Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey and I’m Bob Lepine. How do you sustain a marriage when you’re the parents of a special needs child? We’ll talk with Joe and Cindy Ferrini about that today. Stay tuned.
Bob: Welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. We have mutual friends who have adopted children into their home who are special needs children: physical handicaps, mental handicaps, emotional special needs. I have always looked at those parents with a sense of awe.
Dennis: Admiration.
Bob: What a courageous, bold choice for a family to make. I think to myself: put in the situation would I make that call? These are families that have done it on multiple occasions. A special class of people. You know?
Dennis: Yes. There is another class of people that don’t choose but are given the same assignment. We have a couple who 27 years ago were given an assignment of taking care of a young lad who was mentally retarded and has cerebral palsy. They have cared for him his whole life. They are our good friends Joe and Cindy Ferrini who speak at our Weekend to Remember marriage conferences. Joe and Cindy, welcome back.
Joe and Cindy: Thank you very much, Dennis.
Dennis: We just appreciate you guys and how you minister to couples all around the country. You’ve been a part of a number of ministry outreaches in Cleveland. Joe, you’re a dentist and use that as a tent making assignment so that you can minister. Yet you have a ministry with your son that is quite amazing.
Joey has got all kinds of struggles and challenges. I want to ask you a question that I don’t think you quite answered on an earlier broadcast. That is: What is your favorite Joey story? Now Joey is 6’ 3”. He can read about 4th grade level. I know both of you have to have great stories. Joe.
Joe: You know, Joey, he’s quite the lover type guy. He loves to know that you love him. He needs to be reminded of that many times, as we all do, don’t we? I can be playing Playstation with Joey and just out of the clear blue sky he’ll touch my arm or pull my cheek towards him and he’ll say to me, “You love me?” I’ll say, “Yes, buddy, I love you.” He asks, “You my father always?” “Always, buddy. Never changes. Never changes, Joey.” Then he just gives me a big hug and kiss and says, “Aw, Dad, I love you.” I think that I am a blessed man. How many 27-year-old kids still hug and kiss their dad? I get that every day. That’s one of my favorite things about Joey. He’s real sensitive in terms of the basics of life, learning to love people, and appreciating being loved.
Bob: Is there a particular Playstation game that he likes?
Joe: Well, you know, it’s interesting. He can actually do that thing pretty good. He really can. I am really kind of surprised by it. He does his Power Ranger, Ninja Turtles. When it gets to that football stuff, Madden 2007, it’s more like he watches me play. I’ve got to tell you, I’m pretty good at that game.
Bob: Are you? (Laughing)
Cindy: And the reason Joey is good at this is because we allow him to play it a lot. He’s really mastered quite a bit of it.
Bob: You allow him to play it a lot because….
Cindy: Because it’s really convenient. (Laughing) He enjoys it. When parents would say to us, “I don’t let my children watch very much TV and I would not let them play these games.” We just say, “Plug them in and let them have a good time.” Joey doesn’t understand a lot of different things. He understands what he enjoys. And we say go ahead and enjoy it. There is no reason to fight against it.
Dennis: So what is your favorite Joey story, Cindy?
Cindy: Well, I love this one from when he was little. I have always wondered if I’d have someone knocking at my door from Social Services or something after this story. When the kids were little, as they were going upstairs for their nap, I would be behind them kind of patting them on their rear ends going up the stairs. I’d say, “I’m going to get up the stairs before you.” Joey would say, “Don’t beat me. Don’t beat me.” If you could hear the way he said it, it sounded like, “Don’t beat up on me.”
Bob: You were doing real child abuse here.
Cindy: That’s right. Those things never bothered me because I know what goes on in our home. But sometimes I think to myself, I wonder what other people might think if they were to hear that. Don’t beat me up the stairs. I want to win. Don’t beat me. These are the things Joey would be thinking. He makes life pretty fun.
Bob: Let me ask you guys about the two of you. Because 27 years ago when the doctor said, “It’s a boy,” you knew life was going to change and you knew your marriage was going to change but two years later when the doctor said cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Now your marriage is on a whole different course. Is there a unique struggle that married couples face when they are parents of a special needs child?
Cindy: Yes. When there are so many things that need to take place every day in caring for a child, we have realized that there isn’t often time just for us. It might be in an intimacy. It might be in a date night. Even just taking a walk around the block. We couldn’t do that when Joey was little. You can’t do that when you have little children anyway, but until he was about 25 or 26 years old we did not venture out of the house unless there was someone to care for him because we weren’t certain that he would be fine. So that puts a strain on the marriage in that you don’t have the freedoms to come and go.
You don’t have the freedoms to sometimes even express yourself in front of the family, even in terms of disagreements. We have taught our girls how to disagree by the way that we handle disagreements. The same situation put in front of Joey, he becomes pretty volatile. We have had to be very careful about things like that yet being real to our children in what our marriage is and what we want them to learn from it.
Dennis: So what do you do? You reschedule the disagreement for a later time? To have your more spirited conversation?
