What now?

I know when someone gives me news about their life that isn’t the best news, sometimes it is hard to know how to react. You want to encourage, you want to know if they need anything – but then you think should I give them space? Am I meddling if I ask how everything is going? Will I get them upset if I ask questions or should I just not make them talk about it? Those are difficult things to know and many times you can come to the conclusion it may be best to just leave things alone rather than take the risk of doing something wrong or upsetting them.

Can I tell you something from the other side? From our personal perspective – We would rather be overwhelmed with good intentioned people wanting to love on us – then feel alone when no one reaches out for fear of not knowing what to do to help. Does that make sense?

Relationships can be difficult – and supporting a person through a struggle in their life that you have no experience or knowledge about can be discomforting. I totally get that.

So I wanted to list some things that would be helpful to our family and MJ as we travel this new journey with his diagnosis of HFA (HighFunctioning Autism).

All we ask is a few things from you...

1.       Please give us permission and time to grieve through this. We know you all want to be encouraging. We know there is a lot of help and programs and “God can do anything”. But we deal with and see daily struggles in our son that no one knows and sometimes more than anything we just need permission to be emotional and sad about our son and our family having to struggle through this.

2.       Please forgive us if our emotions sometimes get in the way of our communication. We want to be careful how we speak – how we write – and how we deal with our relationships. But there may be times where our emotions get the best of us and our communication may not come out as good as we wanted it to.

3.       Please ask questions. We want to share with you. We want to help people understand and we want to let you into our lives and know our story. We are more than willing to answer questions about MJ himself or how our family is dealing with things.

4.       I know this goes without saying – but if you are in a position in his life where you have a relationship with MJ, please don’t feel the need to treat him differently. If you are in a position of leadership or teaching in his life we will be communicating and working directly with you on his special needs as we continue to discover them.  

5.       Please read our blog and feel free to share it with others. Writing and sharing our story through the blog helps give MJ’s situation purpose. Reading the blog and sharing with others will help us touch other’s lives and hopefully inform, encourage, and inspire.

6.       Please follow your heart. So many times all of us dismiss the urge to say something or give a hug when we felt led. Please don’t ignore that. Please follow what God places in your heart if you feel led to encourage us (or anyone) in any way.

7.       Please pray for us. Many of you have been praying already when I have asked and you didn’t even know why. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you. We absolutely felt your prayers and would love it if you are willing to continue.

This is a huge step that we feel we are taking opening up our lives and MJ’s life and sharing so much with everyone. It is a step in vulnerability that is uncomfortable, and foreign to us. However we know without a doubt that God has put this in our lives for a reason, and is leading us to be completely open and share this story for His greater purpose.

Psalm 59:17 (NIV)
You are my strength, I sing praise to you; you, God, are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely.