When God redeemed my worst Christmas ever by using it for good, it came as a big surprise. Most likely because 1982 was the year of my worst Christmas ever, and the using it for good part didn’t come along until December of 2024. 42 years is a long time, which explains my surprise.
Seasons help us to realize we’re not alone. We might still feel alone but we can see things differently and then change our thinking, and even our responses. We know everyone goes through “stuff” but sometimes we need to recognize it just happens to be our turn. The harder part is that we still have someone we are caring for full time, 24/7 added to the new hard stuff!
For families like mine, with an autistic child and my own ADHD and anxiety, Christmas is rarely “calm” or “bright.” In fact, it is often loud, noisy, and overwhelming. Our children get overwhelmed by the lights and the new items. We, as parents, get overwhelmed by all the mess and noise. There are so many sensory inputs flowing through that you feel like you are in a never-ending vacuum of noise. And, that doesn’t even take into account that I’m operating on just a few hours of sleep after leading multiple Christmas services as a pastor.
Ruth saw a bright future for herself. She didn’t have an exact plan in front of her. But at 18, she vaguely knew what she wanted in the future: a master’s degree, a husband, a job she enjoyed, and children. Emma was on another path altogether. When Emma turned 18, she was already enrolled in a school for students with more significant disabilities.
Zechariah, despite being visited by an angel, doubted what he had been told, and so Gabriel told him that because of this doubt, Zechariah would not be able to speak until his son was born. So, he became unable to speak, and therefore unable to communicate through speech. What did he do? And what does his story teach us about people who cannot communicate by speech, or choose not to, today?
The special needs parenting journey can be exhausting, full of loneliness, challenges, and struggles. It can be easy to focus on how hard things are. But I find the whole month of November to be the perfect time to reflect on the things that I am thankful for. Once I get started thinking this way, I realize there really are a lot of things to be thankful for.
I thought a lot about Jack, whether he had gained anything at all from his time at Spring Harvest, whether he had been impacted by any of the spiritual program in his sessions. Had he just been child-minded, busying himself with his Jenga wooden blocks, or had something more than that reached him? A few weeks later, I got the answer to my questions.
Sometimes we only learn our lessons the hard way. There is truth in consequences. With autism or developmental disability, however, it can be hard to know what is reasonable to expect from our children. How much is too much? How much is too little? When do we make legitimate allowances for a disability and when do we not?
