Be a Brand New Fuzzy Towel

I had an interesting experience the other day when I was getting out of the shower. (I know, there are a lot of bath and shower references on my blogs, but I tell you, it's one of the only times that I have uninterrupted thoughts! I can see you nodding your head in commiseration.)

I had brought a brand new towel into the bathroom with me. It was a really soft beach towel that had a thick black border and brown and black horses parading across its center.

I grabbed it and quickly wrapped myself in its warmth. A minute or so later I discarded the towel to the bathroom floor and climbed into my clothes.

But what strange thing had happened to my arms? Why would I be dirtier after a shower than I was before?

It took me seconds longer than I care to admit to realize that what looked like dirt was actually towel fuzz. Lots and lots of towel fuzz.

One minute of contact with that towel and I would be picking off the remnants all day.

We should strive to be brand new fuzzy towels for Christ. God's Word tells us that we are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14) Can we not, by shining His light through us, touch others and leave those fingerprints of God's love behind?

After seeing the joy of our hearts, might not someone wonder where the "fuzzies" have come from?

It doesn't take much. Just like with my momentary encounter with that towel, a moment is all that is needed to leave the imprint of Christ on someone's heart.

Be a brand new fuzzy towel. You never know what the results might be.

The Color Purple

I have often referred to my salvation experience as feeling like what Dorothy must have experienced when she walked from her black and white Kansas into the vibrant color of Oz.

Black and White for me was unbearable. At 21 years old I was clinically depressed, suicidal, and devoid of hope. I commented to a therapist at the time that the only reason I was still alive was because I didn't want my one year old daughter to lose her mother. In a world that hadn't yet given birth to the "emo" culture, the scars on my body bore witness to years of self-inflicted injury. I loved my husband and my daughter, but I hated myself.

Hours before I accepted Christ as my Savior, I commented to my mother-in-law that I didn't believe that God did any more than create the earth. "Sure, I believe that God made the world," I remember saying, "but Adam and Eve and all that? It's just nonsense."

Later that day I decided to drive to a friend's house. She was actually the mother of my husband's best friend, but she and I had developed a friendly relationship. I sat at her kitchen table with her and her husband, and "for no reason at all" I brought up Christianity. Through the course of that life-altering conversation, I came to realize that even though I felt unworthy of love, God loved me anyway.

He loved me in spite of all that I had done. I had always believed that He had abandoned me, but the truth was that I had abandoned Him. He had been there with me the whole time. Though I felt ugly and twisted inside, He looked beyond all my failures and gave me what I had needed all along: grace and forgiveness.

In an instant my heart was changed. I prayed right there for God to enter my heart. I apologized for the hurtful things I had done and asked Him to wipe my slate clean. I praised Him for sending His Son to die on the cross so that I could feel the peace that was rushing through my veins.

I opened my eyes to color. So many things from my life suddenly made sense. I knew that I had a road ahead of me; I had hurt many people in my years of desperation, and it would take time to heal those wounds. But for the first time since I could remember, I felt hope.

And so eleven years passed. What so many people thought would be a "passing fancy" grew and blossomed into a strong faith that affected my entire family.

But even in the happy moments of my born-again life, I knew something was missing. I wasn't growing like I wanted to be. My heart yearned for a closer relationship with God, but days would pass and I would suddenly realize that it was Sunday again and my Bible was still in the van from the week before. Why couldn't I put God first when He was so important to me?

I realized that I needed to actively participate in my relationship with Him. Out of discipline, desire was born. When I started listening to Him, reading His Word, and devoting my quiet moments to prayer, that pure joy that I had been questing for blossomed.

This morning I was talking to a dear friend after my Bible study. I was relating all of this to her, and describing my Black and White to Color analogy. I then told her how exciting my life had become since making the commitment to say Yes to God.

"It's like finding the color purple," I said. My post-Black-and-White life was wonderful, but finding that next shade has made it even better.

