In honor of Autism Awareness Month, we’ve invited author and single mother of six, Katie Blackburn to share honesty, encouragement, and hope for moms parenting a child with autism. We pray this post uplifts those in the trenches and inspires others to understand, honor, and support brave disability moms in their sphere.

by Katie Blackburn

On my son’s fourth birthday, I finally allowed myself to admit something.

We had celebrated the day with a family dinner, and his therapist decorated his room with a banner and a few balloons. He would not have wanted, nor, with his severe autism, would he have really understood any more fanfare than that. But from start to finish, the whole day had me guarding tears and hiding my stinging red eyes under a hat.

He did not enjoy it when we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him and tried to get up and leave the table. He refused the gluten and dairy-free cookies I made just for the occasion. He did not know what to do with the present put in front of him, and when his big sister finally opened the blue squishy dinosaur for him, he took one look and walked away. We worked all day on getting him to answer one question: “Cannon, how old are you?” And all day he responded with, “I’m Cannon.” I should not have scoffed at that response, because “What’s your name?” took the better part of a year to master, but still, “I’m four” remained an elusive concept and as much as I wanted to, I could not will those two words to come from his mouth. 

I woke up that day wanting his birthday to resemble, even in the smallest ways, the birthday of a typical four-year-old: enjoying a few new toys and smiling as we brought out a special birthday treat, feeling loved and celebrated in the way birthdays should make one feel loved and celebrated. I wanted to see him running around the house with joy, announcing his special day to all who would listen. But for my son, it was just another day: therapy in the morning, school after lunch, playing in the backyard by himself until we made him come inside. 

For me, the whole day was reminder after reminder of what isn’t.

And that’s when I admitted: I wish this was different.  

In the years since that birthday, even with all the prayers of surrender and reciting of truth and reminders of God’s sovereignty, that sentiment still likes to make a constant appearance in my heart and mind. 

To be sure, there are many days when I don’t feel that way about my son’s life. While he is not even on most neurological development bell curves, my buddy has come so far since his diagnosis. What began as desperation to get him to imitate and intonate the sound of the letter “P” for months, today is a young boy who can say, “I want popcorn please.” Where I spent years chasing him around the perimeter of local parks at playdates while I watched other mothers sitting on a bench talking to one another, envying with all my heart the seemingly carefree nature of their park dates, today my son loves to swing and go down slides and hasn’t left the boundaries of a safe place in years. He reads simple sentences now. He pours his own snacks into a bowl. He lets me brush his teeth, which–believe me–is no small thing. 

It is hard to put words to the feeling of seeing your son do something you wondered if he would ever be able to do.

But it’s also hard to put words to the feeling of longing for something he might never do.

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Don’t miss Katie’s new children’s book, The Very Best Baseball Game, a sweet, endearing story that helps families begin conversations about disability, empathy, and God’s design for every person.

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Those are the two lanes that disability parents shift between: sheer joy and complete uncertainty. One has the scenic view of patience and hope and gratitude for the littlest things— and all of those sentiments are so real and genuine, you never want to leave that lane. But it’s so easy to drift, too easy. And often without warning you can find yourself traveling down the road littered with potholes of bitterness and unending questions, and your journey goes from pointing out the beauty around you to gripping the wheel in silent anger. It’s usually when my hands are clenched tight that I start to wonder again why we are on this road at all, and how unfair it feels to be here.

And then, in the very next moment, I feel guilty for even thinking that, as if my feelings indicate that I do not love my son fully and completely, as exactly the boy he is: funny and goofy and smart, and so incredibly strong and resilient.

But then, I imagine what it would be like for him to have a friend to celebrate his birthday with, and I can barely hold in the tears. 

Pretty quickly I am back to feeling grateful for how healthy he truly is—in the disability world you do not take for granted when your children can walk and jump and speak at all.

But then I land back over in sadness, because other boys his age are playing on basketball teams and packing their own backpacks for school and reading graphic novels and growing into young men who can tell their mom about their day at school. 

Back and forth I go, drifting between opposite—but equally valid and true—emotions. If you’re wondering if you can feel gratitude and sadness at the same time, ask a disability mother— she’ll tell you that you can. 

After more than a decade of parenting my son, I can tell you for certain that I know there are going to be many more days in our lives that I will wish things were different, and I’m glad I gave myself the permission all those years ago to say that. God is far too big, far too wise to be taken aback by the reactions of a scared mother, one who often feels so inadequate for the work in front of her. But even with all I don’t know and all the questions I might have for God someday, I do know this: He does not leave us the same. My dependence on him has grown to the place where I don’t even pretend for one second I’m doing okay apart from the grace he promises will be there with every season. 

And when my heart feels the most weary, I remind myself that for one brief moment, as He waited for the whole purpose of his life’s story to unfold, Jesus wondered if God might do something different, too. 

“Father, if you’re willing, take this cup from me.”

God, if there is any other way, please do it. If your plan can be different from this one, I’m asking you one last time to consider it. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all, you could change this! 

“Yet not my will, but yours be done.”

And it was done. The rescue every one of us would be lost without, completed. And isn’t it wild to think that the one thing Jesus begged God to do differently became the best thing that ever happened to any of us?

At this juncture, there are many days when it is hard to imagine how the profound struggles of a little boy could lead to something good, when I am asking God with all the desperation in my heart to see us, to see my son, to ease the pain and confusion his mind has to live with each day. I don’t know why we have to go weeks and months without a tangible answer to this prayer; and on the other hand, I know I didn’t do anything to deserve the tangible answers when they do come. And they do. Just like for all of us—disability parents or not—there is so much I don’t know, so much of the story I am still waiting on.

It is hard to imagine what my son will be like on his twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth birthday. I dream of one day celebrating the incredible progress that every disability mother prays for. But I live mostly in the here and now, because there’s enough to both celebrate and cry over on any given day. 

But I do know this: on the days I want something different, I remember that one day, everything will be different. Because we live with the promise of Heaven, sealed by the one thing God did not take from his son.

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Katie Blackburn is a single mother of six children, including her son who was diagnosed with severe autism at age two. She is co-host of the Coffee + Crumbs podcast, author of Gluing the Cracks, and a contributing author to The Magic of Motherhood. Her writing has been featured on Coffee + Crumbs, Risen Motherhood, The Gospel Coalition, ERLC, and more. When Katie isn’t writing, parenting, or folding laundry, she loves watching college football and pretending she actually knows how to bake. You can read more of her writing on faith, motherhood, special needs, and a good, good God at katiemblackburn.com.

Katie’s first children’s book, The Very Best Baseball Game, is a sweet, endearing story that helps families begin conversations about disability, empathy, and God’s design for every person. People aren’t all made the same, but we are all made in God’s image.