The LORD says, “I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.
I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.
I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’ to a nation that did not call on my name.”
Isaiah 65:1 (NLT)
One of the hardest challenges autism parents face is a lack of response from their child, whether it be social, physical, or verbal. In his book, Wrestling with an Angel: A Story of Love, Disability and the Lessons of Grace, Greg Lucas shares his own struggle: “How do you care for someone who resists your love with violence, who opposes your very presence even when that presence is necessary for his good? How do you keep on loving when the person you are devoted to seems incapable of affection? The only way to make any sense of this kind of relationship is to experience it through the truly unconditional love of the Father.”
God knows the heartache of unreciprocated love. Though He came down to our broken world to save mankind, many turned their backs on Him, refusing His grace, His redemption, and His unconditional love. But it goes even deeper than that. At times, I am guilty of unintentionally overlooking God’s outstretched arms. I rush into the day, relying on my own strength, my own resources, and my wrongful self-reliance, without pausing to fellowship with the One who loves me more than anyone else. The mere idea that God desires my company is beyond my feeble understanding. And yet, He does. He pursues me, relentlessly, with unfailing love.
Each day, God stands with arms outstretched, waiting for me to come and fellowship with Him, to lean into His loving arms and admit my frailty, my dependence, my constant need for His help; to earnestly seek Him and align my thoughts and my will with His, to soak in His presence and His love in order to face whatever the day might bring. To respond when He calls out, “Here I am” and receive His grace.
Thought: “He waits every day with every answer we need, every comfort we crave, every affection we’re desperate for, while we look everywhere else but at Him… How it must break His heart when we walk around so desperate for a love He waits to give us each and every day.” – Lysa Terkeurst
Excerpt from A Year in God’s Classroom: A Daily Devotional for Autism and Special-Needs Families