Pausing at the beginning

Firsts are sometimes hard.  I have in front of me a blank screen begging to become filled with words -- words that I know are crowded inside of my heart and mind just waiting to get out.  I haven't found a way to give them a voice--a proper voice.  Once an avid journaler and never at a loss for something to write down, I have found myself silent over these many months as I move through my son's battle with autism.  It is as if I have taken on his silence, his inability to express himself.  A part of me is hesitant to write anything about the struggle for fear that one day he will read my writings and feel that he was a burden to me.  He is the joy of my heart with or without autism.

Selah means to reflect, to stop and think about something.  It comes from the Old Testament Psalms.  Throughout the Psalms, the psalter, usually David, would play the psalm on the harp and lyre and then pause--selah--and meditate on the Word of the Lord.  This word came to me when I was trying to think of an appropriate title for this blog.  These blog entries are my selah.

True journaling must be honest to be cathartic.  So I will try to be.  And so we begin.

Daniel is 3-1/2 years old, or at least he will be a half a year old at the end of this month, March 2012.  In October of 2011 we began this journey into autism.  We are barely at the threshold.  Tomorrow Daniel will have his evaluation with the school district for special education.  

Today has been one of those days where I hate autism.  I hate it and it hates me and I want to run and hide or hit something or break glass.  But then when you come to the end of those intense feelings, you see your precious, beautiful child and you realize this is not happening to me--this is happening to him.  And then I take another deep breath and ask God to give me enough strength to get through the next hour and the next tantrum and the next session of mindless repetition.  And then I do and then comes the joy when Daniel looks at me and says something wonderful or dances to a favorite song and my heart jumps and I fall more in love with this special little child.  And then I ask God to forgive me for ever being frustrated with him.

Today has been hard for me, but surely it has been harder for Daniel.

I Corinthians 13:4  "Love is patient."