We have been blessed with a son who has Autism Spectrum Disorder. He has a symmetric, right angled mind in a world of abstractions. He has little patience for perspective other than his own- because he really believes his way is the correct way. If he thought it was wrong why would he bother with it? He has a near photographic memory which is helpful for math facts and spelling, but “exceptions” to grammar rules annoy him. If there are exceptions to rules, than THEY AREN'T RULES, merely typical occurrences. We are learning how to communicate with him. Usually, our daughter has to be the translator, as she seems to understand her brother better than anyone. When we ask him if he wants a hand picking up his Legos, and he answers no, that does not mean he doesn't want help, it means he would prefer it if we didn't amputate a limb and give it to him. So, when we put our son's spiritual enlightenment in the hands of “First Church of the Sensory Overload” it was what we call an EPIC FAILURE.
I was so discouraged. How was he supposed to learn about Jesus if he didn't go to Sunday School? Then, God punched me in the gut with the fact that it wasn't the churches job to expose him to Christ, it was mine.
Our daughter and son differ as much as two siblings can. She is relationally gifted, finds beauty in the abstract, and is suspicious of absolutes. The Understanding that God exists and he sent his son Jesus as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, was not all that difficult for her. With her brother-his thought process is more like, “okay, you're telling me there's this God guy who has to be a giant because he was big enough to create the whole universe and he has this son who was killed brutally, (so, he loves ME, but allowed his own son to be murdered) and came back to life as this itty bitty man who wants to live in my heart so when I die, I can't come back to Earth, but go to this mythical Heaven place that is in outer space? But SANTA 'how's he supposed to visit all the children of the world in just one night?' Clause is supposed to be a load of crap?”
yep, that's pretty much the gist.
Ugh! He must think I'm a terrible liar or I'm an idiot. The kid has been completely opposed and a bit frightened by the idea of God. He plugs his ears, hums, and leaves the table when we pray at mealtime. When he was little, he used to “pray”/recite Linus' Luke 2 scripted monologue from A Charlie Brown Christmas. I would think, “At LEAST he's got THAT in his brain somewhere. It's gotta' one day count for something.”
Our prayer as parents has continually been for God to reveal Himself to our son. All we can do is tell him the truth, but that has usually met with, “I don't want to love God.” or “Jesus can't love me”, which breaks my heart just a little bit each time he says it, but we still try.
The concept of “death” has also been interesting to try to explain to him. He began to understand that life wasn't like a video game, where when you get three chances to “die”, and even after your last one, you can just start the game over- it was permanent- you didn't come back. His grandmother is, as I write this, very soon to make the transition into death. As she has become more ill, we have attempted to explain this to our kids. He says “but I don't want Grandma to die”. We don't either. He doesn't like it, but he seems to have come to accept it. And perhaps it is, in part, because of all these conversations about Grandma, that I came into the living room the other night to find my faith filled daughter speaking with a gentle intensity to her brother. I began making vain comments about doing something irrelevant, when she told me, “Mom, wait, Chase says he wants to believe in Jesus.”
............It was a very long second before I could process this information. I wanted to be sure I wasn't dreaming. I didn't say anything. I sat next to him on the couch while he told me that God had “written a letter” to him on the palm of his hand, telling Chase He loved him, so “I want to believe Jesus and I want want to forgive everybody and God forgives me for anything bad I have done.” I sat next to my autistic son as he prayed salvation into his life- not a script, but his own words- to who was now, not just “God”, but HIS God.
It's funny how things work out. That discussing his grandmother's illness would be the catalyst that would help him put together all the little nuggets of truth we've tried to give him. We can't “bring” anyone to salvation- not even our own kids. God has to be the one to do it Himself, and each of us has to either accept or reject Him. All we can do to help that along is expose them to Truth and live that Truth as best we can. I seem to always be asking “Why?”, and He always seems to answer, “I got it.” Hopefully, my faith will one day be as strong as my children's.
