If you were to ask anyone who knows me what my gifts for
ministry were they are sure to tell you that I am a caregiver. They will sing the praises of my visits to
the hospitals and nursing homes and that I am comfortable in those
settings. I have a secret though. I am not the giver in those situations; I am
the receiver of a gift, of many gifts. Each gift I receive differs from room to
room. The most recent gift came when visiting a member of my church who has
been homebound the better part of the time I have been a member there. I had met her previously when I had supplied
for the former pastor but this was my first visit with her as a member of her
church. She had recently taken a fall
and injured her brain and is currently in a rehabilitation facility quite spry
and witty. I knew that the facility was
chosen because her sister lived nearby.
What I didn’t know is that her sister was a long time member of the
church I attended for the previous 13 years.
Her face was familiar as I entered the room. We quickly made the connection and began to
talk. I described my son to her as the
boy who would go to the altar every Sunday to pray and who went up for the
children’s sermon well into his teenage years.
In fact he is nearly 18 and at our current church he goes up for the
children’s sermon. He is caught in
between two worlds. In his brain and
socialization he is still a 5 or 6 year old boy who loves being a child. He likes to eat from baby spoons and forks
and he loves everything super heroes. He
is the 18 year old that goes up to the children’s sermon but also the 18 year
old that wants to collect the offering and watches the person standing next to
him making sure he makes every move that person makes. He is emulating the man, trying to be a
man. He watches bob the builder on one
hand, and yearns for a wife on the other hand.
The sister immediately knew who I was talking about when I described
him. I explained to her sister that
David falls on the autism spectrum. He
was born with brain damage due to alcohol exposure by his birth mother. He was also severely neglected the first year
of his life which caused further damage.
She then told me she had just read a book by Karen Kingsbury called Unlocked, about a boy with autism. I
immediately became interested. All
through elementary school I told teacher after teacher, IEP team after IEP team
that David was smarter than he tested.
His IQ scores are quite low. I
kept telling people there is more in there, we just have to figure out the key
to unlock it. He is 18 now and the key
has not been found……or has it? The boy
in the story was 18 years old too. He
had been locked away inside himself since he was three years old. Miracles happen in the story. You know from the title that the key for him
is found. I downloaded the book and
listened to it on my travels to and from Atlanta over the past week. At one point today toward the end of the book
the hairs on my arm stood at attention.
It was 90 degrees outside but I was turning on the heat in my car
thinking I was cold. Then, I was only
hot, with cold chills and my hairs standing at attention. Since I began this book I began noticing
changes in David. Changes that perhaps
have been coming through all along but realizing I had given up on any hope of
seeing changes. I would get frustrated
with other people who expected too much of him because I had resigned myself to
the perceived reality that he was stuck where he was and would be as he has
been always. In a sense I myself had
locked him away. I no longer looked for
the potentials and the possibilities. We
spent the day together Sunday. He cooked
grilled cheese. I instructed him, but he took the instruction and he did
it. He helped me change all the beds,
and unload the dishwasher. He cut up
potatoes for roasted potatoes for supper.
As long as I was patient and went with what he initiated I was able to
see the man he is becoming. I began to
have hope, a hope that had been lost.
All this came from a visit to the nursing home, and a recommendation to
read a book. So, see…..I am not the
giver. I am the receiver.
