People with Autism have difficulty communicating and interacting with others. In this sense, they are just a magnified version of the rest of us. What I'm learning is that the problems we face with Pierce, although very difficult, are not all that different from the problems we face with our typical children, or even ourselves.
My wife and I can be selfish, poor communicators. My other kids often times become fixated on certain topics or objects, and demonstrate self serving motives on a regular basis. There is no guarantee that Pierce's therapy will give him the bright future that we hope for, but there is also no guarantee that our typical children will develop into the wonderful people that we hope for. In a very real way, Autism is just an extremely magnified view of the problems we all face. We are all selfish, unresponsive, myopic and obsessive. We just have sophisticated ways of covering it up.
So, what I'm learning from Autism is that we are all broken, and there is no simple therapy for our condition. Only something transcendant can make us whole. Just as Pierce doesn't have the ability to "cure" himself, we have no way to fix ourselves. In our case, Jesus is the cure. Ephesians 2 tells us that we were "dead" in our sins, "but God, who is rich in mercy" has saved us, offered us a seat in heaven, and given us his son. His grace has made us complete.
Autism Lesson #4: Autism is just a magnified view of the problems we all face (selfishness, communication and fixation).
1 comment:
With the redesign of the blog, one can come to the conclusion that you have too much time on your hands. But then again, you probably just had Erika do it.
BON
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