Feeling a Bit Lost?
There have been seasons in my life where I’ve found myself in totally unknown, unfamiliar territory – like when my son was reacting to every food I fed him and I had no idea what was going on or what to do.
Written by Sarah McGuire
(Free download inside)
Have you ever felt lost? I’m slightly directionally challenged, and before GPS there were times I’d be driving and suddenly I was in a town or city where I hadn’t planned on being. Sometimes that was scary, sometimes inconvenient, and sometimes it was fun as I discovered new places.
I accepted this about myself and used it for my benefit. When I moved to a new location, I’d just drive around, get lost and find my way home (with the help of a map) repeatedly. After doing that a few days, I had a pretty good mental map of the area and would no longer get lost or need to refer to a paper map very often.
The thing is, I had a goal, a destination. Even though I didn’t take the most direct path, I was not wandering aimlessly; although, if anyone was watching, it might have appeared to them like I was. I had a destination in mind, I just didn’t know the route to get there. Sometimes my life feels like that.
There have been seasons in my life where I’ve found myself in totally unknown, unfamiliar territory – like when my son was reacting to every food I fed him and I had no idea what was going on or what to do. Or when it was obvious he had significant developmental delays and major sensory issues that prevented us from going to most public indoor spaces and turned our lives and routines upside down. Not even upside down, it obliterated any type of normality.
It was just like showing up in a town where I hadn’t expected to be and having no idea how to get to my destination. Only, there was no map for reference to find my way. I just had to try one route and see if it got me where I wanted to go. And if it didn’t, try another.
Does this doctor have answers? No. Okay, how about that doctor? No. Well, what about this therapy or that intervention? No answers in western or allopathic medicine? How about in alternative medicine? And I just kept wandering, referencing various research, and trying different routes until we made progress in the direction of our desired destination – the ability to eat foods without reactions, improve cognitive function, and stabilize or decrease sensory sensitivities.
Wandering, feeling lost, and not having clear direction feels uncomfortable. It’s scary. Thankfully, I have a personal relationship with God who loves me, knows all, and sees all.
Even though I may feel lost and not know where I am or how to get where I’d like to be. He knows. He knows not only my practical needs, the destination He has in mind for me, but also what my heart, mind, and soul need along the way. If I stick with Him, ask for, and follow His guidance, not only will I get to the destination He has planned for me, I’ll be a better person when I get there. (If you don’t know Him, I’d be happy to introduce you.)
I’ll leave you with a poem I love from Corrie Ten Boom. If you don’t know Corrie’s story, she was a Dutch lady who helped shelter Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. She went to a concentration camp for it and lived to tell her story. So, she knows a bit about dark, hard circumstances in life when you don’t understand and don’t know what’s ahead on the journey. Her book The Hiding Place is a worthy read!
To download your own copy of this poem, click here.
Sarah McGuire is the Mom of two boys and co-founder of Hope Anew, a nonprofit that guides parents to Christ-centered hope and healing. You can follow Hope Anew on Facebook here.
Embracing God’s Love for Special Needs Parents
A few years ago, I was having an exceptionally hard day and I felt myself getting angry at God. “Why God? Why is everything so hard? Where are you? You’re supposed to be a good God and I don’t see you doing any good in this situation.” Written by Jenn Soehnlin
This special needs parenting journey is challenging. Sometimes it feels like we’re drowning in appointments and anxiety, and other times it all seems manageable, but either way, something will happen to throw a monkey-wrench in everything. Something hard, as if we weren’t experiencing enough hard as it is. A rough day. Another diagnosis. A financial hardship. A sickness or hospitalization. Or our current situation of the spread of coronavirus and our social distancing and losing the village that we relied on--our churches, schools, children’s therapists and specialists, etc. It is easy in times like that to feel overwhelmed and to ask God a plethora of questions.
A few years ago, I was having an exceptionally hard day and I felt myself getting angry at God. “Why God? Why is everything so hard? Where are you? You’re supposed to be a good God and I don’t see you doing any good in this situation.”
I raged silently at a God who felt just as silent.
I knew I desperately needed some time to be alone with God, but my boys needed dinner and attention. And then, bedtime rolled around.