As I was walking away, something struck me. I may have picked that color randomly, but it just happens to be the one that completes the rainbow.

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life." (Jude 1:20-21 NASB)

Fighting for Joseph (Part Three: Saved)

This is the last of three blog entries that will focus on my 9 year old son, Joseph, looking at our journey through his autism diagnosis and how God held our family in His hand as we fought for our son.

When I walked into the doctor's office with Joseph, I wasn't looking for reassurances. I was done with, "Everything is fine." Something was wrong and I wanted to know what it was and what we could do about it.

It's amazing how far we have come in diagnosing autism in the last six years. Now there are screenings and evaluations that take place right within well-baby checkups starting as early as fifteen months. Back then, there was just the hunch of parents and the hope that the doctor believed them.

Our doctor believed us. Walking in her office I felt like I had stumbled into the eye of the storm. I didn't have to convince her that there was something wrong. She didn't try to tell me a hundred reasons why my observations were ridiculous. It was such a change from what I had gone through with almost every person who cared about Joseph.

Smiling sweetly, she watched as I lifted him on the table. He was still clutching a bead toy from the waiting room floor because I had known better than to try to pry it from his fingers. "Hello, Joseph," the doctor said.

There was no response. Joseph continued to spin the beads along their wires as if neither of us were in the room.

The doctor tried several more times before turning to face me. "There is definitely a problem," she said.

How odd that her words made me want to shout with joy. It hadn't all been in my head, it wasn't me trying to make something out of nothing. And where there's a problem, there's a solution.

She set us up with Birth to Three services, which transitioned quickly to Early Childhood. Joseph had turned three shortly after the appointment, and as we waited for further testing from the doctor, I met with the special education teachers that had come to our home to evaluate him.

At some point in the weeks of testing, I had confided in a friend. Expecting the usual response, I was surprised when she nodded her head in agreement. "Have you ever thought it might be autism?" she asked.

Autism? Sure, I had considered it. But just as quickly I had discarded the possibility. Joseph did so much more than sit in a corner and rock mindlessly, and that was the face of autism to me by that point. Plus, autism was a lifelong disorder. Our doctor was going to find the people who would make Joseph better. It couldn't be that.

So when one of the teachers took a deep breath and told me that they had decided that Joseph fell under the educational category of autism, I bristled.

"Okay, then tell me this," I said, "Isn't it true that if a child with autism was given the ability to speak perfectly, that he would still have it?"

"Yes," they all responded.

"Then you tell me what it is about my son besides his speech delay that makes you think he has autism," I challenged.

It was to be the last sentence I would utter in the world of darkness I had been in for over a year. As papers flew around the table, they pulled out a list of criteria for the diagnosis. Speech was only one of five sections. Joseph qualified under every single one.

"Oh." That was all that I uttered for over a minute. The clouds were parting for me. Everything they had showed me: repetitive behaviors, social delays, obsessions and preoccupations, meltdowns, meaningless speech repetitions; they all fit together to form what my life had been for more than a year. Autism went from being a stereotype to a complete world that definitely included my son.

I cried all the way home from the meeting, but the tears were not from sadness. I was so relieved to have an answer, and so grateful for the team that showed me that there was a plan to help bring Joseph out of himself.

I won't tell you that there was never any grief, because there was. Sometimes there still is, even though my son today is nothing like he was back then. But for that night, I only felt incredibly grateful that God had brought me through the forest and back into the light of hope.

There have been many times in my life where I have felt God's arms carrying me, but that period was the longest. In the nights when I couldn't imagine waking to go through one more day, He was always there.

That day began a long series of testing, therapy, and appointments that would take much longer to write about than I have here. We began an intense regimen of Greenspan's Floor Time therapy that included 8 to 10 twenty minute sessions of encouraged social interaction a day. When we started, Joseph could only sustain seconds of contact. Today he will talk to you for hours.

