Two words, meant a lot

Akila was great yesterday when she was with us. The one "Akila moment" was when Zeke was checking us in at church. Our church has a computer system that you check in on and we have a bar code thingie we can scan so the kids name tags print out. The kids take a turn each week scanning the bar code and printing the name tags.

It was Zeke's turn, and he ran ahead to do it. I caught up to him when it was his turn in line. Akila came up and went nuts as she thought it was her turn. I told her it was Zeke's turn, and she disagreed, in "Akila fashion", but not quite as excessively as normal. She was argumentative, rude, and called me a liar. I ignored her and was just trying to walk Zeke through the computer. She kept calling names, and when Zeke was just about done she walked away.

I turned around and a father who was waiting in line behind us smiled and said, "It's OK, " very encouragingly. I smiled said, "thanks, it's our life". What was so nice about this brief interaction was that the man was understanding, encouraging and not judgemental. I know he only said two words, but his smile, body language and patience spoke also. It was huge, and it was what I needed.

Often, when in an almost identical situation, you can see, feel and hear people's judgement and impatience- even at church. It was a beautiful moment, I have thought about it more than once in the last day.

The other great thing about this situation, was that when Akila walked away, she went to the water fountain. When I caught up with her, she had already moved on and was no longer angry. This is unheard of, and she has been doing this for 8 days. I really think that the new med, Abilify, is helping her a lot. There have been several instances at the crisis home, where she could have gone off the deep end, and did not. She was even kicked by another consumer last Thursday evening and the staff said she handled it really well. This is nothing short of amazing, nothing short of the Lord intervening when we really needed some hope.

Other than that little incident at church, she was very well behaved yesterday. I think we are getting very close to the point where she will be able to come home, and I am really looking forward to it. This is nothing short of a miracle, another thing I am so thankful for. God is good.