What My Faith Says About My Children's Autism
I committed my life to Christ one Sunday morning sometime around the year I turned eight. The Sunday school teacher explained about choosing a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I turned to my little sister and told her, "I want that. You're coming with me." We marched up to the teacher, declared our intentions, and never looked back.
Years later with imminent parenthood looming I thought about that moment. I knew I wanted my children to choose a relationship with God for themselves. How did I make that happen? I'd have to present the gospel in the best light possible. I would do and say all the right things all the time to show my children how awesome God is.
Don't laugh. A lot of young parents have this delusion that they can get it right all the time. Some of us get the message early on that such perfection is humanly impossible. Others struggle on striving to reach that unattainable goal making themselves and their children miserable.
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Most Christians who've been around for more than a minute understand that our plans and God's plans are two different things. I couldn't have imagined raising two autistic children and three neurotypical children if I tried. Through moments when I cry out to God, "Dude that is awesome!" to moments where I grumble, "Really, this is what we're doing today?" There's no making this stuff up. Yes, I call God dude. We've been friends a long time and we've been through some stuff.
Thanks to a gracious God and inventive children, I understand more the fullness of Psalm 139:13-16. As I learn more about who God made my children to be I appreciate the time and care he took in creating them. I marvel at the way their minds work and how they see the world. I rest in the knowledge that for all the things about them I may never understand God knows each quirk, gift, and flaw more intimately than I ever will. I am humbled by the knowledge that as much as I love my children God loves them more, and more perfectly, than I ever could.
On those nights I fall asleep on the floor outside a child's bedroom, because drama, or those days I grumble that my husband and I really should have bought stock in a cleaning supply company, because more drama, I know that God's truths about my children will never change.
"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."
Psalm 139:13-16 ESV
