Liz: 0:13

All right, welcome to our one blessed mess. We're Ben and Liz and we're parents of six kids that we had in eight years. We are keepers of eight chickens. We're currently homeschooling. We also have a entrepreneurial home and in the midst of it we have how many teenagers.

Ben: 0:32

We have four teenagers, about to be five teenagers. Five Let that sink in just a moment. Yeah, almost five teenagers.

Liz: 0:40

Five teenagers. I mean we're basically running a youth group in our house. You should see our food bill. It is unbelievable how much food these kids can eat, or the laundry stacks.

Ben: 0:51

They're very big.

Liz: 0:53

How about the smell when you walk into these teenage boys' rooms? I mean, it's real.

Ben: 0:59

It's almost like a wet dog smell. I don't know how else to say it. It's kind of unappealing. I would say that maybe.

Liz: 1:10

Look, I just come in with air freshener. I'm putting thieves everywhere essential oils, everything that I can think of. But here's the deal. We have got an awesome topic that we want to dive into today, and it's pretty fun because I didn't know that when I married this lovely man that is my husband, that I actually married a mutant Ben's a mutant. Why don't you tell them?

Ben: 1:32

It's true, I had some genetic testing done and, believe it or not, I have a mutation on the 14th chromosomal pairing. I think I'm saying that right, don't crucify me. Is it the short?

Liz: 1:46

arm. Wait, is it the short arm? Wait, how do we do this? Is it the short arm or the long arm? How do you do that? I?

Ben: 1:52

don't know. You mean the T-Rex arm. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's what I was trying to say, and then how do you do the long arm, short arm?

Liz: 1:58

Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, so there's a mutation no-transcript kind of rising more, and he had just received his diagnosis and so they wanted to test this. They paid for it, which was pretty awesome, the children's hospital we were at.

Ben: 2:45

And then it was like a really in-depth form of testing, like a micro array or something or other test. It was very specific, it was very costly. I think if we had to pay for it it was going to be like about 10 grand for each test, each yeah.

Liz: 2:58

So, we would never do it, we didn't have the money for it. So we agreed to it because why not? And anyway, something comes back and they say we would like to get your DNA done for you, parents, we found something in our son and we want to see if you know, if there's something that's there and anyway ended up being that they rushed us through. Normally takes six months and within I think, like a couple of weeks we were in the geneticist's office.

Liz: 3:30

But before we went into the geneticist's office which, by the way, if you've never been in front of a geneticist, it is the weirdest experience. It's weird. Why is it weird?

Ben: 3:41

Well, it's weird because the whole time when you're there, they're looking at you. They're like looking at the proportion of your head, they're checking the size of your ears, your nose, and it feels like you're kind of like Naked. Yeah, like you just Naked.

Ben: 3:54

They're just analyzing you, you know and trying to figure out oh okay, could it be this, could it be? And I think we found out later. It's like there's so many things that are determined by our genetics you know the shape of our faces, all these things and so, like, if you've got someone that studies this all the time, then they're able to pick out, um, these these things and see if, like your, your DNA kind of matches your physical form and and and what's driving what. And so it felt like you were just being analyzed.

Liz: 4:23

It was wild and and here's the crazy thing we didn't even bring our son.

Ben: 4:27

Right.

Liz: 4:28

The guy was like the doctor was like you didn't bring your son. No, Nobody told us to bring our son, so then we had to get another appointment God bless them. And people are on the wait list for over six months just to get an appointment. You're on the wait list for six months to get an appointment within six months.

Ben: 4:44

But we should say so, okay, so.

Liz: 4:47

Yeah, so tell the story.

Ben: 4:53

So say so, okay, so yeah, so tell the story. So they get the test right, right.

Liz: 4:55

And then the geneticist is like okay, we want you two to do it, and so we're waiting about a week or two, I don't remember exactly how long, very quick, apparently I you get a phone call first, right, yeah, I get a phone call, I'm at home with the kids and I get a phone call and the lady on the other line I have caller id. Back then we had caller ID and I knew it was from the hospital. I knew where it was from and she says is your husband there? I said no, but I'm his wife, can you tell me? And she said no, I need to speak with him directly. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, okay. I said well, he's at work, here's his number, give him a call. So back then we had IM, instant Messenger on AOL, I think it was AOL, wasn't it?

Ben: 5:29

Or was it Gmail? I don't know. I don't want to get into all that because, good God help us, okay.