Cindy: Or we’ll go to another room. There are some things that we will not discuss in front of Joey just because of how he’ll respond. Even things on television, although this is not in regards to marriage, we have to be very careful what he watches. Some things are too much stimulus for him.
Even in terms of marriage, there are things we’ve had to let go of and maybe even make some sacrifices for and that is: always keeping our bedroom door open. We have to be able to hear Joey. He’s been on medication and has not had seizures for quite some time. When he was little we had to be able to hear if he were in distress at all.
Even know as a grown 27 year old, he will make his way up the stairs and come and lay in bed with us if he is afraid during a thunder storm. That’s a funny picture when you think of three adults lying in bed but he’s a three year old or a five year old in his mind. He’s a young person. Those are the kind of things we didn’t expect to be a part of our life.
Dennis: You know, I don’t want to get too graphic or ask a question that is inappropriate here. In terms of intimacy, how in the world can you concentrate on one another at a moment like that?
Joe: That is an issue. We have to plan ahead quite honestly. Fatigue is really one of the biggest issues for most couples. Intimacy is a tough thing to try to address in our marriage relationship. When Joey was younger he would get sick a lot. When Joey would have a fever and he would spike in his fever, he would go into a grand mal seizure. It was not unusual for Joey to have two or three grand mal seizures an hour. Sometimes that would go on for 24 hours. And clearly in those times, we were not having sex.
Bob: You were not having sleep.
Joe: I was so tired I wasn’t even thinking about sex. Actually I was thinking about it. We weren’t having it.
Dennis: That’s a problem with being a man. (Laughing)
Joe: It doesn’t go away. (Laughing) You have to think, he always got better. He always recovered from his seizure activity. Fevers went away and that was always a blessed time for us.
Now I can recall one situation where Cindy, and this is the truth here. This one scenario, it was just a couple of days of a lot of seizure activity for Joey. Cindy and I were in the middle of this very romantic moment together and Cindy says to me, “Did you hear that?” What? She says, “I think I hear Joey.” And I said, “Joey who?” (Laughing)
Dennis: Do I even have a son at that moment? (Laughing) I’ve got two questions for you guys. First of all, if you had to give a couple a piece of advice or maybe two pieces of advice who find themselves in a caretaking situation. Maybe it’s a child. Maybe it’s a parent. Some piece of advice that you’ve practiced or you’ve employed that has been incredibly energizing in your marriage. What would that be? Cindy.
Cindy: Well, I think for any young couple, when they have the pressures that there are in caring for someone 24-7, they need to be able to have, first of all, good communication with their spouse. I think that would be one piece of advice. Pamper that. Take time.
It may not be like your friends who are going out to dinner at whatever time they want to when it’s free and easy for them. It may be having a cup of coffee on your deck or back porch where you can just sit and talk about the things that are important to you. If you don’t have communication the rest of the things are going to be pretty hard to work through. So I think that’s the most important thing.
Even beyond the relationship of marriage, I think it’s very important to have very solid relationships. Not only with the people that you work with, like doctors. In some cases it might be physical therapists and so forth.
Teachers. Get to know your teachers well so that you get to know what your child is doing and then you can discuss that in your marriage. So that both of you know what’s going on. Then, have good friendships. Not everybody is going to embrace the life we have. We have a number of friends who don’t really understand what we deal with day to day. That’s okay.
We have close family that probably don’t understand what we deal with day to day. But the Lord has always provided people in our lives to be friends with us and to be able to be good listeners. That goes back to the communication aspect as well.
Our husbands cannot meet all of our needs and I as a wife will not meet all of my husband’s needs. We need relationships that will help us to pursue caring for this person. Have fun. I need girlfriends that I can laugh with, that I can go to lunch with on occasion. We can’t always go when our friends go together places. We haven’t been neglected there either.
Bob: This question is going to sound almost unthinkable to even ask it. But I have to imagine that you’ve had the thought, “It would be merciful of God to take Joey home.” Or to take me home. Have you ever prayed this?
Cindy: I can remember one night. It’s humorous now to look back because I’ve seen the faithfulness of God over all of these years. But in those desperate places, I can remember one night going to bed totally exhausted. I think we had three children at the time. I know we at least had two. I remember going to bed thinking, “There is nothing fun about this day. There is nothing fun about this life. There is nothing in it that is of any joy to me right now. And Lord if you would want to take me home right now, I know that Joe could marry another woman and she could deal with this.”
I woke up the next morning and realized that the person who was to be the one to do this was me. That didn’t change overnight in terms of there being more joy or there being less work but you develop each step of the way a different attitude to deal with what you have been given. I think when it comes to Joey my prayer is that the Lord would take Joey before He would take me because I want to be the one to care for him. If that’s one day before I die, that’s fine. I hope we don’t ever have to have him living with someone else.
Even though our daughters have been very agreeable, not because we’ve asked, but because they’ve offered, to take Joey. I am really hoping that we can care for him until we are old. That maybe somewhere along the way God would be gracious and allow for him to meet Jesus before we do.
Joe: It would be good to share the impact that raising Joey has had on Christina and her decision, in terms of criteria, for her husband. Maybe Cindy can share that story. She tells it so much better than I do.
