I talked about my relationship with God in relation to having a child with Special Needs, but I didn’t address Sara’s relationship with God. I thought the whole “Jesus & Children” thing was simple: you go to church, drop the kids off at Sunday School, they are taught that Jesus died on the cross and therefore, you get chocolate bunnies on Easter. Voila!

Jesus loves the little children. It’s IN the SONG, and [insert delta] kids love church. I can do parent-math all day long. Here’s one: Monday Morning  + Uprighting of the house = Chaos Theory was applied by my family over the weekend + Don’t touch anything without gloves which I cannot immediately identify. Multiply that warning x2 for anything green or brown, and x3 for anything which appears to be wet.

Sara had other ideas about church. Her main outline for Spring 2015 was titled, “I will not be going to church, no way, no how, go ahead and try to make me, and WATCH THIS…”

Has she been the only 9 year old in the crying room during service? Yep. Did she melt down right in front of her visiting Grandmother while sitting in the pew? OH YES. How many headaches has she had on Sunday mornings? All of them. Have we dragged her into church with unbrushed hair and partially dressed in pjs? YES-SIR-REE.

We’re used to embarrassment, but I struggle when strangers are subjected to it. The weekly ritual of standing and greeting thy neighbor at the beginning of service is akin to having my eyelashes yanked out, one by one. Well-meaning people lean down to shake Sara’s hand, and my child who is clearly old enough to shake a hand, scowls like a tiger and turns into my waist, week after week. As a parent, what can you say? “I’m so sorry. She’s an extremely complex child who can behave normally at times, and is actually quite gifted, but has a crippling LD in Math, ADHD, and horrid stranger anxiety. And migraines. And well…you know some other stuff which causes loud spaces and crowds to make her skin crawl.” Oh! Is she Autistic? “No. It’s…her specialists…she’s the only….GOOD MORNING! How are YOU?! God Bless!” (Divert! Change the subject! Look! It’s Jesus!)

Does this seem like a bit much for a Sunday morning how-do-you-do? Because seriously…I THINK IT MIGHT BE A BIT MUCH. But we kept going, because we hoped Jesus would come.

I asked advice of my Special Needs Support Group, thinking they’d know the App to download. It’s probably got some catchy-title like, “Get God”. Kids follow a map of the church on an iPad as they wind their way through the donut line, earning virtual treasure-in-heaven points if they make it to Sunday School dismissal. One-by-one, we went around the circle:

“We gave up years ago.”

“Never had the guts to try.”

“We tried. What a disaster.”

“We go, but I’ve never gotten him into Sunday School. It’s a weekly battle.”

This repeated around the entire circle. No one had survived the pressures of getting through church. After struggling for 5 days each week to get through school, therapies, meals, and things ONE MUST SIMPLY DO, why would you add to it? Some kids need the weekend off to simply decompress. This has been our 9 year story too. Would Jesus help us this time? Would Jesus come?

Greg and I are determined for Sara to know Jesus. She NEEDS Jesus. He has a purpose for her, a promise, and well…this kind of important thing known as “Salvation”. We’ve tried showing her God’s love at home, but we knew it was a big, fat failure. Parenting failure…we may know a thing or two about that subject. But I digress.

Last Sunday was 3rd grade Bible Dedication, and above her screams (literally) and fits, we ordered the Bible and inscribed it. We attended the information session (where Sara rubbed her eyes non-stop and fell asleep with her head on the table, right in front of her teacher, but not before she fidgeted so hard she almost fell off her chair.)

Saturday night we held hands and prayed for God to give her the strength to walk forward and accept her Bible, and maybe even survive 2 seconds of the receiving line. I warned her teacher it might not happen, who smiled (I love her already…she was put in my path by God, I just know it) and said, “She won’t be the first child who can’t do it. It’s totally OK. It’s ALL OK, no matter how it plays out.” We prayed so earnestly, but we’ve prayed before. So, so hard we’ve prayed. I won’t say our prayers have gone unanswered, because I now know God needed us to grow in a certain direction through the experience of parenting Sara. But some days those prayers have felt unanswered.

The morning of, Sara put on her dress at the last minute, and shot looks of fire at her Bible, which I carried for safe-keeping. Again, literally. At the end of the service, Sara took a deep breath (giving me a look like she was jumping off a 50-foot diving board), and walked forward. Greg and I held our breath, for fear even a molecule of air moving would wake us from this dream. Upon being called, we walked forward and presented her with her new Bible. Her smiles were downright contagious! She even smiled and shook hands in the receiving line! (Not willingly…not without serious bribing and coaching, but it should be noted that Sara has never responded to bribing. Show your cards, and she’ll gladly share her “thoughts” on overt manipulation.)

I assumed when we got home, she’d toss the Bible aside, telling me that was the worst experience of her life and I HOPE I’M HAPPY FOR NEARLY KILLING HER WITH GOD-STUFF, IN FRONT OF GOD! But no. That’s not what happened at all.

Quietly, with a grace too pretty to describe, Jesus came.

Sara sat down and started reading. She started making notes. She started flagging that entire Bible with post-it notes. Since Sunday, she’s been hanging post-it notes with verses that speak to her all over the house. She sat me down last night, hugging her Bible, because she just had to tell me that church makes sense! SO THAT’S what you’ve been talking about! These stories…they are in a special order…and the wording is so different and poetic…I SEE! And when the Pastor refers to them, I know how to look them up now! Now I know why you like the sermons so much! It’s supposed to be stories about how we live!

This miracle isn’t me, and it isn’t Daddy, and it isn’t our collective wishing or prodding. Jesus came to Sara, and he showed her his words. He opened her heart in a way we never could. Jesus came even when my heart doubted through prayer. Even when I felt deflated, and lacked enough faith for my own child, Jesus loved Sara right through my fears and showed me he’s more powerful than any diagnostic list of special needs.

So what’s next? We bought Kelly “The Jesus Storybook Bible”, thinking we could do a better job of preparing her for next year’s Bible Dedication. She read it in 3 days, walked downstairs at bedtime, tossed it on Daddy’s lap and said, “Here. Finished your Bible. Good stories, but no fairies. Does Jesus not believe in fairies? Fairies are REAL, and I’d think Jesus of all people would KNOW THAT…And by the way, the DEVIL is really scary, and I don’t know why he has to be included in ANY stories.”

OK Jesus. ‘Member that time you showed up with some grace and understanding? Might need to double the dose on this next one…I’d like you to meet a child known simply as “The Kelly”…