Mr. L and the missionaries
In my previous post I had shared that Mr. L had decided that he wanted to go to church. But did I mention that a few months back he had shown interest in the Jewish faith? Yeah he did, back in Nov. he had asked if we could learn about Hanukkah. Not the presents- no he didn't want those, he wanted the candles, the prayers, to learn how to play dreidel, and to learn about the traditional foods.
So my husband and I started researching the whole thing. Neither of us were religiously Jewish, nor had we any experience here. But we bought a little menorah, candles, and a simple book that shared the miracle of Hanukkah, the proper way to light the candles and the prayers that are said each night.
My husband emailed a rabbi, and asked if a local public lighting of a Menorah was "Jewish public" or "everyone public" and we were invited to attend. My husband also reached out online and found a Jewish family that invited us to FaceTime them on one of the nights of Hanukkah to observe their religious traditions.
We taught our children the sacredness of these traditions and we did our best to share the importance of Hanukkah with our kids as we learned how to turn off our lights, use the correct hand when lighting the candles and we shared what the prayers meant.
We took are little family to the public lighting of a Menorah, listened to a group of Jewish people sing songs in Hebrew, and our kids danced with their kids. We got to experience their traditional holiday foods and got to observe their traditions.
And through this spiritual journey my autistic son was traversing, my husband and I did our best to support our kid. This was his choice and we were happy to help in any way we could. My husband and I are strong in our faith but religion is a choice. So we share our faith with our children and we support them in the choices they want to make. We also believe in loving others, respecting others and some of the best ways to do that is by learning about others and the beliefs they have.
Teaching the kids about giving to others.
But back to the point of this post…
So on the 5th night of Hanukkah as the lights were dimmed, our family was sitting at our kitchen table, the prayers had been shared and the candles had been lit, my son was looking deeply into the candles with an expression of reflective contemplation, when he looked up at me and my husband and said, "I think I want to pass the sacrament".
To say my husband and I were shocked would be an understatement. This kid had been researching the Jewish faith, he had been exploring the sacredness of this miracle and my husband and I had been quietly discussing between the two of us how we were going to balance taking him to a Jewish church if that was what he wanted to do next and then he throws us this curve ball!
So my husband responded, "You mean you want to pass the sacrament at our church?" As he pointed between himself and I. To which Mr. L responded matter of factly, "Yes". So my husband then said, "To do that you know you would need to be baptized?" and Mr. L calmly and confidently said, "Yeah I know". To which my husband said, "You know you would have to take the lessons from the missionaries because you are older" and without missing a beat Mr. L said, "Yeah I know". So we told him that we would set up his first lesson with the missionaries.
Youth Temple trip.
The lessons went well, the missionaries learned how to better teach and connect with a person on the spectrum, and our bishop agreed that Mr. L seemed to understand what he was promising to do and had the desire on his own to choose baptism for himself.
I never planned on this day. I never thought he needed to be baptized unless someday he realized for himself that he had a desire to. But that day felt so far away, like he would be shaving his face and possibly driving his own car to his own baptism kind of far away. And if we are going to be honest here, I didn't want to hope. I didn't want to put my heart out on that timeline if it was never going to be.
That's the thing about autism and about life, you can't know what tomorrow will bring. You can guess, you can plan and you can hope. But people are people and you never know what they will do someday. And with raising a child on the spectrum, you don't know what they will be capable of doing. I always try to assume competence but I'm always willing to help.
The days you never expect.
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