Gratefully this year, Holy Week is trumping World Autism Awareness Day in my thoughts. Just the same, I pray without ceasing and the best way I know to celebrate Autism Awareness month is to participate in Children of Destiny's Turning the Tide Prayer Thrust. You can print out their month of daily prompts or "like" them on Facebook.
As soon as I clicked there this morning to see Ephesians 3:20--the verse on our adoption letter 17 years ago--I broke into song: "How can I keep from singing your praise?! How can I ever say enough? How amazing is your LOVE!!!"
A plan revealed itself. This year April 2012, I'd like testify to answered prayer! God is answering those prayers, daily, monthly, annually, through our lives. As we lift them up in trust, He is turning the tide. He is answering. Lest the stones cry out, I'd like to give testimony to the ways He is answering at our house. God keeps His promises in our autism-laced lives.
The Passover Seder is a ritual re-telling of how God delivered His people from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. At a certain point in the scripted object lesson, guests around the dinner table recite the specific things God did on their behalf followed by a hearty, "Dayenu!" proclaiming in Hebrew "that would have been enough!"
Two years ago in April 2010 I set out to post a prayer a day. Somewhere around the 10th, all hell broke loose in our house and we were thrown into a harrowing crisis I have yet to recount publicly. It came flooding back to me today marked as it was by coinciding with autism awareness month and this same prayer calendar. That seems a fitting place to start:
That you kept Reid out of a psych hospital...that would have been enough!
That you sent people two by two in prayer vigil with us....Dayenu!
That musicians came to soothe his spirit as he dried out from wrong meds...Dayenu!
That you assigned total strangers to pray for us in new ways.....that would have been enough!
That you parted IEP waters in a single stroke to allow a miraculous change of
schools....Dayenu!
That he is no longer in a pressure cooker of behavior mod and physical restraint but a nurturing community of redemptive grace....Dayenu!
That you replaced my worst fear with new faith...Dayenu!
That you showed me who you really are in the wee hours of the night......that would have been enough!
That you've kept my marriage together through years of stubborn neglect and thrashing.....Dayenu!
That you didn't just deliver Reid, but each of us in the process.....Dayenu!
That I am not the same...that would have been enough!
That my husband's heart is transformed.....Dayenu!
That Allie sees you're real...that would have been enough!
That the boy who I was once told might not write his name, went through 3 composition notebooks yesterday handwriting lists of his favorite things....Dayenu!
That Reid has a ministry to others...that would have been enough!
That you've given Allie more not less through these trials....Dayenu!
That you blessed us with two babies not just one...that would have been enough!
That we can call you Father by a spirit of adoption....Dayenu!
That you still show your glory through healing...that would have been enough!
That you communicate intimately with your people...Dayenu!
That You give us the very faith to believe there is yet more blessing in store....that is enough!
That you are good and your love endures...Dayenu!
Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more that we would ever dare to ask or even dream of--infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes." Ephesians 3:19-21 The Living Bible
Correlated with Turning the Tide! Children of Destiny's Prayer Thrust for the month of April
Dayenu!!!
ReplyDeleteAs you testify, my faith is encouraged and my gratitude for the goodness of our God is magnified.
Thank you Lord for your hand on this precious family!
Love.