Agape

After being MIA for quite some time and not even sure if I wanted to continue the blog I decided to post.  Things here have been overwhelming in many ways this last month or so, perhaps I will share more details on a later post.  But as I sat at my computer this morning, trying to get some work done and drinking my coffee many random thoughts have crept in and out of my mind as they tend to do when the house is quiet and I am left alone to even be able to hear myself think!!  And Naomi, her autism, and different ways it affects us always creeps in.  But this morning the thoughts led me down a different path than usual.  I tend to think often of what can she really comprehend, what facts and details of every day life does she really have a grasp on?!?  Yes, her vocabulary is expanding, but a lot of it is mainly her being 'trained' to respond to a certain prompt with a specific response, more so than her really giving us her honest 'answer.'  For example, in therapy they were teaching her to say her name, so that when you asked her what is her name she'd say 'nay-OH-me'...and I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear her answer.  I'd ask her her name at least 20 times a day...which made me wonder if she thought I was crazy!  I bet in her head she'd say to herself, 'What is wrong with this woman.  She calls my name 50 times a day to get me to do things and then asks me my name just as often...does she forget it that quickly?!?' Once she had mastered that they started to teach her to say her last name, so she learned to reply 'Cherry', but now if you ask her a question that has the word 'name' in it, whether you'd ask her for her first name, or what is her last name, or even if you'd say what is the doggy's name, her answer is now always Cherry.  If she sees a picture of herself and you ask 'Who is this?' she still replies Naomi, but because the current prompt at therapy is her last name as soon as she hears that word in your question, her reply is 'Cherry' no matter what you are really asking.
      And one of the things I think of most often of whether or not she can understand is how much we love her, if she even knows what LOVE is.  I tell her I love her all the time, and some times she will reply with an I love you back, but I wonder if she even really knows what she is saying, what she is expressing, more importantly what it means that I love her!  Or is it the same as the name example above, where she is just repeating what you are saying because it's what she thinks she should do.  But as I sat here this morning and started to think about 'Does this little girl really understand that she means the world to us??  Does she really know what a gift she is, how precious she is, how adored she is??' God stirred my heart and thoughts down a different way.  I started to think about what she is teaching us.  As hard as things are at times, Naomi is giving us a wonderful gift that not many, especially here in our Western society that tells us to do what makes us happy and is all about instant gratification, get to experience.  She is teaching us to truly love, the hard kind of love, the one in the Bible referred to as 'AGAPE' love, the kind that God gives to us, and Jesus was willing to live out as he hung on the cross for our sakes!!  In the Greek there are 4 different ways to express love, which really is better because how can you 'love' your husband and children and 'love' your favorite pair of jeans and want for that four letter word to mean the same in both contexts?!?  So the greek have Éros, to mean that erotic passionate love, Philia which is used to refer to brotherly love, what you might use to refer to your friends, there is Storge, which is used mostly to describe an affectionate love, and there is the kind that we all long for  Agápe and this is the unconditional, ever fulfilling,  1 Corinthians 13 kind of love.   

And all 5 of us here at the Cherry household are having our hearts tilled to be able to give this kind of love.  We all in different ways, even the littlest Cherry, sacrifice, give, and love Naomi without really getting much in return.  For me especially.  It is so overwhelming at times how hard things can be, the things we have to overcome and deal with each day, I can't tell you how many times the thought creeps in my head, 'God, I don't have the strength to deal with this right now.  I don't have the energy to do overcorrection 5-10 times, or spend 30 min trying to just get my child to sit.'  I don't even know how many times a week I am fighting back tears whether out of frustration, my heart breaking for our little princess, or out of feeling hopeless and defeated. I can't even explain the toll that it takes on my emotions and heart to go from a top of the mountain experience because of even the smallest accomplishment I may see in Naomi, to the down in the muck, literally, cleaning up poop at 11:30pm when all I wanted to do was crawl in bed!  Yet, as I think about the articles and stories of parents that did the 'unthinkable' and ended the life of their autistic child, and/or their own because it was more than they could handle, I can't even imagine that!!  It is extremely hard and some days I don't know how I will make it the next hour, but then I see her smile, or hear her little voice and I am reminded of how it is all worth it, poop and all!!  I am reminded that something beautiful is in the midst of all this pressure, much like how a diamond is created.  And God shows me that He is giving me a real life example and reminder of how He loves me.  I am sure that there are lessons God feels I should have learned 10 years ago, there are areas where I am stubborn  to the point of making Him wish to flood this Earth like He did in Noah's time, things that He tries to show me I need to rid my heart of that I am still blind to.  I know that there are concepts and Bible verses that I can spew out when prompted that makes God say, yes great, you can say that, but why can't you grasp what it REALLY means!!  Yet, though I seem to have nothing but trouble to offer Him, He sees beyond that.  He looks at all that I lack, all that I don't understand, all of my brokenness, and shows me that He loves me in spite of all that and gives me His strength to go on!  


    And this morning He gave me an early Mother's Day gift.  As I sat here contemplating on what does Naomi understand in regards to my love for her, what will she ever understand God gave me the gift of the love of my daughter.  He showed me that though she may not grasp the concept of love in the same way that I can, or that she may not be able to express her love for me in the same way my typical 6 yr old can, she still does.  She does it in the way that she has always come to me for protection, for cuddles, for help.  Even while she was deep in her 'own little world' she'd reach out at times and bring me in with her.  And today God showed me that in spite of us at times waking her up from giving her a shot at times, in spite of me spraying her with cold water that she doesn't like to reprimand her, in spite of me literally sitting on her, not allowing her to breath through her nose, and forcing her to take medicine she can't stand, in spite of having to drop her off for 6 hours a day to a place she sometimes doesn't want to go to, her view of me hasn't changed.  She still runs into my arms and holds me tight.  As soon as she gets home the first she things she does is look for me around the house.  When she is weary of a situation it is my hand that she won't let go of.  So though I worry at times and don't know if she can understand that the medicine, the shots, the hours away from home at therapy are all for her own good and because we love her, God showed me today that somehow, even through the mysterious walls that is Autism, love gets translated to her heart just right!!