My heart bubbles over tonight. I have been serving in a special needs sunday school for the past five years. I love this class. This is where kids who don't fit in, get to fit in...fit right in the arms of Christ, excatly where they were made to fit. I love this class. Loving these kids and sharing the love of Jesus with them fills me up, even when it wears me out.
This class was started 7 or 8 years ago in my church. Just a place that parents who attended service could leave their special needs child. After a year of attending New life, there was a notice in the bullentin about serving in Exceptional Kids. I thought to myself "Oh...I am a nurse...I can help with that." There were 8 kids in the class, all with different needs and conditions. I had been working with kids with special needs in my job for several years at that point, even attending school and sunday school with them. I saw the need to love these kids and was happy to help my church in this way. No big deal, right?
Wrong. I should have know God would change my life, my relationships, my heart.
When I started, I had trouble loving those in my life who God had called me to love, namely my brother. My brother is an Exceptional person. Diagnosed with a mental illness when he was younger, he has been in and out of hospitals, jails, homeless shelters, rehabs and in and out of our family. We went over a year without seeing him and knowing where he was. One of my worst memories is of sitting outside of his room, waiting for his medication to kick in, listening to him scream for over 30 minutes that someone was trying to kill him, he was all alone in the room at the time. I struggled with seeing my brother outside of his diagnosis and his disease. All I saw was this all consuming disease which had destroyed his life and many of our family moments. I was ready to give up and not love him at all. I was rock bottom in our relationship, my well was completely dry.
I had a conversation with my mom when I started in Exceptional Kids about loving these kids because sometimes it was too hard to love my brother. I started working with these kids and sharing Jesus with them. It's a challege some sundays, when they don't want to make eye contact, don't always respond or talk or walk, or they say or do something uncomfortable. I mean really how do you share Jesus with a kid who doesn't talk except by the grace of God. I have come to see these kids are made whole by the love of Christ. I know they are amazing and made in the image of God, just like you and me. He has created them for a purpose and a plan that is beyond my inkling. That's not to say I don't have moments where I am intimidated by the look and sound of a kid.
This happend one Sunday with a young man named Brandon. He is 19, autistic, blind, and deaf; he must walk with assistance and makes loud noises and spends most of the morning, gnawing on himself. Brandon is locked in his own little bubble. I looked at Brandon and had no clue what to do with him. I figured we would just be there to watch him as his mom and sister get a much needed break Sunday mornings. I didn't think anything I did in the class would help him. One Sunday, Brandon's mom came in to get him, we simply turned Brandon around to face her, Brandon immediately scooted to her and wrapped his arms around her. His face shinned with a peace and knowledge that he was loved and safe. As two of the volunteers and I stood there and watched, we were stunned, we had never seen this connection with him. And right there, I heard from the Lord..."Aimee, I am already here. All you must do is love him."
What is God if not love? (1 John 4:7-9)
Brandon may not ever say his name or tell his mom "I love you" or ever raise his hand to accept Jesus but he loves and recieves love. How can I not love him? How can I not love my brother?
I no longer love my brother out of obligation but out of a sense of joy. When I started in Exceptional kids, I started asking the Lord to love Danny (my brother) because I couldn't. I bargained with God, I will love these kids over here if you love him. Then after that moment with Brandon, I started asking him to show me how to love Danny, to grow my capacity to love. He answered BIG. I love Danny because he is Danny, beyond the disease and diagnosis, he is a sweet man who struggles and fails but who can and does recieve love.
My heart overflows tonight. I have learned so much from this class and my time with them. I see brokeness on a new level. We are all broken, sometimes on the inside, sometimes on the outside but the only thing that heals us and makes us whole, is the Love of Jesus.
Jesus is for everyone.
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