I am led by the Spirit to share a LONG OVERDUE post here about the miracle-in-progress God is working with our son Mark. We were blessed to witness his baptism last Sabbath on January 13, by his Dad (at Mark’s specific request) and our Senior Pastor James Owens.
Mark was diagnosed at the age of 3 on the Classic spectrum of autism. He is limited verbal (I say "limited" instead of non-verbal, because when he is hungry or otherwise excited, he will use one-word sentences to tell you what he wants).
He is in his junior year at Parker High School, and doing well! He loves school.
This miracle began one day last September in 2023.
Every day, we went over the weekly memory verse with Mark before he went outside with his Dad to wait for the school bus. That day, the weekly memory verse was specifically 1 Cor. 13:5: “Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil”.
Then we prayed with him, using brief prayers that we wrote in advance to teach him how to pray. Before going outside to wait for the bus, Mark was rearranging the freezer. He was aggressive with us when we were trying to pull him away. It was a battle! When he finally went outside with his dad, I was thinking, “Lord, we just went over the memory verse addressing this. What’s going on?”. Then the thought came to me to have him WRITE OUT what he was feeling.
So Tracy and I got out his notebook and a crayon. I noticed that Mark had tears in his eyes. Poor thing, he was just frustrated.
“What it is honey? What’s wrong? Tell me”.
I put the crayon in his hand and held his hand while he wrote:
“I’m worried.”
BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT! For the first time, Mark was able to write out his feelings. We and his teachers are working together to help Mark express his emotions in an appropriate way, instead of hitting or shoving. So this is MAJOR!
“You’re doing good honey. What are you worried about?”
He pointed to the door. Tracy went back inside the house with him. We let him rearrange the freezer (we can put it back later). Then they came back outside and sat down.
I asked him, “How do you feel now?”.
Once again, with my hand over his, he wrote it out HIMSELF: “I love you”!
“Awww, thank you. I love you too. Will you be ok getting on the bus today?”
“I will be ok”, he wrote.
We were thanking the Lord for this accomplishment. When one has an autistic child, one learns to rejoice for ANY progress made, big or small.
This was only the beginning of MANY written conversations we’ve had with Mark ever since! God be praised!!! I will share more later!
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