Liz: 5:33

Anyways, because Ben can go down that rabbit trail about all the technologies and I'm just like did it work? Okay, we did it Okay. So, anywho, I quickly message him and say, hey, Right, so you get a call.

Ben: 5:48

Yeah. So I get a call and I can't remember if it was the geneticist or if it was someone helping, but they asked me how I was feeling. It's like. I pick up the phone I'm like hi, is this Ben? Yes, this is he. He's like well, sir, this is someone for the doctor's office and I just would like to know how you're feeling today and, by the way, are you sitting down? And so a couple of things are going through my head. When they asked this question because it was news to them that I had some type of genetic abnormality. But think about it, I've never been without that genetic abnormality. So my normal, I would never know if I'm feeling okay or not based on not having this deficiency or mutation. Right, it was almost like they were asking me if I had a cold and if I was able to know the difference between having a cold and not having a cold. So it's just wild, right?

Liz: 6:48

Yes, it was wild.

Ben: 6:50

I've never not known what it feels like to not be a mutant. So yeah, it was a weird way to start out.

Liz: 6:56

So they tell him basically, you, basically there's this, whatever, whatever. We want you to come in and we want to talk to you. So we do, we go in and, honestly, there was only one other person at the time and what they told us is that as they're doing this genetic testing, they're going to find people all over the world with all kinds of abnormalities. Why is that word so hard for me? Anybody else out there have an issue with saying words sometimes?

Ben: 7:22

Not to go down a rabbit hole, but it might be kind of your thing. That's okay, we all have things. I'm a mutant.

Liz: 7:28

You can't say words correctly sometimes it's all good, let's not start.

Ben: 7:32

But the cool thing was our son was the first one that they found that had this specific abnormality. Now we tried to figure out like, was that really the case? And we did some other research, like a couple years later I personally found some other people with it. But I'm not again, I'm not a geneticist. I don't know what I'm looking for. So maybe there is something super unique about him and he's in a book somewhere At least that's what we were told, or that he's at least that's what we were told, or that he's at least in a few research papers.

Ben: 7:57

Yeah, but somewhere um turns out that he and I have a mutation and we're we're mutants.

Liz: 8:05

Yeah, they're mutants. So then you have to understand. Now Ben is all engaged about how he's a mutant and it's like a whole world open up for him. He's like do you think I can jump off buildings?

Ben: 8:19

Well, I mean, it didn't start out that way. I think it was more or less like what do I need to do to bring on whatever special powers I have from this mutation? Oh my gosh, and I mean I've seen all the movies, right.

Liz: 8:31

Walk through walls.

Ben: 8:33

I didn't know if I needed to stand a little closer to the x-ray machine the next time I'm at the dentist office or, you know, if I need to go get more sunlight or something. Maybe it might, you know something's going to activate it. And then one day I'll have these special powers and then you know, you guys will be jealous.

Liz: 8:49

Yeah, so you know, basically I married a mutant and Zeke did get this unique. Our son did get this interesting mutation from him not from me, but it was all about just seeing if his diagnosis that he had received was actually from a genetic from a genetic something or other. Yeah, and it wasn't because obviously you know they're learning so many things right now and actually with this topic, you know we were going through a really hard season.

Ben: 9:22

We were yeah, it's a funny story, but at the time, like it was very difficult because we were about three months, in from the diagnosis, I believe yeah.

Liz: 9:26

Well, I can't remember where we got the genetic testing versus when we found out, and yeah, anyways.

Ben: 9:30

so it was a little little time had lapsed, but we were still dealing with the fact that, you know, our son was diagnosed with autism, and what did it feel like?

Liz: 9:40

Well, you know, at first um, you know, I knew that he wasn't um developing like his older brother, and so I thought one he couldn't hear, because I would say his name but he wouldn't, he wouldn't respond, you know, like his brother was at that age, and what age was this I? Started noticing it at probably about two and a half three, probably more three and probably more three, because we already had our third child, a daughter, and he was nonverbal for a while.

Liz: 10:15

Yeah, he only had like 20 words up until he was about four and a half, you know. And and then he, you know he was a late potty trainer and I mean there's just so many things in it. But you know, I started noticing some things and and also too, it was like when he would look, um I, it looked like maybe he was having a hard time focusing with his eyes. So I thought, okay, maybe he's having a hard time hearing, um, cause another time focusing with his eyes. So I thought, okay, maybe he's having a hard time hearing, because another friend of mine, her daughter, actually ended up having a hearing problem. So she had her ears, her hearing check. Maybe he's having a hard time seeing and he can't communicate. So he's not really telling me. And anyway, long story short, I went to get him all these tests done and turns out he has incredible, impeccable vision and his hearing is so good that they tell me he can probably hear a dog whistle.