God's hand was all over our journey. A pediatric neurologist chose Joseph for her long term case study, giving us coveted one on one time with her as she trained me to enter Joseph's world. We had the opportunity to bring a team of therapists into our home thirty hours a week for three years. An amazing lady stepped forward when she heard that we couldn't attend church because Joseph's needs were too immense for the Sunday school program, and she personally watched him every Sunday for many years. An entire Special Needs Sunday School program was then developed to help other families in similar situations, where a team of people faithfully donate their time so that my family and others can worship together. Joseph was blessed in school by two teachers who not only worked with him intensely, but also loved him personally. In a world where people sometimes struggle to see God's influence, we watched as one of those teachers chose to move with him from Kindergarten to First grade, and then a year later, to Third.

Probably the biggest lesson I learned came when Joseph was seven. We were sitting in the parking lot of the school that Kahlan attended, waiting for her to be done with her day. At that point Joseph was getting better with talking with us, but it still came in short bursts and in his own timing.

Out of the blue, Joseph asked me why Jesus died and what it meant to be a Christian. The words that formed that question were a miracle in themselves! As I answered his questions, he asked more. For a full twenty minutes we talked as I explained the answers to questions like, "What happens when we die," "What happens to animals when they die?" "Will I see you there, Mommy, if you die first?" He also asked if there would be a time when the people who had died and gone to heaven would return to earth.

My little boy who still struggled with communicating his basic needs was asking complex questions that most typically developing children his age hadn't yet wrestled with.

He gave his life to Christ that day in the van. As he prayed, I apologized to God. Even with everything He had done for us, I had decided that Joseph becoming a Christian was too big for my little boy. How could he ever understand?

Somehow in thinking that Joseph's ability was small, I forgot how big God is.

Today, as Joseph turns nine years old, all I have is gratitude. My son has been blessed with a vocabulary that now tests above grade level. He can read well, devouring Garfield books in hours. His faith continues to grow, and his sense of humor keeps all of us laughing. Most amazing of all, he can explain to me what autism feels like. He has told me all about the "movies" that make him sometimes struggle to respond to us.

He asked me one day if I have autism. When I told him that I didn't, he looked sad. "You mean you can't see movies in your head?" he asked with disappointment in his voice. "I'm so sorry for you, Mom."

Sometimes I forget the intensity of the pain and bleakness of those first couple years. Never have I forgotten that God carried us through them.

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Thank you so much for reading through Joseph's story. For those of you who are interested and haven't already seen the videos, please feel free to watch a fifteen minute video that I prepared back in 2004 to thank Joseph's Early Childhood teachers. The movie contains text, pictures, and video that documents Joseph's regression and our journey through autism. It works best in Internet Explorer, and can be found here: Fighting for Joseph Movie

A five minute update movie was made in 2006 to show his further progress. There is a short "interview" with him at the end. :) Joseph's Update Movie

Fighting for Joseph (Part Two: The Battle)

This is the second of three blog entries that will focus on my almost 9 year old son, Joseph, looking at our journey through his autism diagnosis and how God held our family in His hand as we fought for our son.

Though I can look back now and see the date in pictures, I didn't know at the time that our lives had changed. At 22 months you don't pay attention to every glance (or lack of) or word (or lack of) from your child. What we saw when he started spending hours studying the wheels on his cars and the balls in his ball popper was a future in engineering. Why would we be concerned when he seemed more interested in "things" than he was in his family? To us, he was just our sweet baby boy who was questing to understand this big world he'd been born into.

That Christmas Joseph loved bringing me presents. He would drag each box over to me, crawling on my lap as I bent to pick it up. Sitting together on the couch he'd put his hand on mine and guide it to the striped wrapping paper. Over and over again he would move my hand over the present as I counted the stripes.

"My son is so smart," I marveled. Why would I know to think otherwise? (How I wish I had known to think otherwise.)

There was one concern that grew within me in those days. Could Joseph be losing his hearing? My baby who had always turned to my voice no longer responded when I called his name. I whispered, I screamed, I clapped my hands, I banged on the table. The only way he would look at me was if I touched him.

