High school graduation season is full of fantastic and fun end-of-an-era ceremonies and celebrations. But for families with seniors on the Autism Spectrum, those activities and traditions have to be adapted and adjusted to make them possible.
Experiences that most people take for granted:
Senior Sunrise/Sunset, Graduation ceremonies, Senior Ditch Day,
(Administrators, that last one is just a rumor. It’s not real),
all these and more come with adaptations parents of seniors on the Spectrum have to ponder and navigate to make possible.
This is true at church as well. Seniors are given a survey to fill out. It’s a request for some pictures and a couple of questions for a celebratory worship service honoring the graduating students. A pretty standard churchy request.
As I stood staring at the email on my phone screen, I started to dread helping Thomas answer the questions on the Senior Survey:
What’s your favorite high school ministry memory?
What’s your favorite Bible verse?
I imagined his neurotypical church peers answering the senior survey with thoughtful, eloquent answers in minutes. Producing something that could later be used as a basis for their doctoral thesis in advanced theological thought, then riding away on their unicorns holding a basket of kittens.
I said imagined.
I started to dread helping Thomas answer the questions on the Senior Survey:
What’s your favorite high school ministry memory?
What’s your favorite Bible verse?
Because I was afraid he didn’t have one.
Typically, when Thomas needs help making decisions involving multiple layers of processing or large amounts of information, we adapt the information to three options for him to choose from.
But how do I follow this adaptation process with four years of high school ministry memories? How do I do this with 31,102 verses in the Bible? It was all feeling impossible. I just want to pretend to ask Thomas, and then respond with what I THINK his answer would be. That feels soooo much easier, soooo much simpler than adapting…again. Adaptation is harder than pretending everything is possible.
I take a deep breath.
“Thomas, what’s your favorite high school ministry memory?”
He pauses his tablet. He looks at me. I can tell in his eyes he’s processing a million bits of memories and information. After a minute, he responds, “I don’t know.”
Great. Worst fear realized.
“Okay. Think about it and I’ll ask again in 10 minutes.”
I spend the next ten minutes scrolling through photos on my phone to come up with three memories for him to choose from. Favorite Bible verse? I’ll have him choose from three of my favorites.
We started again.
“Thomas, what’s your favorite high school ministry memory?”
He pauses his tablet. He looks at me. This time, he has an answer right away. “Getting the baptism at Beach Camp.”
I’m embarrassed to say, I was surprised.
Thomas was baptized in the ocean the summer before his sophomore year. It was a gauntlet of adaptations covered in prayer that turned into something beautiful. I would not have guessed it was his favorite memory. I’m not sure I would have even put it on my list of three he could pick from.
But his ability to answer that question gave me radical hope to ask the second question.
“Thomas, What’s your favorite bible verse?”
He responded without pause or hesitation, “With God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26” and went back to his tablet.
I stood there stunned.
Then I cried.
My beautiful son on the Autism Spectrum who is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present God had a favorite Bible verse just like all of his neurotypical friends.
But that’s not why I cried.
I cried because I had not trusted that he had a favorite Bible verse.
In all my adaptations for Thomas, was I leaving room for God to do His work in Thomas?
No.
But I also wasn’t leaving room for God to do His work in me. “With God, all things are possible” Matthew 19:26 ESV isn’t a verse to claim as a pledge that God will give me what I want. It’s about trusting that God has a good and delightful plan. God had proven Himself trustworthy in Thomas’ life, especially in these last four years of high school. Yet I forget, repeatedly. Relying on my abilities is easier, simpler, and more controllable than trusting God with my beloved son on the Spectrum. I continue to need adaptions too. And God is right there adapting and adjusting to make His good and delightful plan possible in my life.
“With God, all things are possible” is a reminder that it’s not about me, me, me. It’s about He, He, He.
It is a reminder that I will need on repeat in the next few months. Thomas’ graduation means the Back to School program will be filled with different routines this fall. Thomas will start a new education program with unfamiliar activities and traditions that must be adapted and adjusted to make them possible. I need to remember how trustworthy God has been this past high school season and get out of His way. God has good and delightful plans for Thomas, and me. We get another opportunity to trust…again… that God makes all things possible.
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