Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Sarah Broady for a summer series highlighting great authors who focus on disability. Sarah shares an experience when she found Grace in autism.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, noooo!!!!” The wails started within minutes after dinner had ended. We waited to hear if it was over, or just beginning.

It was just beginning.

The day had gone well. I had taken Sam to a research study that was scheduled in the afternoon. For three hours, he played with clinicians who were testing to better understand how children’s brains with autism work. While he did that, I filled out about eight different forms about his development and current strengths and weaknesses while connecting to their WiFi and watching Netflix. I promised him a new toy if he did really well, and he worked very hard. He was paid $30 in cash for his participation, so he had money to go shopping with when he was done. I got $10 just for filling out those forms!

He picked out a new Lego set and skipped happily alongside me as we walked down the sidewalk of the outdoor shopping center. I held a large shopping bag in one hand, and Samuel’s hand in the other. Both of my hands were full, matching the state of my heart. I felt myself smiling inside and realized I had a giant grin on my face as we walked along. He let go of my hand, jumping around and making funny noises, and I smiled even more, delighting in my son.

It was dinner time when we arrived home and it was a peaceful meal filled with laughter and good conversation. As it wound down, Sam politely asked to be excused and cleared his dishes from the table to the sink. He hadn’t had time to put his new Lego set together before dinner, but he had opened a couple of the bags to find the minifigure parts to piece together before I realized what he was doing. We had cleaned up the pieces and put them in a sandwich baggie to store in the box, which he was now taking out in his room. That’s when the wails began.

Kyle and I looked at each other from across the table, silently exchanging the look that said, “Do we wait, or go find out what’s wrong?” Sam began to cry and wail louder, forcing me out of my seat to go to his aid. A Lego piece had fallen off his table and he couldn’t find it. I quietly told him I would help him look for it, but that he needed to calm down and take a deep breath. He continued his exaggerated breathing instead, and insisted I could not help him because I didn’t know what the piece was. He couldn’t describe it to me as not even he knew which piece it was. He didn’t know what color or shape it was, only that it was “tiny.” I told him we’d look for it anyway and assured him we would find it. But that had to wait, as he had entered meltdown mode.

Unfortunately, Samuel was not able to calm down until bedtime.

Kyle and I struggled to get him in his pajamas and put him in bed.

Later, Kyle and I sat together on the couch in a kind of shock after what all three of us had just gone through that night. As Sam’s parents, our hearts ached, and we talked through what it meant to enter Sam’s suffering with him, to love and comfort him as we speculated his likely fear and confusion in his extreme behavior. How were we to reach the heart of our child? The comfort we wanted to offer in the ways we knew how to comfort him was sent on a detour by autism. As we desperately tried to comfort ourselves and find a solution for the next time, we heard Samuel call out again.

I went to see what was wrong, and he said he was just stretching. As I turned to walk out of the room, he said, “Mom? I want to lay down with one of you guys.” I called for Kyle to come as I climbed into Sam’s bed. Kyle walked in and Sam told him he wanted us both to lay down with him for five minutes. We laid on his bed with our son sandwiched between us. Samuel turned over to lay on his stomach, and stretched out both of his arms across our backs in the shape of a “t”. After a few minutes, he told us we had one more minute and flipped over to lay on his back, still putting one hand on each of us where he no doubt was silently counting down from 60. He leaned over and kissed Kyle’s cheek, then turned and stretched to kiss me too before telling us we could go now. We told him we loved him and kissed him back and quietly closed his door as we left.

We hugged each other, trying to grasp the grace we had just experienced. I told my husband, “See? It’s going to be okay.” With tears in his eyes, he said, “No. It’s not ‘okay’…” his voice trailed off. Then with more strength, he added, “But at the same time, it is.”

This is the hope in which we walk. When the challenges and struggles of autism hit us hard, we do not despair. We continue to hope in the grace-filled moments like these where we feel and hear the whisper of God tell us that in the middle of it all, threaded through every fear and every tear, He is making all things new – little by little. He calms our fearful anxieties. He makes our tearful hearts smile. He turns the chaos to peace. He makes the struggle more beautiful because it ends with the sweet kisses of our autistic boy.

I write this not only for your encouragement, but for my own when the next meltdown happens that might not end in kisses. I write this to remind myself of the glimpses of grace I have seen with my own eyes and felt with the touches of my son’s hands and lips, that I might hope to see it again.

What glimpses of grace do you hold onto in your own struggles?

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Sarah Broady is a stay a worship pastor’s wife, home business entrepreneur as a virtual assistant, and autism mom. Sarah is married to her college sweetheart, Kyle, and they have three boys, one of whom has autism. She is an autism advocate and writer who loves encouraging fellow autism parents sharing the same special-needs journey in life. She loves Jesus and strives to live a life worthy of her calling as a believer, daily relying on Him for His immeasurable grace, and hoping in Christ as He is making all things new both now and forever. Sarah blogs about her life raising a son with autism at Hope in Autism. She writes about every day happenings, grief and other emotions that come with the life of a special needs parent, while seeking to show the hope they find through Jesus in any circumstance. You can find Sarah at Hope in Autism on Facebook and Sarah on Twitter.