Somewhere during the days when tests revealed that there was no hearing loss, he stopped responding to my touch.

I caressed his cheek, I tickled his belly, I pulled gently on his shirt. Nothing in our world enticed him out of his.

Then one day I turned on the radio. Kahlan wanted to practice her dance steps, so I put in a CD that the kids had always loved listening to. As Kahlan danced, Joseph walked into the room. With a definite intent that I hadn't seen in weeks, he walked over to the speakers and started to dance.

I hadn't believed that the hearing tests results were right. But how could a little boy who didn't hear his mom dance to music?

The words that he had before were gone. There was no more "dada", "mama", "ball", or "cup". There were no more peek-a-boo games. The sounds he did make were repetitive and meaningless.

As our concerns grew, other people's excuses multiplied. "He doesn't need to talk, Kahlan talks for him," and "He's a boy, they develop slower," were only a couple of the many reassurances we were given from family and friends. Every time I got close to looking for help, I remembered what others had said and tried to stop overreacting. Some even went so far as to insinuate that I was trying to get attention for myself by making problems in my son.

One day I had both children in the van. I can't remember where we were supposed to go, but I will never forget what happened when I placed that favorite CD in our new CD player.

Joseph began to sing. He knew every word to every song.

I had forgotten what his voice sounded like. Babbling is sound, but words is voice. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. We drove for over an hour, the CD repeating as my tears fell.

The signs scream at me in hindsight. Having devoured countless books on autism, I now see that Joseph could have been a poster child for the syndrome. But back then, I had no idea. And if I thought I had it rough that day as I parked my van in the driveway and carried my once-again-silent son into the house, I had no idea what was coming.

The meltdowns started. A meltdown in a child with autism is very, very different than a temper tantrum in a typically developing child. If a child is having a temper tantrum because they can't have a piece of cake, and you give that child a piece of cake, the tantrum stops. If a child with autism is having a meltdown because they want juice and you, having no clue what he wants, give him milk, you can give that child juice all you want and it will do nothing to stop the rage. It isn't about milk or juice anymore. It's about living in a body that you have absolutely no control over.

He screamed, he threw himself on the floor. He banged his head into walls while howling in frustration. There was nothing we could do to help him.

I took him bowling one day. I should have known better. I may not have known he had autism, but I knew that chaos brought on meltdowns. He was so excited when we walked in. He bounced up and down in my arms, repeating the sounds he made when he was happy. But when it was his turn, and he let go of the ball, it didn't come right back to him. And that's all it took.

I had him in one arm, twisting and yelling and banging his head against my face. I was trying to get my bowling shoes off and my other shoes on while holding my keys and keeping him from falling to the floor. Everyone in the building stopped what they were doing. The people whose birthday party I was attending formed a circle around me about two feet away. I remember screaming in my head, "Please help me!" but I didn't say a word. This was my life. And no matter what it looked like to everyone else, I knew that Joseph was in much more agony than I was.

As I walked out of the building, a man at the bar muttered, "Spoiled brat."

Joseph and I walked to the van, both of us crying. As I buckled him into his carseat, I said, "I'm so sorry," over and over again. I truly was. Sorry that I had brought him into that building, sorry for the man who so carelessly judged him. Sorry that I couldn't do anything to break my son out of his terrifying prison.

My body was bruised and my heart was broken, but I loved him so much.

Somewhere around this time, the straw broke the camel's back. Steve and I were downstairs one evening when we heard an odd sound. We had tucked the kids in bed an hour before, but it sounded as if one of them was up. Seconds passed, but no one came down the stairs. The sound continued.

I walked to the bottom of the stairs. I will never forget what I saw. Joseph was walking back and forth in the small hallway above the stairway, muttering nonsense to himself. Back and forth, back and forth. Once in a while a strange giggle escaped, but he never looked at me. Back and forth he paced.

I turned to Steve. "I'm calling the doctor in the morning," I said.

Enough was enough.