Keep showing up: Going to church with a Special needs child

The enemy would want nothing more than for my family to stop coming to church.

If any of you have read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis then you may be able to imagine that the enemy doesn’t need us to “hate” God in order to pull us away from God. The enemy would see to it that we would back away slowly, not completely. It would begin with missing one or two Sundays, looking to others who “watch online”, to compare the ways we are close to Jesus and to say that because of our circumstances being “different” we are excused from corporately gathering… then it would become that Jackson’s class is better off without him… that we are a burden to the church.

The Bible is so clear here though – and if you know the truth then you can discern the lie.

Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Hebrews 10:25 “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

And we are all important in the body as the Lord has blessed each one differently, “But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” (1 Corinthians 12:18)

You may not know that 90+ percent of families with a family member experiencing autism don’t go to church. That 8/10 marriages end in divorce by the time the child is 4 years of age. Or that Suicide is the highest cause of death for young people experiencing autism with only drowning surpassing it.

These numbers tell me that we (special needs/disabilities families) need the church!!!

And that other families need to see us in the church. Pushing through the hard for the joy ahead.

This is not an immediate or tangible joy or a fit of “happiness” in the sense of what we think culturally when we use the term joy. I am talking the deep joy that comes from God alone.

The joy of knowing that in Christ is:

Healing

Forgiveness

Resurrection And Renewal

One thing I have learned is nothing, and I mean nothing, makes me yearn more for our King Jesus’s return than when I am carrying my hurting, sweet boy out of church crying out and unable to recover… hearing him begging to go back to his “big kid” class but lacking the “skills” needed for that day…

the helplessness I feel to see him hurting and longing to belong and no way for me to to fix it…

I also know humility is best learned in the “lab” not by reading others experiences and outcomes but by allowing God to configure the right parts needed to meet you and change you in the season He has you. We are taught to surrender.

And so this I cling to:

God is good

God is good to Jackson

God is good to us.

And God is good in autism.

Lord, enable me and my family not to just keep showing up but to glorify you! That we would show up with empty and outstretched hands so that we may receive the abundant life you have for us. And in that we continue to learn that in YOU and being with YOU is sufficient for all of ours and Jackson’s needs. Amen.