Baby Steps

I feel like Bill Murray in What About Bob.
"Baby steps off the elevator... Baby steps down the hall..." And then there's the fact that I could also be seen standing in the middle of town screaming for a shrink... But that's a topic for another day.
As for today, I got a miraculous phone call. And in all my excitement I completely forgot what the heck I was really so excited about. We have been hoping and hoping and praying and crossing our fingers to get our little man into a stabilization and evaluation place to get some more holistic and practical help. It is truly an amazing place... they do the evaluations that we desperately need (medical, psychiatric, academic, family etc) do intensive family therapy, teach about making safe choices, give parent training, wean him off medicines to determine what is necessary or not, and send him home on weekends with a family plan in place to try and try again. (all in 30-90 days!) We have been praying it would happen before Jarod deploys, and were elated to hear that it will be happening next month. Or I was elated anyway.
I kept trying to figure out why Jarod wasn't dancing with relief like I was, and then we sat down to process the whole thing. It took about ten minutes for me to join him in the devastation of it. We are sending a 4 year old boy who has tried for months to "get sent away" into a place where we will not be. Of course I know we're doing it because we love him and want him to have a chance at making it here in our family. But will he know that? Of course not. If he doesn't know after the last year that "being bad" doesn't get him "sent to mommy's house cause her's bad too" why in the world would he believe us now?
Am I relieved that help is on the way? Unbelievably. Did it just occur to me that our little guy will spend nights in a place where there is no mom singing lullabyes and no dad coming home from work? Yup. Might it be weeks before it hits me that he may see this as abandonment when we are giving it our all? You betcha. Once the relief wears off and I'm getting the help I need to make it home, will it split my heart in two that he may actually miss us and feel scared? Unspeakably.
And this is how it goes, with the ups and the downs and the doses of reality that God gives ever so slowly ... For our Creator is smart enough to give only doses. If ever the whole picture was presented at once; the highs and the lowest lows required on the journey... Would we ever really take these baby steps? I think not.