Ben: 11:01

And he has perfect pitch which we didn't find out until later.

Liz: 11:03

Yeah.

Ben: 11:04

But he's able to tell you exactly what key or note something is or what key something is written in.

Liz: 11:10

Doesn't matter where we are.

Ben: 11:11

We're not super musical. We like music but we're not musicians. But apparently that's pretty rare as well, and he's fantastic at it.

Liz: 11:19

Yeah. And so we can be in a grocery store or listening to a song in the car or something and say, hey, do you know what key this song is in? And he's like, yeah, it's da, da, da.

Ben: 11:28

I mean it's In fact. He's gotten so tired of telling us what key it is, he doesn't want to do it anymore. Yeah.

Liz: 11:32

Imagine that he has an opinion, and so, anyway, when we got his first diagnosis, it was pretty tough. It felt almost like a death sentence, and I think one of the reasons why it felt like that is because my understanding and my concept of what autism looked like, like I went to the nth degree of like this is terrible, what is his life going to be like? Because of where he was, um, I and and I didn't see it as an adventure yet, because it felt it felt like a death. It felt like all the things that I thought that that our son could be, do and have, uh, wasn't going to come to pass. And we've learned a lot through it.

Liz: 12:12

I mean, he is coming up on an 18th birthday, he's almost an adult, and so, you know, this is this is a long time ago. This is 15 years ago that we were, you know, embarking on this journey and and we've learned quite a bit. And that's one of the reasons why I want to talk about this in our One Blessed Mess podcast is because some of you out there may have somebody in your life that is going through this, where they just got the diagnosis or maybe the raising. They've already had it and they're raising somebody that's on the spectrum and there's different levels of the spectrum, of course. Our son was diagnosed as he got older with mild autism, high functioning, and you know we were worried, like when he first, you know, started talking and everything that he would never voice his opinion, he would get run over. What?

Ben: 12:55

did they call that? So he started off when he was talking. It was like he would almost parent oh echolalia, yeah, echolalia. So he would repeat what we were saying and we got him to help, we got him to therapies.

Liz: 13:06

We did a lot of things. But you know, we, we, for me I keep I'm saying we, but for me it felt like a death sentence. But I didn't see the beauty of the journey that was ahead and I remember the psychologist that gave that diagnosis. She said to me you know, this is, this is a gift to you, to give this to him. And I thought what I'm like? I think it's a curse, you know.

Liz: 13:31

I couldn't, I couldn't compute what she was saying, but now I understand because it helps us understand our son. It really does help us understand.

Ben: 13:39

And we did a specific training that really helped us kind of see how to appreciate our son in a different way. And it was out in Massachusetts and the program I believe is called Sunshine.

Liz: 13:54

Sunrise, sunrise.

Ben: 13:55

Sorry, sunshine, and we're going to put it in Similar things. Sunshine, sunrise, sunrise, sorry, sunshine and sunrise, and we're going to put it in the notes on this podcast too, because it so helped us. Yes.

Liz: 14:04

But basically what happened is somebody that I went to high school with their son had received the same diagnosis, and this is like back when Facebook was becoming a thing. So we were living in a different city than we grew up in, and I connected with them and seeing the story and reached out to them and they said you really should consider going to this program, and so we had to raise the money because we didn't have the money and we had to make arrangements. I was then pregnant with my fifth kid our fifth kid and we went out there and it was about a week long program for parents who had children on different parts of the spectrum and and and really had testimonies of people walking out of autism.

Ben: 14:46

And what was unique about this place is that they had pioneered a form of therapy that was, um, based around joining your child and joining with them in the activities that they felt comfortable with, and so those activities they would call isms. And so our son he liked to run, but you had kids there that we met. We didn't really meet the kids, we met the parents of these kids, but some of their isms were, you know, pretty fantastical. One of them was like throwing up in a toaster and then burning his throw up by pushing it down, and so all kinds of crazy stuff.

Liz: 15:22

Yeah, that was one of the extreme ones, yeah, and and I mean screaming um, some of them love driving in a vehicle.

Ben: 15:28

You know and they had to be driven in order to calm down for hours, hours, hours. The whole point of that therapy was that of disciplining them, or trying to see their behavior as negative or bad. You would join in with them, right? And so it made them feel comfortable, because here's this other human who's doing the same thing I'm doing in order to feel comfortable, and so it's a unique program.

