There aren’t very many days when I cry about E’s autism diagnosis anymore. Yes, I still grieve periodically but when I do, the grief usually catches me off guard and will be triggered by the most innocuous things. BUT, there was once a time when I couldn’t say E’s name and the word “autism” in the same sentence without choking up all. the. time. and that’s just not the case for my everyday life anymore.

In many ways, her autism and the unique set of challenges (and beauties!) it provides has most certainly become our “new normal”. I’ve taken this particular cup of trials that God has given our family to drink and embraced it (on most days – I’m not perfect, I still have my moments y’all).

So it totally surprised me when I was reading through the book of Matthew a few weeks ago and started bawling when I came to Matthew 8.

And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” -Matthew 8:14-17

It’s not news to me that Jesus healed people in the Bible. It’s not news to me that even today, in our modern age, God can miraculously heal those He chooses to in ways that defy medical professionals. But for some reason, it had never dawned on me that in MY personal situation – yes, indeed … the God I worship and love has the ability and power to heal E’s autism overnight if He wanted. And yet He hasn’t.

That’s the part that got my floodgates going.

Why, Lord? Why haven’t you stretched out your mighty Hand to my daughter and woken her up one morning with the capability to connect the thoughts in her head to the words in her mouth?

I don’t know the answer for sure but as I went back to this passage over and over and re-read it, I noticed that when Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he did so and she immediately got up and began serving him. Maybe Jesus chooses to heal the people He heals because in those situations, it glorifies HIM best and serves HIM best to heal … and maybe in other situations, like ours, it glorifies Him best and serves Him best to have us wait. Maybe in our suffering and in our waiting, we are serving Him and glorifying Him how He wants us to be.

Whenever I have hard days with E’s autism, and how different our lives look because of it, I’m always comforted by this truth: that where God has placed me and our family is exactly where He wants us to be. If autism was not the best plan for us, then E would no longer have it. It’s a hard truth some days but at the core of it, it allows me to rest in the fact that I have a loving and GOOD Father who cares for me and has ordained every circumstance in my life to somehow point glory back to Himself. How cool is that? I’m not at the whim of nature or the universe or some unknown forces. I’m in the hands of a sovereign GOD who knew me and chose me before the foundations of the earth. One who knew, even before my wedding day, before I got pregnant, before E was born, that one day I’d be a special needs mama and that was how He was going to mold me best to reflect His character on this side of eternity. I don’t know about you, but when I think about that, it’s hard not to feel joyful and hopeful.