Easter

My daughter and I watched the movie Tangled this Easter evening for the first time.  I had heard the story of Rapunzel when I was close to her age .  I remembered very little, other than the extremely long hair and Rapunzel being locked in a tower.  Disney’s version of Rapunzel has magical hair that contains healing and anti-aging abilities when she sings a special song, but if her hair is cut it loses its powers and turns brown from golden.   (Spoiler alert) At the end of the movie her future prince, Eugene, is killed by an evil old woman she once thought was her mother.  Before he takes his last breath, he cuts off her hair with a piece of glass to save her from making a promise to the old woman in exchange to heal him.  Once Rapunzel realizes she cannot bring Eugene back,  she begins to sing and  a tear rolls down her cheek and lands on Eugene’s face.  Eugene is healed (apparently healing power in hair and tears) and she reunites with her real parents, the king and queen, and they all live happily ever after.  After the movie was over, we all went about the rest of our lazy, rainy Sunday.  I did not think much about the movie. It wasn’t the best or worst Disney movie I had seen.  It had been somewhat of a hectic day in many ways.  My husband and 3 year old daughter were in the Easter play at church and both did such an amazing job.  I sat with my 5 year old son who has autism during the play.  The first 30 minutes were extremely rocky.  He kept screaming for Daddy and both of his grandmothers, who were also in the play.  Luckily the lights went out shortly,  so no one could see how bright red my face was due to the outbursts.  He calmed down some and played his IPad.  Unfortunately  I am  not technologically savvy and could never figure out how to turn the sound completely down.   At that point,  I  wasn’t willing to take the IPad  away due to the fear of more outbursts.  We have recently been making him sit through church as much as we can.  He had previously figured out that if he screamed that he would get to leave church and go play, which is exactly what he wants.  I hate to make others suffer through this brutal learning experience.  I am praying that it will get better with time.  It was a dreary, rainy Easter Day. Rainy days are never easy for my son because he loves to be outside running, jumping, swinging or climbing.  He spent most of the day wanting to watch certain songs or the credits of certain movies.  Our night ended with a meltdown.  He began hitting and kicking me over using a new pillow he received for Easter.  It takes him a while to adjust to new items.  I was not asking him to use the pillow.  I was simply lying on it and he did not want it on the bed.  Instead of being able to ask me to remove it, he simply went into meltdown mode.  Anyone who is familiar with ABA knows that you do not reward this type of behavior so I just tried to block and ignore him.  There is not any calming or reasoning with an autistic child having a meltdown.  Eventually he just fell asleep.  As I was lying there watching him sleep, I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks.  I could not help but to think, “If only my tears had magical healing abilities”.  What a crazy thing to think at that moment.  I know I cannot be the only mother or parent that would want to do anything to help take away the pain, the difficulties and the struggles for their children.  It is not an easy thing to endure.   I know I could not do it alone.  Phillppians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”  How thankful am I on this Easter Sunday for our loving Lord and Savior who not only died on the cross so that my sins may be forgiven, but He is  also there for me every single day (even on the days I do not deserve Him).  I may not have magical healing tears, but I do have a God who wipes each one away and I would not want to face any situation without Him.