Liz: 15:56

I mean, there's like a whole system in it. If this is something that you're interested in, do click on the link. And I mean we are definitely fruit of that. Yeah that yeah Of that program and actually the founders. Their son was diagnosed with autism way before he. What we see now and I mean this is back when they would put kids in institutions and so how this couple started and where they they went yeah, I mean, there's terrible things that used to happen, you know, in the 70s and the early 80s, but um, their son actually runs the program.

Liz: 16:32

I think he's still running it now. I am um connected, still on social media and see the testimonies are coming out and we, you know, still had our son in regular therapies. He still was, you know, doing um speech.

Ben: 16:44

He was doing.

Liz: 16:44

OT. Yeah, there was. He was in a special preschool which did ABA. But what we gathered from the sunrise program, what? And it's kind of like the redheaded stepchild out there for. I hate saying that, but it's kind of like what it is in the autism community.

Ben: 16:57

People are like oh, you know, and I do want to pause for just one second and say that you know, there there was kind of some drinking of the Kool-Aid there, like just a little bit of just weird spiritual influence. But one of the things that Liz and I both came away with was like why does this place feel so blessed, like?

Ben: 17:16

yeah, we were there when we were noticing, um, just just like what, how, how, how we were perceiving god's thoughts and feelings about this place. We just felt such warmness, such like love and affection and just um, just like a enthusiasm to be there, and we kept thinking like man, what is that? And then we realized, like here's a whole institution dedicated to the down and out, the ones who are kind of left on the side, and like that's God's heart, right, he's there for the broken heart, he's there for the ones that are the outcasts. And we just felt like man, these people are loving the unlovable and that's touching something in God's heart. And so we really felt like man, these people are loving the unlovable and that's touching something in God's heart. And so we really felt like there was just favor over this place. We didn't agree with all the you know, some of the spiritual stuff and or or maybe all of the therapy, but the fact that they love these kids and that they were really trying to seek their benefit was just amazing.

Liz: 18:16

Yeah, and their therapies were basically mirroring. That's what you're talking about. So it's coming alongside the child, no matter how old they are, and they have like a the way they do. It is really cool. I mean, you do need to dig into it and just see, and there's testimonies Our friends the friend that I went to high school with their son is thriving, he's working, he's a delight, he ended up being in our kids' piano classes, all those kind of things, and he's doing great. And our son is doing great.

Liz: 18:45

I mean he's learning to drive. He's in normal classes, he gets up and does presentations. He is our most introverted kid.

Ben: 18:54

Oh, by a long shot, Like yeah, not even close.

Liz: 19:00

When people come over to our house they typically will meet like all of our kids except for one. He's kind of like that cat that you know people maybe have in their house and you're like did you say you had a cat? I haven't seen your cat. And then all of a sudden, about an hour later, like you see the cat. That's how our son is Run by normally.

Liz: 19:19

He runs by and they're like, oh, you do have six kids, yeah, but he's like our most obedient. He's very scheduled personality, which is great, because his mom is the opposite. I'm not super like scheduled discipline. I mean we have a lot.

Ben: 19:30

He follows a process extremely well more so than any of our kids and when you teach him something, he really learns it.

Liz: 19:38

Yep.

Ben: 19:39

And he's super studious, he's super diligent and it's just a breath of fresh air because sometimes he'll even anticipate things. Like if you give him a chore right, he'll even anticipate when he needs to do it next. And that's like such a nice, I guess difference between some of the other ones, they don't always have that quality, yeah but he's faithful. Yes.

Liz: 20:01

He's very faithful and even though we walk through, so to speak, a dark night of our souls and all the paperwork, the IEPs, all the meetings that I've been in, the doctor's appointments, his file is like this thick, right, it's like really high. The other kids are like super small, you know, and but it's okay. I didn't know that when we received that diagnosis. The beauty that would come 15 years later and here's a young man who's almost 18, you know, and he's looking at his future. He's talking about when he's going to live on his own, he's talking about holding a job and he went from very few words to, I mean, he's still a man of few words, but he's very funny, he's very, very funny.

Ben: 20:51

This kid.

Liz: 20:52

Well, you know, humor is a sign of intelligence. He knows when to say it and when not to say it, and when to say it and when not to say it. And when he says it, it's so brilliant, it's so funny.

Ben: 20:59

That does remind me of a story where he had a good punchline.

Liz: 21:03

Oh no, how much time do we have.

