Morning by Morning New Mercies I See

This one is personal because yesterday was hard.

My 14-year-old son Tristan is on the autism spectrum, so he struggles socially. I picked him up from an event last night, and he told me a story about a homecoming activity at school. Basically, during the school assembly, students were encouraged to participate in a dance competition during which participants would dance for applause. Whichever student got the most applause would be declared the winner.

So Tristan started telling me about this girl with Down Syndrome who joined the contest.

“No one was clapping for her, Mom.” His voice cracked, and he broke into tears. “I know how she feels,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m going to go my entire high school career without having any friends.”

My mom heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces right then and there. I can buy him cool clothes. I can coach him to make better eye contact and practice reciprocity in conversations with others. I can affirm his identity and value. I can tell him I think he’s a pretty cool guy. But I can’t make friends for him. I can’t make other people care about him. I can’t ease his ache or cure his loneliness.

He proceeded to tell me about how, earlier that day, the one girl he had considered a friend since 5th grade disowned him for refusing to bow the knee to preferred pronouns. He refused to call a girl a “he,” and she decided their friendship was over.

I didn’t know what to do, so I wiped the tears from my own eyes, I put my hand on his knee, and I prayed.

“Lord, you know what it’s like to be lonely. Send him his people.”

And after I prayed, I posted about it in the local moms group. I got some helpful resources there, including contact info for the Young Life director at his school and a few kindhearted moms who promised to have their own sons look out for him at school. Mom groups can be such a gift when used correctly.

But the one response that blessed the socks out of me was a message I received from a local mom with a 14-year-old girl of her own. She shared with me that her own beautiful daughter shared a similar struggle with my son and that it had gotten so bad that she had decided to pull her out of school and educate her online to mitigate the bullying. She sent me a picture of her daughter and asked if I would be interested in having her meet with Tristan.

So this is where it gets good. I showed Tristan the picture and asked him what he thought.

“Mom!” he exclaimed. “She was in my 5th grade class, and I had a major crush on her!”

To make a long story short, we all met up today and chatted. They live less than half a mile from us. The mom is from my husband’s hometown. She attended my church for awhile and stopped going when tragedy struck. She’s considering returning to church in the days ahead, and I will be happy to save her a spot in my row. Our kids were quite pleased with one another’s company, and we have begun making plans for future get togethers. Tristan has even found himself a willing volunteer to accompany him to things like school dances.

I don’t know if it could have gone any better.

The Lord is nearer than we know. I would be remiss to NOT use this platform once in a while to thank Him for His faithfulness to answer prayer.