After my older son, about four or five years old at the time, was all snuggled in bed and we had read his book before bed, we prayed together. Sometimes I did the praying, sometimes we did prayers fill in the blank style as he could only say one or two-word phrases. I would say “thank you God for ____” and then he’d respond with something he was grateful for. Usually it was Mama or Dada or Baby (his little brother) or Birds (what he called his ipad because he loved to play Angry Birds on it) and so I decided to go with the fill-in-the-blank style prayer.
Me: “Thank you God for ____.”
“Eesus!” he said with a grin.
I choked back tears as I told him, “Yes, thank you God for Jesus.” I’ve never had any indication that he understood anything relating to God, Jesus or Bible stories, except for identifying “baby Eesus” at Christmas time. I’ve never prayed before using the words “Thank you God for Jesus.” It was his own spontaneous thought and it filled my heart with hope and joy.
We finished our prayers and I kissed that precious little guy goodnight and as I left his room it hit me: God had answered my angry prayers through the mouth of a child who would need years of speech therapy to be able to talk like his peers. I had demanded God tell me where He was and why it felt like He wasn’t caring for us. And He gently reminded me that He loved me and my children so much, He gave us Jesus.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV
Oh, how amazing, how incredible is that?
The more I thought about God giving us Jesus, I realized that the Creator of our universe can relate to our special needs parenting journey in three unique ways that can encourage us:
God treasured His child, even before His child did a single thing.
“After his baptism, Jesus came up out of the water and the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” (Matthew 3:16-17 NLT).
Jesus hadn’t yet done a single miracle or shared a parable and yet God was proud of Him. He called Jesus His beloved Son. He found great joy in Him.
And as parents, we do the same thing. We love them the moment we first meet them, and even though they need us to do everything for them, even though they cannot do a single thing for us in return, we love them. No matter how much care they need in their lifetime, we will still love and treasure and advocate for our child. They don’t have to do anything to earn our love, we just love them with all of our beings and are willing to do anything to help and protect our children.
God watched His child be rejected, struggle, and suffer.
God knows what it’s like to see your child suffer and struggle. He watched people not understand His son, watched them mock and test His son. He witnessed His child get beaten and whipped, carry a heavy wooden cross, and then have nails hammered through His wrists and ankles pinning Him to that cross. His son suffered for hours, and I’m sure God longed to take His son off of that cross, to hold Him tight in His arms, and take His son far away from the cross. Oh, yes thank you God for Jesus!
He knows how much we love our children, and the greatest thing of all is that He loves our children even more than we do.
He joins in our heartbreak when we watch our children experience pain or go through medical procedures. He grieves with us when we watch our children struggle to do things that come so effortlessly to other children. He understands our longing to change the circumstances for our children. He understands our pain when we see our children not be understood by others or mocked and excluded by others.
God had a greater plan, and it was for our good.
But God had a plan. He knew there was a glorious purpose in His dearly beloved son’s struggles and suffering. I’m sure that didn’t make the pain and helplessness go away as His child hung on a cross. His love for His son was as fierce as ever, but His love for you and me and for our children and all of humanity was steadfast and unwavering. Yes, thank you God for Jesus!
Sometimes we have a plan for our children they cannot see. They cannot see the purpose in a medical test or a procedure or the therapies they go to, but we know the purpose for it. They don’t always see us advocating for them with schools and insurance companies and our churches, but we advocate because we have a plan and goals in mind to help our children be included and get the supports and services they need.
We may not see all the details of God’s plan and purpose on this side of eternity. We will see glimpses of it here and there, but it is in trusting that God has a plan that will help bring hope, purpose, and meaning to this special needs parenting journey.
“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.” 1 John 4:9 NLT
Yes, my son was definitely onto something. Thank you God for Jesus!
May we be able to grasp God’s unstoppable, never-ending love for each of us this Holy Week and always.
Bio: Jenn Soehnlin is a middle school English teacher and mother to two boys who are precious blessings and who both have special needs. She is the author of Embracing This Special Life: Learning to Flourish as a Mother of a Child with Special Needs.
