If you don’t want to cry, don’t watch this

I don’t know if I should say this or not, but in the past few years I’ve learned more about God’s love for sinners like me through the lives of disabled children, and their parents and carers, than from all the books I’ve read, sermons I’ve preached, and lectures I’ve delivered in that period.

Through ministries like Peacehaven and The Elisha Foundation, and through various families (like these dear friends, the Dederts, and also Greg Lucas’s blog and book), I’ve re-discovered with humble awe the infinite dimensions of God’s incarnate love to broken sinners like me.

Then, this morning, Margaret Heemskerk of Peacehaven sent me a link to this deeply moving video about Carly Fleishman, an autistic child who spent the first 11 years or so of her life unable to speak or communicate to the world. Then everything changed, when she typed on a computer screen: “I am autistic, but that is not who I am.”

Watch this video to learn more about autism, more about the valuable work of psychologists and therapists, and, above all, more about God’s incarnate love. The most moving exchange for me was at 8.26:

Carly: Dear Dad, I love when you read to me, and I love that you believe in me. I know I’m not the easiest kid in the world. However you are always there for me, holding my hand and picking me up. I love you.

Father: I’ll go through many sleepless nights to hear that. I’ll spend every penny we have to hear that.

Interviewer: Was there one writing in particular that left a lump in your throat?

Father: In this writing where she says, “You’ve never been in my body, I wish for one day you could be in my body…….”

At that point I was just longing for someone to step into the film and read Hebrews 2:14-18.

More on the Carly Fleishman story here.