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Jake's Song
Shared by Faith
Our family has been dealing with autism for the last three years. At the time that our son Jake was diagnosed, he was a precious two year old boy who had lost all of his words. He had no way to communicate with us besides high pitched screaming and scratching us. He lost all eye contact, started spinning in circles, flapping his hands and running on his tiptoes. We had lost our child to the world of autism.
We have been doing the biomedical treatment for autism for the last three years with hopes (and prayers too, of course) of recovering Jake from some or all of his autism symptoms. Jake still has a long way to go on this journey but I wanted to share what our last week has been like. Several months ago, I bought Jake one of those plastic placemats with the pictures and names of the presidents of the United States on it. I even made up a silly little song where I sang the presidents' last names in hopes that Jake could learn them. He would occasionally repeat me as I said the names but never sang my silly little song.
This week, our "former" non-verbal little guy has warmed our hearts and put smiles on our faces. After catching a virus last weekend, he was sick all last week with a fever. In the midst of one of his fevers, our little one started singing the beginning of the song that I had been singing to him about the presidents. I was so excited just to hear his sweet little voice sing.
Today after church, Jake gave his daddy and me one of the most amazing performances we have ever received. He sang, not once but twice, every single last name of each president that our fine nation has had. God has truly given us a great blessing. Autism has totally changed our lives but as you can see, autism isn't always rough or hopeless, it has many blessings too. Three years ago, Jake was non-verbal ... and today, he left us speechless.
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