A little piece of my heart...

I have always wondered what I would do if something was found to be "wrong" or "different" with my child. At an early age I watched the heart ache of parents who found out that their child was not perfectly health. Disabilities by the world's standards, illness that would eventually claim that child's life way to early. As I watched the grace of these parents and the pain they suffered as everyone watched, I was always amazed at their strength. At there humility and tenderness and most of all the unwavering faith they had.

For parents with a child with special needs I was always amazed at the patience, the way they exchanged their exhaustion for thankfulness over the small triumphs their child had. I believed God had pick such special people to experience these trials. And then...it was my turn. Feelings of disbelief, inadequacy, in patience, and fear flooded my mind and heart with a sense of loss. How would I ever be able to handle this like those who I admired for their strength. They were better people than me... But as I stumbled through the reality of having a child with Autism I realized God was big enough to change even my hardened heart. That even in the moments when I swore I could not handle one more minute, a simple smile would melt my feelings of fear and failure.

I begun to learn from my child instead of teaching him to be more like me. I allowed my heart and mind to be open to learning more about him. Learning to be more like him, joyful, adventurous, gentle, optimistic. A little piece of my heart was changing. A little piece of my heart was learning that this is not happening to us but rather for us. I began to realize those parent who went before me and whom I had admired had to learn to treasured what they saw in their child instead of what they wanted to see.

It is easier to love others for who they are and find strengths in them instead of weaknesses. When you look at the weakness through the strength you hardly see them at all. But when you see the strengths through the weaknesses, they become very hard to recognize and therefore all we see is weakness. I have learned to look with a soft heart. Learned to listen with a softer ear. I am becoming more of who God has called me to be. Things I never would have changed on my own. My son has forced me to remain in a child-like faith. A faith that sees all God is doing as good and to believe and trust in His ways and not my own. To look for the purpose He has for my son instead of looking at "what happened to him".

It is so easy for us to get caught up in our own desires of how others should treat us, or what we deserve. But what is you stopped and looked at how you were acting or treating others first? What if we learned to walk along side others before we forced them to walk like us? Would we not learn more? Grow more? Care More?

I still will not claim to be the calmest of people, the most positive of people, or even the strongest of people. But what I do know is this little boy is a gift given to me to teach me this simple truth, God stepped down into this earth to learn more about His children who had special needs. We couldn't get it from a far but when he stepped down into the earth to walk with us, he taught us. He had to walk road with us for us to realize there was another way far greater than ours. It just takes a little piece of our heart changing for the rest of it to change as well, but it has to start somewhere. Mine started with a little boy...