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Dear Friend of All the King’s Horse Ministry, 

In our last Newsletter, I revealed how intensely challenging 2022 has been, even as I shared praise for Bryson’s love of horses at MECO Equestrian Center. Sadly, it will be several months before Bryson can  get back to his beloved horses. On December 1, 2022, Bryson broke his left leg (Fibula) after a fall in the home. I couldn’t safely move him, and at 36 years old Bryson experienced his first ever ambulance ride. The Wayne Emergency crew and Police force were nothing less than sensational. 

I’ve now moved his bedroom from upstairs to the main floor. This injury is non-weight bearing, and due to lack of motor control (Cerebral Palsy), Bryson can’t manipulate crutches or other devices to ambulate. Obviously, you cannot fall to the floor if you are already on the floor, so “scooting” across the floor is the only way to keep him safe. Until the leg is weight bearing, I must continue lifting his 200 lb. body from the floor to his bed, from the floor to to his TV watching chair and from the floor to the toilet (where I also provide daily sponge baths for him). To make things a bit more challenging, I recently tore the meniscus in my left knee. On some days, lifting my son is no less than excruciating. 

Only a few days prior to the broken leg I suffered a physical collapse in the home. I had been suffering from the flu and my body was weak and dizzy. I had gone to use the bathroom at 5:00 a.m. and never made it back to my bed. I was still unconscious on the floor  when Bryson found me at 10:00 a.m.. This was traumatic for Bryson, and he was deeply frightened. He kept calling: “DAD … DAD!”  without me responding. Finally, I awoke and became focused, saying, “I am fine Bryson. Your Dad was just sleeping here on the floor.


Do you ever get to the point of looking up to Heaven and wondering what God is up to? I mean, why do things have to be so intensely and continually hard in this world? I don’t know about you, dear reader, but to me, things often seem absurd and impossible. But when I think it through, I realize it has always been this way. Things seemed just as impossible on the very first Christmas! 


Below is an excerpt from my book, “All the King’s Horses – Finding Purpose and Hope in Brokenness and Impossibility,” describing how “impossible” things seemed one Christmas season at 7 years old for my crippled son when he was trying SO hard to learn to walk. None of his doctors or therapists thought this to be possible. Even so, he had just achieved 28 independent steps under tightly controlled conditions, with spotters all around him. 


CONSIDER ORDERING A COPY OF THE BOOK FOR SOMEONE YOU KNOW WHO NEEDS HOPE

HERE IS THE EXCERPT:

 
As mentioned, we were grateful that Bryson was no longer in danger of dying, but he was crippled far worse than Tiny Tim. And while Tiny Tim’s mind and speech were clear and sharp, our son’s intellect and ability to speak remained garbled and confused. I wondered if my son would ever run and jump into my arms as Tiny Tim ran to Scrooge at the end … 

All in all, this had turned out to be a fabulous Christmas. Yet as joyous and memorable as it was, our champion did not again achieve that magical number of 25 steps that season. Unforeseen obstacles were about to appear in his rocky path in the months ahead that would derail his march toward freedom, including a very distressing period of illness and regression, the worst yet. Sadly, Santa’s prediction of Bryson “walking all around” did not come true that next year, nor did it come true for several more Christmases to come.
 
Doubters abounded, as they always do when your chips are way down. The skeptics weren’t the least bit surprised by his regression, and they wondered why we continued doing his foolish “home program” at all. His record of 28 steps was now fading from view, and I couldn’t deny that this cherished goal had been achieved under tightly controlled conditions with spotters all around. My son was growing older now. For his own good, and ours, some thought we should settle him into a wheelchair. Others thought he might walk with the assistance of a walker one day. But on his own?! Crippled children run to their “Scrooges” at the end of feature films, but not in real life. There was no need to keep chasing unreachable fantasies, nor to keep pushing him so relentlessly.
 
