Not Wired for This World
Making a Home for Special Needs B Y K AT H RY N BU T L E R
Excitement was palpable on the first day of Sunday school this year. A table featured notebooks lovingly assembled by hand with verses for children to memorize. Teachers chatted with parents about new songs on the agenda, new curricula, new dramas to unfold over the year. As my kids and I waited in line at the registration table, I glanced at my six-year-old and prayed he could share some of the day’s joy. Yet, as I watched, his enthusiasm ceded to anxiety. He stared at a box of name tags as if they were decayed things. A teacher cheered him hello, but he only blurted, “I don’t want a name tag, please.” Then he glimpsed the television in the room. “Please, I don’t want to watch a video!” he suddenly cried. He started to backpedal, dragging his sister and me with him. “I can’t watch a video! Mum, I need to go home!” I placed my hand on his shoulder, but he shrank away, as if my light touch induced pain. Other parents stared in alarm. To anyone watching, the scene was bizarre. But to my family, this was just another moment—just another day when our brilliant, compassionate, sweet boy, who loves Jesus even more than he does Legos, fought to cope with a world he isn’t wired to handle.
Love the Sojourner
God has special concern for those who wander in strange lands. He first commanded the Israelites to care for sojourners in the wilderness during the exodus (Exodus 22:21; 23:9). In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses reiterated God’s instruction before his people entered the Promised Land: “[God] executes justice for 16
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the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18–19). The Hebrew word for sojourner, sometimes translated stranger, denotes anyone who resides in a country apart from his native home. The Bible includes sojourners among three other groups who are especially needy and vulnerable: orphans, the poor, and widows (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 10:18). Like those without father or husband, sojourners had little defense against persecution in ancient times. Those who strayed through foreign dwellings found themselves without support, alone in a land where the language and customs abraded their own, where surroundings offered little comfort, and where their unfamiliarity exposed them to attacks by criminals. Home meant safety, identity, and grounding. To be a stranger was to drift, wrenched from your roots.
Sojourners in Our Midst
In our modern era, sojourners still desperately need care. The lilt of a foreign accent should prompt us to pause, to inquire, and to offer hope and help. Christian love guides us to support refugees and to open our homes to those traveling from overseas. Yet sojourners who share our accents also dwell in our midst. They sit beside us in familiar clothes each week and speak our same language. Yet they live like strangers, because every day they wander through a world that their nervous systems can’t manage. In their struggles with autism, sensory processing disorder, and
