My son, Jacob, is graduating from high school today and we are very proud of him! Jacob is on the autism spectrum and this is a milestone accomplishment in his life. The road to this day has been full of hills and twists and turns, but while Jacob has certainly learned a lot in the course of his education, his life and the journey he has travelled has also taught me several lessons along the way about God and his love. I wanted to share three of these as we celebrate his big day.
#1: God provides what we need at just the right time.
Because of autism, Jacob needed more support than some of his peers to get to his graduation day. When we (his mom and I) look back at all of the answered prayers at various points in his life, they remind us of how faithful God is to provide beyond what we would even ask for or imagine (Eph. 3:20-21). I probably don’t even remember (or know) all of the different ways God has taken care of Jacob, but there are a few big ones that I will never forget. Jacob was able to be in a smaller class for special needs students through much of elementary school and get the extra attention he needed. Those classes don’t even exist anymore (more on this in a bit) so God showed favor on us by providing them for Jacob.
When Jacob was ready to move on to middle school, we were apprehensive about what that would look like. God wasn’t worried, though, because he had orchestrated the opening of a private school just for students with autism the year prior. Jeana and I weren’t sure how we were going to afford sending Jacob there, so we prayed that God would provide the funds. The very next day after we began to pray, God blessed me with a very unexpected raise at work that gave us the ability to make the jump to the Lionheart Academy of the Triad! A few months after that, we were awarded grant money from the state that we were able to use to pay for the costs of Jacob’s education as well as some other educational therapies.
As Jacob was getting ready to start his senior year in high school, we started praying for God to help him get a job somewhere. Because of some of his difficulties with communication, we weren’t sure what that would look like. We soon realized God had done it again and provided what we needed before we asked when we found out about Compass Greensboro and Chez Genese. Compass Greensboro was a program designed to help the special needs population with education and training to find employment and Chez Genese was the restaurant they used to give them on-the-job experience in a supportive environment. Jacob was able to get a job at Chez Genese and has worked there since last summer. Again, this was a blessing that had just recently came into existence right when we needed it. Go visit this great restaurant!
#2: God is in control even when we can’t see it.
I mentioned above that Jacob was blessed to have an opportunity in elementary school to be in a smaller class designed to give him the extra help he needed both educationally and socially. This was beneficial for Jacob in a lot of ways, but we have come to learn that many (if not most) parents of special needs students are fighting the opposite battle and trying to make sure their child is included and supported in the regular classroom with their peers. Because of these pressures, Jacob’s school system tried to do away with his smaller class and put him back in the regular classroom the last couple of years he was there. His mom and I (along with some other parents of children in his class) fought very hard to keep that from happening.
Throughout those struggles with the school system, God kept putting people in our path that turned into allies. Despite this, there was a time where we felt like we had explored every avenue, talked to every person in power, and done everything we could possibly do but it looked like Jacob would be back in a regular classroom the next school year. I had started to come to terms with that when my cell phone rang around 5:15pm one Friday afternoon. It was one of the high ranking school system administrators who was calling to tell me that Jacob would be able to remain in his same class setting the following year. I felt like God had snapped his fingers suddenly and everything fell right into place. I felt the awe and wonder of a God who can do anything in an instant (Gen. 18:14a) and was reminded again (as I have been so many times in all of my children’s lives) that God loves my kids even more than I do.
#3: God loves me more than I can imagine regardless of my “achievements” in life.
Jacob is my youngest of three children and each time one of my kids was born I experienced in a little deeper way just how much God loves me as his child. There is something other-worldly about a parent’s love for a child and that feeling gives you a small taste of how God feels about us. But Jacob also taught me a different perspective on that love which has dramatically changed my relationship with God.
I have always been driven by achievement and accomplishment. For me, that meant making sure I maintained good grades at school, graduated from UNC, graduated from law school, and got a good job which led to a good career. It also meant that I wanted to make sure everyone else saw me as “successful” and smart. I worried too much about what other people thought about me and underlying a lot of that was the idea that God was pleased with me in large part because of all that I achieved. My parenting philosophy for the girls was to drive them to find the same type of achievement that I had worked towards – that was the way of success in my mind.
Being Jacob’s dad forced me to realize that the path to success is not one size fits all. I certainly didn’t love him less because he was going to struggle academically. I loved him because he was my son and I enjoyed and celebrated every small victory along the way. (I also had to get over worrying about other people’s opinions because I never knew what the boy was going to say or do in public – we’ve got some pretty good embarrassing stories to tell!)
But early on in Jacob’s journey, God taught me that his love for me is the same way (Isa. 43:1-7). It isn’t based on my reaching some objective level of accomplishment or human achievement. His love for me doesn’t increase because I do better than the other person and it doesn’t decrease when I do something silly or embarrassing. He loves me simply because I am his son. And He loves to celebrate all the small victories with me along the way.
So happy graduation to Jacob! It’s a big accomplishment that we will celebrate today. Thanks for teaching me so much about the Father’s love.
Thanks for sharing, Brian. Our God is awesome & knows how to take care of His children!