Oh, how hard it is to keep pressing on, especially after traveling mile after endless mile of your personal marathon, and seeing no finish line anywhere in sight. Still, each successive December continued to bring a magical quality into our home. One year soon, Bryson’s little brother Tim left Santa behind, a very warm memory of his childhood, even as Janelle had done. With his much simpler mind, Bryson continued to believe well into his teen-aged years. Santa always left him a note, which I read each Christmas morning as he sat on my lap, listening eagerly. These many years later, I now realize I needed to write those notes of encouragement to my son even more than he needed to hear them.
 
The letters always made it clear that Santa was very proud of him. They encouraged him to keep working hard, promising him that good days were coming. Sometimes I searched for something honest and encouraging to say to my boy, while groping for something to salve my own struggling soul. Ever the aging child on my lap, Bryson kept clinging to his cherished dreams, looking to his dad to lead him toward hope. I never let him know how badly I was struggling now, but the temptation to give in to despair was immense. On my weaker days the whole damned thing seemed so impossible, my son’s progress, the saving of my struggling marriage and family, holding on to my career, all of it!  
 
Through the years I’ve come to understand that we all need to be reminded of something we tend to forget when our chips are way down. It’s always been this way, I think. Even the blessed mother Mary needed to be reminded, prior to the very first Christmas. The things spoken to her by the Archangel nine months earlier had caused her to be perplexed: “How can this be, since I am a Virgin?” Gabriel chose not to contend the point on her level, because on her level, he knew she was right. In human terms, the things he proclaimed to her that night were indeed impossible.
 
The Angel had reassured her by saying, “Do not be afraid,” but nine months had now passed, and not much had happened to assuage Mary’s fears. Joseph did not divorce her, or have her killed for adultery, as could have occurred in those days. Finally, he did believe her about the pregnancy, after he was visited by the Angel too. But that had not prevented others from talking. They had both been disgraced.
 
A decree had gone out from Caesar Augustus, and a long, wearisome journey was taken, on a donkey no less, through a perilous land full of thieves. At long last, they arrived in Bethlehem, exhausted, as time for her labor drew near. She had every reason to be perplexed, ever since the Angel first visited, but now, who could have guessed this?! No room in the Inn? She would be forced to deliver her child in a stinking, unsanitary stable. Mary’s life, much like yours and mine sometimes, had taken a turn for the absurd.
 
She viewed her predicament from every angle. She couldn’t begin to understand how this was all going to work out. As her pain intensified in that cold little barn, Mary groped to remember just exactly what the Archangel had told her nine months before. What reason had he given her not to fear? She remembered him saying, “Greetings, favored one.” Some favor, indeed! Her life was now a wreck. Maybe the Angel’s visitation was just a dream after all. Either way, it didn’t seem to matter anymore, as she writhed in the hay. Her life and her circumstances seemed more ludicrous and impossible than ever.
 
But I suppose if God intended to keep us imprisoned in the realm of the possible, He would never have sent that first Christmas at all. The Angel’s words were later recorded, but not for Mary. She has long since passed her test. It is now time to pass our test, and overcome our fears. Life ebbs away too quickly not to do so. 
 
When our most cherished dreams have been shattered, and it seems the doubters of our lives just may be right, when it appears we’d be absolute fools to dare to take even one more step forward, we need to remember something that is easily forgotten. God chose to enter our world during Mary’s darkest hour, even as the cry of a Baby pierced the blackness of that night. Mary finally did remember the Angel’s promise then. It is now time for us to remember, to lift our eyes to that Baby, and believe:
 
The angel answered and said to her… ‘For nothing will be impossible with God.’ Luke 1: 37
 

Bryson’s broken leg  will take several months to heal, followed by physical therapy (in the home initially)  in order to learn to walk again. But no one reading this newsletter should have ANY doubt but that he will get back up on his favorite horse very soon. In the meanwhile, we are watching lots of sports and Christmas movies and reading Christmas stories. 
 

Thank you and God bless you for your ongoing prayer and support for Bryson, me and for All the King’s Horses Ministry. Remember on Christmas, and all through the year, that when it seems Satan has every base covered, it is the Lord who wins in the end. Praise God, the promised Child has come, and He will never leave or forsake us. 

“We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.” James 5:11

“After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

Your brother in the battle for Christ, 
Barry Milazzo