Redemption in a Silent World
“I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known… and not forsake them.” (Is. 42:16)
Christopher’s story is, at its heart, a redemption story.
That is why it pulls so fiercely on the cords of our hearts and blows the notes of truth across our minds. Every human being is searching for redemption, and his life gives us a glimpse of what it looks like in real time: loneliness turning into companionship, disintegration giving way to integration, chaos settling into peace, and a child who was entirely non-verbal slowly finding his voice.
Autism literally means “within oneself.”
It can be the most isolating prison—a world locked inside one’s own mind. For those who never find connection, it is a silent exile.
At three years old, when Christopher still was not speaking and his behaviors had unraveled into daily storms that shook the foundation of our home, I knew it was time for an evaluation. Until then, some part of me had believed, perhaps wishfully, that he was simply delayed and would speak when he was ready. But when his quiet introspection turned to frustration, frustration to anger, and anger into violent outbursts, denial was no longer an option.
His evaluation placed him at the developmental level of a six-month-old with level-3 autism. The doctor solemnly told me that the “speech” we heard was merely echolalia—that nothing he said was actually communicating meaning. I had suspected this, hearing him repeat random sentences in flawless imitations of my voice or his siblings’ voices… but still, a mother always hopes.
It was a heavy drive home, that long stretch down I-35 from Dallas to just north of Waco.
“What does this mean?” I asked my husband, Dan. “Will he ever get married? Will he ever talk?”
The doctor had said he might not, and had recommended medication for his anxiety.
Dan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Honey, I don’t know. But that’s not the real question. We’ve got to stop thinking our job is to make him ‘normal.’ What is normal anyway? Were John the Baptist or Elijah normal? No—God used them because they lived outside the box. Our task isn’t to fix him; it’s to remove whatever barriers stand between him and his purpose. We have to find where we’re connected.”
That one sentence shifted the whole trajectory of our journey.
Instead of searching only for language or the elimination of symptoms, we began searching for connection. And those connections appeared in the most unlikely places:
on a swing,
in the dust bunnies under a bed,
wrapped in the coats of a closet,
or carried on the strains of music.
They came one by one, inch by inch, or perhaps more honestly, millimeter by millimeter. But slowly, bridges began to stretch across the vast chasms. And as they formed, we discovered not only who our son truly was, but who we were as a family… and who we could become together.
Thus began the story of Christopher.
His name means Christ-bearer—one marked by Christ.
And so he was.
He was marked, and we were destined to share that mark with him.
