I remember so vividly Alec’s difficult toddler days.
My son had less than a handful of words. The days were a series of one tantrum after another. I was a stressed-out mother on the brink of a personal meltdown of my own. Oh, yes, I remember those days.
I loved my son desperately, but hadn’t a clue how to help him. I obsessively scoured every piece of advice I could find from any expert offering a suggestion. Many times I would find advice that I longed to believe … and then the very next day I found conflicting information.
I was tossed back and forth relentlessly like a tiny boat in a hurricane. I expected to sink below the surface at any moment. We tried one hopeful therapy after another, but none of them made much of a difference. Only when we ran out of money and therapies did I go to the place where I should have gone first.
I finally asked God for help. Yes, I was late, but God was waiting for me to surrender the battle to Him.
One particularly dark day, I lost it. I mean, I lost it. While I won’t tell you all of the details—read about it here if you wish—but it was a moment both dark and holy. A moment when God stepped in and gave me a beautiful revelation of how to reach my son.
As I cried out to Him, God opened my eyes to what I needed to do. He showed me a divine truth that has changed not only my life, but the lives of my entire family. Here is that truth:
To reach my son, I had to go into Alec’s world.
I had to meet him exactly where he was: in a world of autism.
So I knelt down and cupped Alec’s tear-stained face and I whispered, “I’m coming to get you, Alec. God will help me. I’m coming to get you.”
From that day on, God began to teach me about the power of love and how it was the one thing that could coax Alec out of a world of non-communication and fear … to the special place that God was preparing for him. I began to see the holy power in that kind of love, and life started changing for the better.
Soon it became a family effort. We learned to stop wishing that Alec was anyone other than who he was on any one day. We filled our home with laughter … especially on the hardest days. We accepted Alec equally on his best day as we did on the days when he struggled the most.
And it worked.
Anxiety gave way to joy as we learned to trust God in ways that we never did before. My son brings me overflowing joy, day after day after day. How incredibly blessed I am to be his mother.
Ten years have passed and the beauty of that truth—of meeting my son where he is—still humbles me. I realize now why it was so familiar, this advice to go into my son’s unfamiliar world to love him back home. I understand why it works:
It’s because that’s exactly what God did for me.
He sent His Son Jesus into my dark, confusing world to meet me where I was—lost, alone and scared—to love me back home to the place he is preparing for me. And for you.
Yes, God sent His Son into our world to meet us where we are. To bring us home!
I want you to know that this works. When you meet someone where they are—in love and acceptance—the darkness flees and miracles happen.
Try it: Go into their world and love them where they are, just like Jesus did for us. See what happens.
“So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
In Christ,
Kelly
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