Jenn enjoys blogging about faith, praying Scripture, and special needs parenting at www.embracing.life. You can join her Facebook group for special needs mothers Embracing This Special Life for online support, community, and encouragement.
Why are you doing this God?
The cry of the person in the midst of crisis. The demand of a parent with a special needs child: Why did this happen to my child? Why did this happen to us? To Me?
Written by Kevin O’Brien
Why is this happening God?
The cry of the person in the midst of crisis. The demand of a parent with a special needs child: Why did this happen to my child? Why did this happen to us? To Me?
Often, perhaps too often, we are afraid we know the answer. Last month we looked at the possibility that it was our fault. In John 9 Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth. The disciples ask Jesus whose fault it was.
Jesus responds that it was no one’s fault, it was for God’s glory.
So if it’s not our fault, why would God allow this to happen? Why would God cause this to happen? Because one or the other seems to be the implication. It doesn’t really matter if you lean more in the direction of God making the suffering happen or allowing the suffering to happen, the end result is the same. Suffering is here and you are in the middle of it.
We are not alone in asking this question. The writers of the Psalms, especially David, ask why God would allow suffering. Job asks God straight out:
If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
you who see everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?
Job 7:20, NIV
Lots of people offer us reasons why God might allow or even cause something so painful. All too often the reasons are more than a bit like those of Job’s friends. They sound pious, they may even contain some truth, but they make a very significant mistake. They claim to have certain knowledge of the mind of God when it comes to the very specific situation we face. Knowledge they simply can’t have.
God never answers Job’s question. He doesn’t explain. The closest Job gets to an answer is in chapters 38-40. There God demands to know if Job really has the standing to question him. God asks Job, “Do you really want to correct me? (40:2); is your sense of justice really greater than mine (40:8); do you have the power that I have, the power to save? (40:9-12); do you know the secrets of the universe (Ch. 38-39).
The bible is full of people crying out to God in their suffering. We see it in the Psalms. There is an entire book called “Lamentations”. The issue is not grief. It is not asking why. Job is not condemned for asking why. God challenges him for questioning his character.
The implication is clear: Job, you don’t have enough information to make the kind of judgment you are making. You don’t have the perspective you need to say that I have mistreated you. Because that is really what we are saying when we blame God for whatever is happening. God, this is your fault and I don’t deserve it. You are mistreating me.
Why is not the problem. It is a perfectly good and legitimate question. We need to ask why. the problem is that we cannot live there. In the midst of our suffering we are tempted to.
God generally doesn’t give us the answer to our whys. He doesn’t tell us the reason for suffering, instead the Bible tells us (repeatedly) to expect it. So the question we really need to be asking ourselves is “can I trust God even when I don’t understand?” If we really believe the God is who He says He is in the Bible, then as hard as it is in the moment, we know the answer is yes. From Genesis to Revelation God is the God of good things, the God who creates a good universe (Genesis 1), the God who is light not darkness (1 Jn 1:5), who comes to save His people over and over again, especially and finally in Jesus, the God who will one day set all things to right (revelation 21-22).
This does not make the road easy. It does not erase the suffering. But it does offer hope.
The hope that while we do not always understand or even see the way forward, we can trust that God has our best in mind and as the apostle Paul says to the church in Philippi:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Rom. 8:35,37 NIV
Written by Kevin O’Brien
Kevin O’Brien is a husband, father, ordained minister, writer and volunteer theologian. He holds a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary where he won the Th.M. award in 1997. He has also done graduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Kevin worked as a brand manager on the Bible team at Tyndale House Publishers. During his time at Tyndale he has helped to develop several Bibles and has written articles which have appeared in The Way, the iShine Bible, and the Illustrated Study Bible. He also wrote a series of devotionals for WAYFM’s World’s Biggest Small Group.
Most recently, Kevin wrote an Advent devotional eBook. You can find it here.
Kevin lives in the far western suburbs of Chicago with his wife, three children, a dog, and a cat. He would prefer to spend his time reading, writing, woodworking and watching the Chicago Blackhawks.
Whose Fault is This?
