickness, in all it's fullness, was already accomplished on the cross. 

That simple truth radically changed not just the atmosphere of my mind, but gradually began to change the atmosphere of our home as well. Faith, combined with the Holy Spirit. Like a hummingbird, flitting here and there, the Holy Spirit began buzzing around us, sprinkling bursts of confident hope, raising our expectations of the Lord.