The Star Tribune had a good summary of the impact of having a child with a disability on the financial planning of a family in today’s paper. Appropriate levels of life and disability insurance, special-needs trusts, and other plans are all important and familiar to most families experiencing disability. Many of those plans are driven by a concern about what the future will hold, both for the child and for the rest of the family.
But being prepared or knowledgeable is not the same as living without anxiety. For me, those plans actually serve to raise my anxiety while I’m in the midst of thinking about and finalizing those plans.
Paul brought together both things – reasonableness and living without anxiety – in his closing of his letter to the Philippians:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice – always? Yes, the Lord is at hand! Do not be anxious about anything? Pray that God will help in all that we need. God will provide, even after we can no longer take care of our children with disabilities ourselves.
The Works of God 
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