Let’s face it, at some time or another many of us, maybe even all of us parents of kids with special needs ask the question. Whose fault? Why did this happen? Written by Kevin O’Brien
Let’s face it, at some time or another many of us, maybe even all of us parents of kids with special needs ask the question. Whose fault? Why did this happen? We can go through all kinds of scenarios in our heads. Some of us lean to the scientific looking at or for all matter of causes: genetic, environmental, what have you. Some of us, especially Christians, lean entirely spiritual. We leave no spiritual stone unturned. We look at ourselves and our spouses. We may even look at our child. Either way, we are looking for a cause. We are looking for fault.
It’s entirely understandable. It’s perfectly normal. I would be lying if I said I haven’t done either. I have. I have wondered about the scientific and the spiritual reasons. I have blamed myself. I have wondered about genetic histories of myself and my wife. I have wondered what it was that I did to cause this. My guess is that you have too.
We are not alone in that belief.
In his Gospel, the apostle John recounts the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. Perhaps you remember the story: Jesus spits on the ground making mud, puts it on the man’s eyes and he is healed when he washes in the Pool of Siloam. It’s an interesting story on several levels. Kids love it because they learn that Jesus spits! (And they wonder if that means they have a pass to do so too). Churchy adult types may not be quite sure about it, but the spitting is not really the point. As a rule we forget about the controversy that follows, but this one healing causes a whole lot of upheaval. The story takes up all of chapter 9, and is very much worth reflecting on in its entirety. The point of the story is found right at the beginning in verses 1-3, before the healing even takes place.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
John 9:1-3, NIV
Whose fault Jesus?
This is not the crowd asking the question, not the religious leaders trying to trap Jesus. It was the disciples. They drew a conclusion, a conclusion that seemed perfectly natural to them. It seemed, after all, to flow directly from the Law in Exodus and Deuteronomy and Numbers. Jesus’ response is truly freeing.
It is not his fault.
It is not his parents’ fault.
Fault is really not at all the issue in this case. The issue is the glory of God. God’s glory shines through this man’s life because Jesus heals him. But God’s is at work in more than the healing of this man. The healing helps the man, to be sure, but it does far more. It sets in motion a fierce debate about sin and blindness, about who is from God and who is not, who is with God and who is not. In short, this man’s disability becomes the catalyst to see Jesus for who he is and by extension God for who he is.
God’s very nature, his compassion and humility, are seen in and through the suffering of this man. The disciples are impacted by this man. So are his neighbors and his parents. The Pharisees were forced to confront their unbelief because of this man.
For those of us with children who are disabled in some way, determining fault may feel important, but it may be the wrong question entirely. I am not saying that medical causes or treatment are unimportant (of course they are or Jesus would not have bothered to heal the man in the first place). I am saying that there is something even larger at stake.
Today, when we think about ministry and special needs, we generally think about ministering to people with special needs. Perhaps in ways that we have a hard time conceiving, it is those with special needs who are in fact ministering to us. They show us how to have mercy and show compassion, they teach us patience and yes even joy. They may well force us to confront the reality of Jesus like the man born blind.
Sometimes the crucible of suffering is exactly what we need to have our eyes opened to the light of Jesus. It is not easy. It is no doubt not the path we would choose. But as John shows us in this episode, in Jesus we see a God who is in the business of subverting the difficulties and tragedies of this world. That is a gift.
Written by Kevin O’Brien
Kevin O’Brien is a husband, father, ordained minister, writer and volunteer theologian. He holds a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary where he won the Th.M. award in 1997. He has also done graduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Kevin worked as a brand manager on the Bible team at Tyndale House Publishers. During his time at Tyndale he has helped to develop several Bibles and has written articles which have appeared in The Way, the iShine Bible, and the Illustrated Study Bible. He also wrote a series of devotionals for WAYFM’s World’s Biggest Small Group.
Most recently, Kevin wrote an Advent devotional eBook. You can find it here.
Kevin lives in the far western suburbs of Chicago with his wife, three children, a dog, and a cat. He would prefer to spend his time reading, writing, woodworking and watching the Chicago Blackhawks.
