Dear friend,

I started to write you a charming little story and was halfway through…when Tuesday night hit.

Let me just say that most of our days and nights are good. Not easy, but good.

For the past two months, however, Tuesday nights have been different. It’s as if autism grabs hold of our lives like a 1950’s sci-fi flick, the one with the pretty little plant that suddenly starts eating unsuspecting by-passers. But there are no cheesy special effects here. No curtain to peel back to see what’s behind. It is 2am, and life is loud and messy, all of our tried and true strategies failing.

I breathe in and force prayer into my mind and mouth, to drown out the noise and my ugly thoughts.

I ask God for strength for the next second.

I blow it.

And then I ask Him again.

Finally the raging battle, which is too big to be fought on earth alone, subsides. It is quiet. My son is asleep.

I stand in the bathroom with my toothbrush in hand. I have no energy to fall on my knees, or close my eyes. “This is really difficult,” I tell God as if He were standing in the bathroom beside me, helping me to hold the weight of my toothbrush. “I know you are here with us. I know, even when it is this hard.”

I turn on the television to clear my mind. I watch an ad for a body lotion that will shimmer in the light and make your arms “look thinner and more toned in your holiday dress” the voice claims. And then I hear about a door buster sale, with record-breaking low prices, on toys. More and more toys.

So let me clear through all the clutter and noise – in the midst of the Christmas season, in the midst of your Tuesday nights, or Wednesday mornings, or Saturday afternoons. There is one truth. Jesus.

God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, into this world as a tiny baby. He sent His Son into this world of Tuesday nights, to be our hope. God planned this before He ever created you or me, knowing that this world, and our hearts, would be filled with brokenness and struggle. He knows it’s difficult. He has not forgotten us. He tells us, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” He tells us, “Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.” He tells us, He knows the plans he has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us a hope and a future. God sent His Son Jesus into this world so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus is all that is true and noble and right and pure. Jesus is the One Truth left standing when all else has crumbled.

So I will save that charming story for another time. Because right now someone else might be standing in a bathroom at 3am with a toothbrush that is too heavy to hold alone. And if that someone is you, take comfort.

There is One Truth we can hold onto.

It is the same Truth that holds the whole world together.

Jesus.

Sincerely,

Emily