For better, for worst
For better, for worst
Love for the Lord and each other can help your marriage weather life's storms.
I'm cradling my two-year-old son in my arms, rocking him slowly, staring into a mirror above a sink in a small hospital examination room.
My little boy.
Behind me, in the corner, my wife sits. Above her stands a doctor, who has just uttered the words that we've suspected and feared for almost 10 months.
My little boy has autism.
As the doctor drones on, I hear nothing he says, but can only fix on that small wondrous child in my arms--the baby we waited 10 years and suffered one miscarriage for--and fight back tears that I'm unable to.
My God, my precious boy.
Learning that your child has a severe, lifelong developmental disability is one quick and sure way to find your marriage plunged into tremendous crisis. It did ours--generating enough pain, guilt, doubt, anger, fear, and self-incrimination to threaten our bond and (if we admit it) causing us to question the wisdom of God.
Ten years later, today, there's no questioning the infinite wisdom of God. Our faith is much stronger than it was, because of our crisis. Our lives have a deeper, more rewarding, and evangelistic purpose, one not possible without it. Our family has grown in loving and caring and understanding. And our precious little boy, Jeff--make that our two precious little boys, Jeff and Eric--are what we thank God most for, every night.
The making of a crisis--and the unmaking
Death. Illness. Alcohol. Drugs. Infidelity. Abuse. Unemployment. Neglect. And in our case, disability. In countless ways the sinful nature of our world can invade a marriage and family and send it spiraling into crisis. What should the Christian family do?
1. Turn to the Lord. In 1988, when the diagnosis of autism came into our lives, my wife, Lori, and I weren't as spiritually attuned as now. Instead of seeking the strength of the Lord through Scripture, we sought the worldly advice of family and friends.
Today, we would turn first to the Bible and the example of Job, who--despite the loss of his material goods, the murder of his children, the cajoling of his wife to reject a god who would rain such misery down on him--with great sorrow yet faithful acceptance, proclaimed: "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised" (Job 1:21). Whatever you may need--comfort in loss, a reminder to forgive, a lesson in patience, or unequivocal love--the Bible holds the truths on which any crisis can begin to turn.
We were equally negligent in realizing how much our church "family" could help us. We discussed our crisis with our pastor just once, in what was more of a "what-did-God-do-to-us?" type meeting. For the family counseling we needed, we opted instead for a secular therapist.