Seeking Solace In The Pain
Over the coming months, I want to look at how we, as parents of children with special needs, tend to respond to the reality that we face on a daily basis. We do not suffer in the way that our children do. But we do far more than simply see these things happen to our children. We “suffer with” in a very real sense. The heartache is real, the concern is real. The pain is real. Written by Kevin O’Brien
Job tells the story of a man whose entire life was taken from him in a single day: his property and livestock stolen or destroyed, his servants and children killed.
Seven sons.
Five daughters.
7,000 sheep.
3,000 camels.
500 yoke of oxen.
500 donkeys.
“a large number of servants.”
“This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1 NIV) yet he was struck with the starkest of pains. Natural disaster and human evil together devastate Job’s life. Like us, Job cries out to God in despair. Job chapters 3 and 6 show the depths of that despair: he wishes that he had never been born, that God would grant him the release of death. He cannot eat, he cannot rest, he is completely undone.
If only my anguish could be weighed
and all my misery be placed on the scales!
It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas
Job 6:2-3a
As a parent of an autistic child, Job’s words feel familiar, I have felt the same sting. Of course, he suffered far more than I, his calamity is far greater than mine, but in his anguish I dare to call him brother.
The problem with the book of Job is that it doesn’t do the one thing that you want it to do. It doesn’t tell us why pain and suffering exist. We all ask why. We all want to know the reason for our suffering, that it somehow matters. We want it justified. And as a rule, we don’t get an answer to this question. The book of Job in particular and the Bible as a whole do not set out to give systematic reasons for evil and suffering. There are pointers to be sure, but more so there is an assumption that suffering is a part of the world we live in. The bigger questions then, are how does God relate to us in this suffering, and what is He doing about it. The question for us is how should we respond?
All too often we buy into the modern, western notions that everything should work out for the best in every situation and if it doesn’t then there has got to be an answer. We have to find some explanation, something or someone to blame.
Barring that, we may deny the reality of the suffering altogether because it seems to somehow contradict what we believe about God and the nature of his interaction with the world. Are we afraid of what will happen if the truth gets out? Are we afraid of what will happen to us, to our belief, our world if we don’t have nice neat answers? Sometimes I think so.
Over the coming months, I want to look at how we, as parents of children with special needs, tend to respond to the reality that we face on a daily basis. We do not suffer in the way that our children do. We do not experience the often overwhelming and pervasive issues of being misunderstood, of not being able to cope with things that others take for granted, of not being able to communicate or see the world in the ways that “everyone else” does. But we do far more than simply see these things happen to our children. We “suffer with” in a very real sense. The heartache is real, the concern is real. The pain is real.
I have found that there are basically four responses we parents of special needs kids have when confronted with the often stark, in your face reality of the suffering of our children and yes, our own suffering. Perhaps one, perhaps all of them reflect your experience:
Whose fault is this?
Why would God allow this to happen/why would God do this?
It is all the devil’s fault.
Fault? There is no fault, how dare you suggest that?
All four responses are entirely understandable, but none of them, I find, truly address the reality that we, and our children, face. I believe there is a better response. Harder, but better. It is realizing that God is a God who suffers with us.
So if any of these four responses feel familiar (or if all of them do) I invite you to take a journey with me to explore how we might better respond to the suffering we face.
Written by Kevin O’Brien
Kevin O’Brien is a husband, father, ordained minister, writer and volunteer theologian. He holds a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary where he won the Th.M. award in 1997. He has also done graduate work at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Kevin worked as a brand manager on the Bible team at Tyndale House Publishers. During his time at Tyndale he has helped to develop several Bibles and has written articles which have appeared in The Way, the iShine Bible, and the Illustrated Study Bible. He also wrote a series of devotionals for WAYFM’s World’s Biggest Small Group and is currently at work on a devotional series .
Most recently, Kevin wrote an Advent devotional eBook. You can find it here.
Kevin lives in the far western suburbs of Chicago with his wife, three children, a dog, and a cat. He would prefer to spend his time reading, writing, woodworking and watching the Chicago Blackhawks.
Asking Why
Every parent of an autistic child asks why. Why did this happen to my child? Why did this happen to me? Why is my child acting this way? Why can’t I have one normal day? Why, God? Why? Written by Kevin O’Brien
I have always been a firm believer in starting with why. I think that it’s the most fundamental human question and far too often we simply drift through life trying to keep ourselves busy or amused or whatever just so we don’t have to face that question.