Ben: 21:05

I think we can fit it in. Do you think we can fit it in? Yeah, I think we can fit it in A little longer episode but it's okay.

Liz: 21:10

Are you talking about? Was it a morning like this Was?

Ben: 21:13

So I had done something stupid recently, prior to this morning, and I had fallen off my bike and ripped a little tear in my bicep from the handlebars, which we won't go into. It was really dumb.

Liz: 21:27

But in our front yard.

Ben: 21:28

It wasn't even like riding in the trails. It was like me trying to get the bike onto the back of my vehicle so that I could take it to the trails. That's when I fell.

Ben: 21:37

And your shoes didn't clip the way you thought I was like clipped in and I didn't think I was and I tried to come out of my clips and I couldn't. So I just rode the bike all the way down like this and let go at the last second and the handlebars whipped into me. I was trying to move my arm to brace myself. It was a bad combination.

Liz: 21:50

It ended up with me, trip to Hilarious because this is funny, because this has to do with our son. Oh, yeah, yeah, answer the door, yeah.

Ben: 22:00

Okay, so I do this thing and. I have this hole in my arm. I probably can't see it.

Liz: 22:05

No.

Ben: 22:06

The handlebar hits right there and it's such a blunt force that it pops my arm open, like it felt like getting hit with a hammer, which I don't encourage anybody to try that. But just the way that the wheel whipped and I was pushing my arm anyways, bad combination pop my arm open. I look down, I see blood splurting, and so I'm like, oh crap, I just hit an artery. So I grab it, I try to get out of my bike and unclip the pedals and scramble up, and so I'm holding my arm.

Ben: 22:33

You know like running to the door, trying to knock on the door with my elbow, and Zeke sees me and he kind of starts laughing. He's like what are you doing, dad?

Liz: 22:41

And he's laughing at him.

Ben: 22:43

He didn't know the door was locked because I went out the garage and so I keep knocking and he kind of like laughs and moves away. So I go, I ring the doorbell with my nose.

Liz: 22:52

He's ringing the doorbell with his nose and meanwhile, you guys, it's like seven something in the morning, like 7.15. And we're trying to get kids ready for school. That's the day of a dentist appointment for all of them, because our dentist takes all six at the same time, and so I'm like we got a plan. We got a plan. And so finally, our son unlocks the door.

Ben: 23:09

Unlocks the door and I get inside and I'm like I need to go to the emergency room right now and I'm thinking how in the world do you need to go to the emergency room?

Liz: 23:19

and he's holding his arm. I thought he had broke his wrist. So I start screaming somebody get a cutting board, I need a lantern. And he's like what are you talking about?

Ben: 23:28

because I'm thinking I'm gonna have to strap his arm down so the reason is like mr macgyver so the reason is, she thinks that is because that actually happened um that's a whole nother story a whole, not son. And we had some quick thinking and we were able to strap his arm down after he had broken it with a cutting board and made it to the hospital that way. So, anyways, that's what Liz's first impression was that's what I'm thinking.

Liz: 23:48

And so he's like no, I need to go now. I think I busted an artery. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, do I call an ambulance?

Ben: 23:55

He says no, Just take me, just take me, you take me, we get there. It turns out it wasn't already, it was a vein, so that was yeah, that was good, um, but the doctor did tell me he's like hey, you might not want to mention the fact that, like you were, you fell in their front yard and it wasn't even on a trail it was like that's kind of a lame story.

Ben: 24:12

You need to, you need to make up a different story. So, anyways, I never thought of a new story, so unfortunately I got to stick with the lame one.

Liz: 24:19

So a couple of days after this is Easter.

Liz: 24:23

I get stitched up, okay so a couple of days after this is Easter and I had all the kids Easter baskets ready, and so we decided that okay, let's wake them up, we're ready. And I was like you know what? What was I doing Easter like 20 years ago, and I have this memory of I used to live overseas and I did a dance to a song called Was it a Morning Like this by Sandy Patty. So Was it a Morning Like this? All right, look it up, it's quite operatic.

Ben: 24:49

It was very popular.

Liz: 24:51

Yes, yes, very vibrato and so.

Ben: 24:54

How many times were you playing it that morning?

Liz: 24:56

Quite a bit, so I cranked it up as loud as I could to wake up the kids.

Ben: 25:00

We do that. We're kind of the weird parents we're like when we need to wake up the kids. Sometimes I will bang on the drum set as loud as I possibly can, or I will sing as loud as I possibly can which is, you know, nobody wants to hear that or we'll just crank up a song as loud as possibly.

