The Hands and Feet of Jesus

Well I feel overwhelmed today, in a good way.

Today was my second full shift at my new job. I’m working every weekday in a family’s home for two kids with autism. The older child, age 20, has a high functioning form of autism called aspergers. I work with him much of the day and then whenever the younger child lets me work with her, I do. The younger child, age 16, has the most severe case of autism I have ever seen. You can pretty much forget that she is 16 because she functions as though she is 2.

Autism is a mental disorder that deals with how the brain processes information. Take me for example. I am dyslexic. When I look at a page I often see a jumble of words. I misspell things all the time. I mispronounce many things. I can’t do math. It takes a lot for me to teach my brain how to process the information I read. I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was in first grade, but my dad did something really awesome with that. He made me read with him for an hour or so every night. Sometimes he read to me and other times I had to read with him. I did that until sixth grade. My dad’s loving dedication to me is the reason why I am able to function as highly as I do. My dad believed in me like no one else did. He had hope that I could learn how to function at a higher level.

People who have autism see the world in the way that I see words on a page, all jumbled. The girl I work with now on a day-to-day basis cannot understand the world she lives in. Her behaviors all center around consistency. She likes when things are the same, ordinary. She hates changing her clothes. She watches the same few minutes of a video tape, rewinds it and watches it again. She carries around a book that has prerecorded sounds on it and plays the same sound buttons over and over again. She does this to block out other sounds she hears. This is called stimulating herself. Autistic children are believed to be over-stimulated, over sensitive. She may hear sounds much louder than I do. Think about yourself trying to type out a report on your laptop. You sit down to type and you hear a car horn outside of the window. You feel a breeze blow your hair. You hear the ticking of a clock. If you had autism, you may have a very difficult time separating these distractions and ignoring them. You don’t understand them so you do everything you can to block them out. That is where stimulating yourself comes in. You may hold a book with prerecorded sounds right up to your ear and play it over and over again so you don’t have to hear the other sounds that are flowing into your head. You have heard these tunes so many times that the moment the book breaks, you have become so dependent on this book that you throw a tantrum because you can’t block out this world around you that you can’t understand. And you don’t want to try because it feels like too much.

This is what the girl I work with every day faces. My job is to take her from the stimulation she exposes herself to (her books with the prerecorded sounds, the tv, and other things) and interact with her. My job is to join her in her world. I try to make my world make sense to hers. Since she is much more sensitive to everything than I am, I have to act like her. If she throws herself on the ground and roar like a lion, I throw myself on the floor and roar like a lion. It is in those moments that I can make eye contact with her. I can make a connection with her. My challenge is how to stimulate her brain and help her to choose human interaction over electronic stimulation. So if she wants music, guess what I get to sing. If she wants me to sing she presses on my nose and and I don’t always have a song. Today I sang something about running at the beach. I made it up and it was so stupid, but she looked into my eyes and laughed. She had no idea what I was singing about but she knew I was paying attention to her. She knew I was interacting with her and that’s a start.

The interesting thing is that there was a part of today that I was feeling really sad. In that part of my shift, I had her up in her play room ready to interact with her and I just drew a blank. I had her away from anything electronic but my brain just couldn’t come up with any game to do. The more I was focusing on what I should do, the more I was thinking about how I wished she could communicate. I wished she could understand life. I got really sad for her and her family and what all of them had to face everyday. I just couldn’t imagine. How in the world could someone live like this? How could you watch your child go through this?…I had to ask her dad for advise. It was at that point he said he wanted me to watch this autism documentary and take a little break from her therapy.

 This documentary was the journey of a little boy with autism and his parents who prayed they could have their little boy back. They were filled with sadness and every time their son acted out (which was all the time) they mourned. They begged and pleaded with God about why their son was this way. This family traveled to an autism center to participate in the Sonrise therapy program (which is the type of therapy I am doing in an in-home version) and had to learn how to love their little autistic boy. They couldn’t view their son as two personalities: autistic son and sweet boy. They had to learn to view him as their autistic son. Period. They had to love the autistic side of him. They had to stop mourning him and focusing on their weakness. When they began loving their son in his autism and interacting him and focusing on loving him as he was, they were able to see improvement. They had to stop seeing their own weakness and instead see themselves as God’s tools. In the documentary they said they were able to see improvement with their son because they stopped mourning. They started believing they were strong enough to handle it. When their view changed, they started asking God for strength. When they asked Him for strength, He gave them strength and they could believe in their autistic boy in ways no one else ever could because God helped them. In their story, their son was able to learn how to function much better. He still has some challenges but he can now read, write, and interact with his family outside of his home.

Something I see in the girl I work with is that even though she doesn’t understand the world, she understands joy. She understands laughter and being looked in the eyes and feeling cared about. It reminded me that my job is to walk into work everyday remembering that she is a child of God and I am his hands and feet.

It strengthens my faith because I am reminded everyday about a truth of God. He does not give us more than what we can handle. An autistic individual is certainly a lot to handle, but He is stronger.

The older son that I work with is a child of God too. I see God in his loving heart. When we played chess today, he expressed his concern for his sister and how he wished she could play and be able to function normally. His love for his sister really struck me. He wasn’t stuck on his own weakness,. He knows he is autistic and he works to use his creativity to make things and draw and love his family. He reminded me of hope and that I can love his family with hope and as the hands and feet of Jesus.

I would love for these kids to see the world how I see it one day. Based off of research that really will not happen. What can happen though, is looking up to the God of hope and asking for His strength to be his hands and feet. That is my hope in working with these kids. I hope to give them joy. It may be in ways that are abnormal to others. The things that make these kids laugh are so ridiculous sometimes, but when I look into their eyes and make that connection with them I can’t help but feel that I am sharing Jesus.

What things are you feeling week about today? How can you look up to God and ask for His strength? What can you do to dwell in His consistency today? What roles are you placed in that requires you to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Do you have a task of analyzing numbers that no one else can understand? Do you have a tension span that most others don’t have that you can use? Who in your life can you learn how to love and support in the ways they feel loved? How can you show the love of God tangibly?

Sometimes it is hard to feel direction in our lives because we have unfulfilled expectations or we get bored. Sometimes we get really focused on ourselves and don’t feel like serving others, but I encourage you to let go of doing it on your own. You have a God who made you, uniquely, to love Him and show your love for Him in your love for others. How will you show His love today?

My hope is in you Lord

All the day long I won’t be shaken by drought or storm

A peace that passes understanding is my song

And I sing my hope is in You, Lord

-Aaron Shust