Every parent of an autistic child asks why. Why did this happen to my child? Why did this happen to me? Why is my child acting this way? Why can’t I have one normal day? Why, God? Why? (With alternating exasperation and rage, I find.)
I wish I had a good answer. I don’t. But then I am not a finished product yet, and neither is my autistic son. Sometimes there simply isn’t a why, at least not one we can get to in the here and now.
In my self-pitying moments I wonder if God ever asks himself why about us. I have multiple theological degrees. I can give you the arguments and the clichés about God not being surprised by the dumb things that we do.
But then I think about Matthew’s account of Jesus on the cross and that most disturbing question: “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’)” (Matthew 27:46, NIV).
Jesus asks why. He knows the answer. That’s not the point. The point is that God himself, the second person of the Trinity, knows such extreme agony, such extreme suffering that he calls out, “WHY?!” to the Father.
For most of us, when it comes to our kids, when it comes to the pain in our spouses and all of the lost hopes and dreams, “why” is less about a good reason than it is a demand that this all matters somehow, that it means something. To be sure, we would like reasons too.
I am learning to come at why from new angles. And I am learning that sometimes why is less important than I thought. Sometimes you need to get in there and do even when you don’t have all of the right answers or even half of the information that you feel like you need.
As much as I want it, Nate can’t give me a why. He can’t explain it. And he gives few clues to figure it out. And that is perhaps the hardest part. Sometimes you have to break things down into component parts to figure out how they fit together, to get to why. I would have never thought that years of oil and sawdust and hammers and wrenches and watching my father tear apart cars and rebuild garage doors from scratch—and well, a hundred other things I don’t remember—would help me to understand my son. I never would have thought that it might take a son with autism to jump-start me from being paralyzed by why and start doing something.
Jesus asked the Father why.
The answer was us—was me.
Which means that He is with us through all of our whys.
Adapted from the chapter “Why Versus What” in Life on the Spectrum.
Written by Kevin O’Brien
Kevin O’Brien is a freelance writer and marketing consultant living in the far western suburbs of Chicago with his wife, 3 children, a dog, and a cat. Kevin’s middle son, Nathan, is autistic. He is a contributing author to Life on the Spectrum, a book to encourage and inspire parents and caregivers of children with autism, by parents of children on the autism spectrum An ordained minister and veteran of the Christian publishing industry, he has helped develop, write content for, launch and market several Bibles. Kevin loves to learn new things, and would prefer to spend his time reading, speaking, writing, woodworking and watching the Chicago Blackhawks. He occasionally tweets @kevinrobrienthm and can be found online at www.treadingthedawn.com .
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True Gifts
Can you remember the joy of Christmas morning as a child? The expectation and wonder of it all? Written by Kevin O’Brien
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Can you remember the joy of Christmas morning as a child? The expectation and wonder of it all? I remember waking up ridiculously early on Christmas morning after a late night at my grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve.
It’s interesting being on the other side, waiting, not to get presents, but to give them to my kids.
As I write this, it is four days before Christmas. Last night my wife said that she couldn’t wait for this Christmas because of a couple of things that the kids are going to get. She can’t wait for their reactions and neither can I.
Our oldest has largely achieved that detached high school phase of being somewhat above all of this. I think that he’s going to be a bit surprised. Sierra is too young to have given up the wonder. Nathan, well, Nathan is the best of us all when it comes to presents, there can be absolutely no doubt.
It’s been that way for Christmas and birthdays as long as I can remember. Nate cannot suppress what he is feeling—good or bad—about anything. He cannot dissemble and make you think that he is patiently waiting, or you got him the best thing ever when in fact he really doesn’t like it. No, whatever Nate thinks, you are going to know. If it’s great he exclaims with glee, grins as wide as he can, and poses for a picture holding the present up in front of himself. If the present is okay but not terribly exciting, the process is much quicker, and he’s on to the next one.
