I’ve had people ask me if Thomas “knows Jesus”. It’s an interesting question. There’s no pretense with Thomas. That’s one of the best and worst things about his flavor of autism. If Thomas doesn’t like something, he’s not going to do the polite thing and fake it. Christmas and birthdays can be a special kind of awkward fun. If he doesn’t like a gift he opens, he just moves on to the next one. I’ve learned to say, “Tell (fill in the blank) thank you for the gift” and not “Do y

Imagine 60 high school students. Now add sleeping in tents in a campground by the beach for a week. The sight? The sound? The smell? It sounds like the start of a horror movie. But it was quite the opposite. Our church puts on a fantastic Beach Camp experience for the high school students.Three meals a day. Snacks. Worship time. Snacks. Friendship development. Snacks. A variety of organized and free time activities. Snacks. Adults who feed into and lead the students. Snacks.

It’s easier to hide. Honestly. It would be so much easier to hide at home, easier to let Thomas play on his device all day, easier to not try to preplan for every possible bit of extra simulation that could send him into an awkward and embarrassing (for me) melt down. Do you have situations in your life where it just feels easier to hide? But is easier better? No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stan

July 12 We love camping. Not RVs or trailers or 5th Wheels or Glamping. I’m talking tent camping. That’s what we did growing up. We’d spend time as a family up in the Sierra Nevadas camping for a couple weeks. Days filled with exploring and creek splashing and wood cutting and evenings around the light of a camp fire. Did you know something else likes the light of a camp fire too? The summer before my 7th grade year I found that out. In the dwindling sunlight of early evening

July 26 The Light of Autism I’ve often said that Thomas is a light for the love of Jesus. But that light, the light of Jesus that shines thru the lamp of autism has revealed things in my heart. Things that were hidden in secret corners. Honestly, things that may have stayed hidden without that bright, focused, disinfecting light that autism brought into my life. Things that led to a disconnect between what I SAID I believed about GOD and what my behavior DISPLAYED I believed