"Courage & Coffee"

"Why the name Courage and Coffee?"

I'm surprised at how often I am asked this question more than any other! Here's how it came to be.....

I began writing this blog months before I actually published it to the world. I kept the settings on "private" so only I would see it, and my blog had no name at that time. I just needed a place to get out all that I was feeling & thinking before I had a nervous breakdown......seriously. I was so overwhelmed with being the main caretaker of a chid with special needs. I felt as if I was thrown into the deep end of the "autism pool" without knowing how to swim. I was over my head & didn't know how to stop drowning. All I was trying to do was just tread water & get through each day one at a time.

Eventually I began to think that other people might be going through something similar as our family, so I decided to take my thoughts/family info public. I wanted others to know what dealing with an autism diagnosis was like for a family. But I still had no title.

I REALLY didn't want a title that had the word AUTISM in it. Don't know why, exactly.....I just didn't. But I wanted it to relate to our story of autism. One day, I began to think about what things got me through each day. What gets me out of bed in the morning when all I want to do is hide from the world or pretend that everything is perfect? What keeps me facing each day head on? What drives me to learn all I can about ASD as well as find ways to implement this new knowledge into parenting?

If you know me, I'm sure you can guess what it was. It was all God.

Without my faith & my Jesus, I literally would not have gotten out of bed in the mornings in the weeks after Ethan was diagnosed with autism. All of my strength came from Him.

During that first year, I clung to 3 Bible verses....CLUNG.

"Be strong and courageous.

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged,

for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Philippians 4:13

And the last one has meant so much to me that I decided to put it right next to my bed so it was the first thing I saw in the morning.....and it's still there.

The other thing that got me up & out of bed in the morning when I was so overwhelmed? That first cup of coffee in the morning. I would program my coffee pot at night, so the smell of coffee would waft into the house at the exact time I would need to get up for the day.

Literally, those are the things that kept me going in the early days after diagnosis. And so, Courage and Coffee was born. And I'm not gonna lie, folks......there are STILL some days that require these things to get me out of bed.

How about you? What helps you put one foot in front of the other when you just want to stay in bed?