One Christmas, we got him a movie that we knew he liked. As soon as he opened it we knew that we had made a miscalculation. “That’s the wrong present!” he loudly protested with no concept that he was making his mother feel bad, that it is not polite to say such things, or that he is supposed to be grateful that someone wanted to buy him something they thought he would like. Concrete thinker. Concrete problem. Concrete solution. Let the world know that this is not right. And I do not exaggerate by much when I say world.
We thought that we solved the problem by getting his older brother to trade DVDs with him: Monsters Versus Aliens for Kung Fu Panda. It seemed to work. The day went on; I seem to recall that it got better. At least we stopped the immediate crisis. And then it started.
For the next several weeks Nathan decided that he needed to tell people that he got the wrong present. After the initial shock, we could laugh about it. When he tells grandma, who adores him and does a very good job of getting him to act appropriately, it’s one thing. You can smile and have a laugh because it is delivered in such a matter of fact manner.
It feels a lot different when he decides that he needs to tell the random clerk at the store, or the librarian, or someone at church—people who have no context or clue who he is, much less why he would be volunteering such information. It can get a bit embarrassing. Disheartening. And while there is no rational need to do so, you feel like you have to explain the whole story. What happened, and the fact that he has autism, so he’s still obsessing in it two weeks later. Three months later. Occasionally over a year later. It’s amazing how long things stick.
The difference between Nate and me is that I can hide my disappointment. He can’t roll with the punches or make someone think that the gift they thought was so great was indeed just that great. I can. All the while I am wondering what on earth they were thinking. This? Really? I got the wrong present! Perhaps I am not so different from my son.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I am not alone. On my worst days I must admit to wondering if James 1:17 is true. Does God really give us good gifts? Perfect? Really? I don’t think so. Have you really noticed what my son is going through, God? Do you really care? How is this child a good gift? My worst days. I love my son, let’s be clear. But the stress and the anxiety and the sheer exhaustion of it all pile up. And I know that I don’t have it that bad. I know people who have to deal with far worse things, far more taxing things.
But I said that Nate is the best of us at presents. The DVD episode was certainly not that. But the same honesty regarding that one gift is the reason he is the best. When Nathan turned nine or ten, we had a party with my family for him. He was opening presents, making out like a bandit, when he came to a specific present. The present that everyone in the room knew he was getting. The present he gets every year.
Every year Nate gets paper and markers because he loves to draw. Everyone knows he’s getting them. Everyone knows that he loves them. None of us were prepared for his reaction.
The wrapping paper came off and I could hear the smile on his face even though I was standing behind him. He read the label with glee, “Plain white paper! My favorite!” Yes. You read that right. A ream of printer paper. One with a label that literally read “plain white paper”. I think that everyone in the room about died laughing. I almost wept.
The truth is that Nathan is a gift. A gift unlike any I could have imagined.
I’m not much for surprises, but sometimes the best gifts are the ones that surprise. The ones that don’t cost a lot or come in fancy boxes. They aren’t things at all. Read the entire first chapter of James and you’ll get an entirely different sense of what is important and what a good and perfect gift might look like.
Our wants and desires change, they shift like shadows. What we want one minute is not what we want the next. Most of the time we don’t even know what we want. We need to learn to trust our Father of heavenly lights. To see that the gifts He gives are the best kind. He is the one who redeems us in our imperfections. Who uses the very things that are our weaknesses to confound the wise (and us, I might add). Who shows us what He can do with our imperfections and those of our autistic children.
My other children love their presents (mostly). But neither of them can hold a candle to Nathan’s wonder. He is brutally honest. He can be embarrassing in his reactions in front of strangers. And then you get hit right smack between the eyes with the two by four of “Plain white paper! My favorite!” And you realize that the best gifts are not the ones you thought they were.
And that is why Nate is the best at getting gifts. (Just wait ‘til he sees the Lego mug!).
Written by Kevin O’Brien
This article is a shortened version of Kevin O’Brien’s writing in Life On The Spectrum. To read more from Kevin and the other authors of Life On The Spectrum check out www.lifeonthespectrumbook.com or order the book below. Because no two people with autism are the same, Life on the Spectrum’s authors all bring their unique perspective and experiences to the table. Their honest, raw and heartfelt stories show how God is at work in the real-world struggles of families impacted by autism.