Cindy: One night at dinner Joe was working and Christina was asking me a question about some friends of ours who were divorcing. We knew the difficulties that they had been through. She was 12 years old at the time. I couldn’t share the difficulties. They were private. I was sharing with her that there are times in marriage that sometimes people don’t believe they can get over the very serious nature of whatever their issues are.
She looked at me. I began to see the puzzle pieces coming together in her head, realizing that we have a crisis in our home and that is our son. She looked at me and said, “Mom, what are you going to do some day with Joey?” I said, “Honey, you do not have to worry about that because God will take care of it. Joey was entrusted to us, not to you. So if God wants you to have any part in Joey’s care later that would be fine but that is not something for you to be concerned about now.”
She said, “I just want you to know, Mom I would like to take Joey some day.” I said, “You don’t know if you will marry a man who will want to have Joey.” She said, “Why would I marry him?”
I don’t know about anybody else but at 12 years old that wasn’t the line of thinking that I recall having. She has never wavered from that. Even though both of them love Joey, she and her husband and also our youngest daughter Kathleen as well, they all love him and I know they are willing to take care of him.
If that’s the Lord’s plan, we’re fine with that but I really sense that God has used Joey to allow our girls to have a different purpose in life, a different way of looking at life than others might have. I think they are two lovely young ladies who have really grown to love other people with the same unconditional love that they have extended to Joey.
Dennis: We started this conversation by talking about a passage of scripture: Romans 8:28. To those who love God, all things do work together for good. They work together for God’s purposes.
Your story really points out that’s the case. Not only that you as individuals better understand love, but your marriage has a solid commitment that has withstood a gale force storm. Your family has learned lessons that could not be learned in any book, in any training conference, around life and around trusting God in reality, in growing up as you just shared about your daughter.
To that person who is listening right now, who is facing similar challenges it is about finishing today and then trusting God again tomorrow. Not giving up and not tossing the towel in. Joe. Cindy. I just want to thank both of you for the model of faith, commitment, and love that you have demonstrated to our listeners and undoubtedly to your community.
Joe and Cindy: Thank you.
Bob: Thanks for writing the book, too. Thanks for speaking at our Weekend to Remember conferences and for bringing Joey along with you to some of those conferences. Being able to meet him. I know that putting all of your thoughts down on paper for the book Unexpected Journey was a long process but it’s going to help a lot of parents. In fact we’ve got it in our FamilyLife Resource Center.
If our listeners are interested in getting a copy of the book, they can go to our website FamilyLifeToday.com and the information about the book Unexpected Journey is available there. Again the website is FamilyLifeToday.com. You can order from us online if you’d like or you can call toll-free, 1-800-368-6329, 1-800 F as in “family” L as in “life” and then the word TODAY.
I don’t know if the two of you have gotten a copy of the book that Dennis’ wife Barbara and his daughter Rebecca wrote recently called A Symphony in the Dark but we’ll make sure we pass along a copy of that before you leave today. We have that book in our FamilyLife Resource Center as well.
We want to encourage our listeners. If you know someone who has lost a child or a grandchild recently, Barbara and Rebecca’s book will speak powerfully and profoundly to those parents or to those grandparents. You can order the book A Symphony in the Dark by going to our website FamilyLifeToday.com or you can call toll-free, 1-800-FL-TODAY, and someone on our team will let you know how we can make arrangements to have a copy of that book sent to you.
Often times when we experience challenges or trials or we go through a season of suffering in life, one of the issues we have to wrestle with is the issue of forgiveness. Especially if the trial or circumstance is because of some way that someone harmed us or wronged us.
We had an opportunity not too long ago to sit down with Nancy Leigh DeMoss to talk about the subject of forgiveness. She has written a book called Choosing Forgiveness. We spent some time probing the practical and spiritual implications of this important subject.
This month we’d like to make a copy of the CD of that conversation with Nancy Leigh DeMoss available to any of our listeners who will help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. We are listener supported and so when you help support FamilyLife Today what you are really doing is making sure that FamilyLife Today can continue on this station and on other stations across the country. We appreciate your financial support and your partnership with us.
If you are able to make a donation and your would like to receive the CD from Nancy Leigh DeMoss, type the word “forgive” into the key code box on the online donation form as you fill it out at FamilyLifeToday.com, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. You can make your donation over the phone. Just ask for the CD with Nancy Leigh DeMoss or the CD on forgiveness. Again we are happy to pass it along to you and we so much appreciate you joining with us financially and helping to support this ministry.
Now tomorrow we want to encourage you to be back as we are going to hear a portion of a message that was shared recently at a seminary chapel on the campus of Dallas Theological Seminary as Joni Erickson Tada talked about how we understand suffering from a biblical perspective. Joni has a unique perspective on the subject of suffering that comes from more than three decades of being in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic. Hope you can be back with us as we hear that message tomorrow.
I want to thank our engineer today Keith Lynch and our entire broadcast production team on behalf of our host Dennis Rainey I’m Bob Lepine. We will see you tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.
© 2009 FamilyLife