Liz: 25:13

But anyways, liz felt impelled I felt inspired, so I get the music going and Ben is in a bathrobe because it's early in the morning and it's a fresh cup, hot cup of coffee.

Ben: 25:26

And he's sitting on Holding it with the other arm. I believe yeah, Because I-. Yeah, not his arm. I hurt my right arm. I was holding my left.

Liz: 25:32

Yeah, details here, details are important. So, anyway, I'm like remembering the dance that I did to this song on Easter Sunday years and years ago. And I'm doing it and the kids are getting up and they're like, oh my gosh, mom, what is this song? I'm like it's an amazing song. It was a morning like this, it was a morning like this. So I'm like remembering the movements and all these things. And, of course, ben makes some kind of snarky comment or remark to our daughter. I think it was like you told her she's making break. I don't know, but he said he said something, something, and she takes a pillow and throws it at her dad when she threw the pillow.

Ben: 26:09

It hit his arm with the coffee. I didn't think she realized I had coffee yeah, hand yeah, so she just she just threw the pillow right at me because you know, that's kind of normally how it goes.

Liz: 26:17

I say something, something snarky and get a reaction, but it hit me right in the coffee.

Ben: 26:23

It hit him in the coffee. The coffee went all over my arm, all over my stitches, all over my chest. Kind of gave me a little. You know it wasn't to burn like a third degree or anything like that but, it was definitely a red chest for a while.

Liz: 26:35

Yeah. And so I start panicking because I'm thinking it got in the wound. What are we going to do? So I'm like turn it off, turn it off. I'm like, oh my gosh.

Ben: 26:43

And the music's still blaring. Yeah, the music. I'm like turn it off and everybody's going crazy running around.

Liz: 26:47

Yeah, it was a little crazy. I'm like hurry, hurry, hurry.

Ben: 26:49

And then what happens?

Liz: 26:50

And then, out of nowhere, our son emerges right up and he goes. Was it a morning like this, oh my God.

Ben: 27:00

It was great timing.

Liz: 27:01

Great timing and I'm like well, maybe I don't know that's funny, but I need help, you know. And anyway we laugh about it to this day that was Easter, right yeah. It was just a couple years ago, yeah, but you know, that's our point is like we thought something and it's turned into something much more beautiful.

Ben: 27:18

Better than we could imagine.

Liz: 27:19

Better than we could have imagined, and we're so grateful for that. So you know when life feels like a death sentence. God is still on the throne Right, ben.

Ben: 27:28

Yeah, yeah, he is. And there's a verse that I was thinking about and it's in 2 Corinthians, and Paul's talking about. I'll just paraphrase it real quick, but basically he's despairing even of life. I'll just go into it. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we had felt we had received the sentence of death, but this happened, that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. And I mean that's a great corollary verse, right, Like when you think there's a death sentence. Sometimes it's just you got to take a step back and realize that God has a plan and he has a way to deliver you, and we just needed to change our perspective.

Ben: 28:22

And I'm glad we did. You know we found life in it and even when it felt like a death sentence and we were mourning um, and it's okay to mourn, it's okay to you know, to feel that at times it's just you can't camp out there. And we and we didn't. And we're so thankful because the Lord really has blessed us and it just. You know, we needed a little perspective shift and we just needed a little deliverance, and God's able to do that. He's able to bless you even in your messy life.

Liz: 28:46

That's true. I love that scripture, I love those thoughts and you know, our son is such a shining and bright light.

Ben: 28:54

He really is.

Liz: 28:55

He really is, and he's such a joy. I love mothering him. I love parenting him. He would call himself an Aspie. Yeah, they don't really give that diagnosis anymore of Asperger's.

Ben: 29:04

Right.

Liz: 29:05

But he would say he's an Aspie and there's an author that we want to talk about at some point on this podcast oh yes, favorite author, our favorite author, that we want to say thanks for being a part of Our One Blessed Mess today. Our acronym, what's our acronym?

Liz: 29:29

Ben 01BM 01BM, our One BM. We just want to also say don't forget to subscribe and share with a friend who you think may need this encouragement. You know, we're just broken people, we have a messy life, but we hope that it encourages others along the way. And we also want to encourage you to follow us on Instagram. Our handle is at our one numeric one blessed mess. Looks like the sign right here, but until next time, we just want to say embrace your beautiful mess, right? Because if our mess can be blessed, Then so can yours, so can yours.

Liz: 30:03

Have a great day, see ya.