Have you ever experienced disappointment in your life? Have you ever planned on enjoying something good only to have your plans go up in smoke? I suppose it’s only human nature to complain about how rough life is. After all, we never have enough money, or time, or opportunity to do everything we want. And so many of us recall times when we had to suddenly cancel a trip or dinner engagement because of some unforeseen happening. 

I want to share a story with you today that is about real pain and real disappointment. It is also a story which shows us that if we spend our life mourning our losses, or wishing we were somewhere else, we will miss out on so many of the special things that exist in our own life.

The story is entitled, “Welcome To Holland”. It is written by Emily Perl Kingsley. Emily has a child with Down Syndrome and is often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability. It is difficult for those of us who have not had a mentally or physically challenged child to understand how it would feel. When we start a family we all have great hopes and expectations about how we want our children to turn out. We look forward to running and jumping and playing with them and sharing in their successes in life. We never plan on having a child that is handicapped. You never hear an expectant mother say that she wants a baby that has health problems. But what happens when something goes wrong? What does it feel like to see that the baby you carried for nine months is born with a severe disability? As a father of three very healthy boys who have grown up to be very healthy young men, I couldn’t imagine how it would have felt like if one of them had been handicapped. That is until I read, “Welcome To Holland”. Emily describes the experience this way...

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum; the Michelangelo David; the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy and less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around...and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.

Now I understand. But this message is not just about people who have children with a disability. It is for anyone who has experienced real pain in life. It is for anyone who has lost a loved one; experienced a divorce; been in an accident; is suffering from a life-threatening disease; had to move away from home; or any number of other major life-altering events. It is about making new plans and reading new guide books. It is about letting everyone else talk about their trip to Italy and taking time to enjoy the windmills and tulips of Holland. For no matter how much pain you feel, or how bad your situation may seem to you at times, there are always beautiful, special windmills and tulips in your world. All you have to do is stop mourning and accept that this is the way it will be.

Welcome to Holland.