Benjamin’s Bibamas

At the time of writing this post, there are 26 days until Benjamin’s birthday.

Benjamin is my 5, almost 6-year-old. My fluffy-faced almost 6-year-old.

It has been two years now since we found out he had Autism, so I’m in my feelings a lot these days when I look at him, particularly with his birthday right around the corner.

Initially, Benjamin was pretty non-verbal. I remember there was a blank, vacant look in his eyes when he was just 2 years old. It wore on me and wore on me until one hard night, while I stared down at him in his bed, I finally asked him, “Honey, do you hear Mommy?”
He didn’t respond.

Benjamin didn’t bring blocks or toys to show us when he played. He wasn’t interested in “sharing” things with us. He didn’t notice when other people walked in the room, unless they were his close family. He was two and a half years old when I began an all-out effort to try to teach him just to use “yes” and “no” in the correct context. This took us almost 6 weeks, and it was his first real form of communication with us.
“Do you want a snack?”
“Yes.”

It was so small, but it was the first time I felt like I had two-way communication with my son. I cried over it often. We rejoiced.

Benjamin could say all kinds of words. Any words, actually. He could spell before he turned 3, read at 3, point to anything and say what it was, and exactly what color it was–including the hard colors, like magenta, or turquoise, or beige.

But my heart still broke every day as he couldn’t come up to me and tell me how he felt or what he liked.

Eventually his vocabulary expanded into movie scripts, songs, and scripts from educational videos he had watched. He could recite a 10-minute long academic video to me almost word-for-word, but when I would say, “Hey, what’s your name?” he would say back to me, “Hey, what’s your name?”
He had literally no spontaneous language.

At the age of 4 it was apparent that he was incredibly bright. Something like a photographic memory, or something.. I don’t know. But it was at this age he switched from his former fixation with the alphabet, to a new fixation with the solar system. Now conversations essentially consisted of me asking him what he wanted to eat, or if his tummy was sick, or what he wanted to do, and him responding with, “Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system,” or “Jupiter is a gas giant.”

There is one night I still remember so clearly.
He was laying in his bed and I was tucking him in. We had to draw and cut out miniature planets (all of them) every single night, and then line them up on his bed and name them over and over or he couldn’t go to sleep. We finished up this routine and then I sat and listened while he stared up at the space poster above his bed and he told me all about the universe out there.
“God made the universe,” he said suddenly.

I knew he’d only heard it somewhere and was repeating it, but my spirit perked up and I latched onto it for dear life. Maybe someday we can talk about that God, I thought.

I stared at his face as he babbled on, listing the dwarf planets and staring right through me, and I cried out to God. How will I ever tell him the gospel, Lord? I prayed. Please connect these wires in my Benjamin’s little brain. Please give me the opportunity to tell my child about you, and have him understand what I’m saying!

And fast forward to now.

I do consider it a miracle that this little boy can walk up to me and tell me every single thing he is thinking and feeling today. He can tell me what he likes and what he doesn’t like. He can remember things that have happened, and recall them in perfect order and tell it back to me. Memories from before he could even talk. He can tell me now how he used to feel back then.

But the greater miracle is this.

Somewhere around 4 and a half years old, Benjamin’s fixation with the solar system started to fade away, and slowly but surely, just as his communication skills seemed to increase about a hundred-fold, Benjamin turned his attentions to God, Jesus, and the Bible.

It started slowly. We noticed an interest; more requests to watch Bible shows, random drawings laying around the house that said “Jesus Christ” over a man beside a cross. But eventually, that interest turned into a passion. Benjamin was all of a sudden fascinated by every story from the Bible he could get his hands on. He asked questions about God constantly, particularly, about salvation, and how and why Jesus had to die on the cross.

But the thing about children on with Autism is this: many of them are very literal. So when we tell him God is real, and we are all sinners, and Jesus came and died on a cross to pay for those sins so we could have a relationship with God and go to heaven— He believes us. Wholeheartedly. There, in fact, is not a single doubt.

The result has been that my son, whom I didn’t know if I would ever have a conversation with, is now literally the most Bible-believing person I’ve ever met. He has a faith in God unlike anything I’ve ever seen up close.

When we say, “well, we need to pray to God about that,” Benjamin drops on his knees and enters into a 3-4 minute prayer. There is nothing contrived in it. Being on the Autism spectrum, he’s not really even capable of “contriving.” He is actually talking to God, and actually believing God is hearing him, and will answer.

Benjamin can tell you much of the family tree from Abraham on down to Jesus.
He will name all Jacob’s sons for you and tell you something about them. He will tell you what languages the Bible was written in, and why. He’ll explain to you in detail what the Old Covenant was and why we needed a new one, and then he’ll dive into the New Covenant too. He’ll tell you about how we don’t need animal sacrifices anymore and Jesus paid for all the sin forever. He’ll remind you of the things you forgot about Paul and Silus, and he’ll even take you on a little trip through church history and fill you on the lives of some great theologians and some of the famous martyrs of Christianity. If you’re like me, you’ll probably learn something new lol.

But before any of this, before he starts diving into his deep well of 5-year-old theology, he will ask you one question: “Are you a Christian?”

He genuinely wants to know.

Jesus told us in the Bible to make disciples of all nations, and so Benjamin took that literally. He wants to know if you’re a disciple, and if you’re not, get comfortable, because he’s gonna try to make you one.

At Christmas this year we were headed to our annual family gathering and he asked me if everyone there believed in God. I responded, as honest as I could, “Well honey, I don’t know exactly. There may be a few there who don’t have a relationship with God.”

“What are their names?” he asked, straight-faced. He pressed me for a list of names for some 15 minutes lol.

Since I refused to give him a list, Benjamin methodically worked through the entire crowd of our family throughout the night, and asked each and everyone of them if they were a Christian or not. I’m not kidding.

At one point he had asked me, “Will there be a tub or a pool there for baptizing if someone comes to the faith?”
Again. I’m not kidding lol.

My favorite part of the night was when he had the whole family gather round and get quiet. We sat down and formed a circle around him, and he turned slowly around to look at each of us while he sang the entire song, “It’s About the Cross.” Acapella. Three verses and the chorus several times.. plus ad-libs.

“It’s about the cross
It’s about my sin
It’s about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again

It’s about the stone
That was rolled away
So that you and I could have real life someday
It’s about the cross

It’s not all about the good things
In this life I’ve done
Its not all about the treasures
Or the trophies that I’ve won

Its not about the righteousness
That I find within
It’s all about His precious blood
That saves me from my sin.”

It was breath-taking. I know I’m biased, I know that. But I’ve never seen anything like it.

When I asked him why he chose that he song he was very matter of fact. “It has the whole message of the gospel.”

It was stunning. Is that not stunning?

There was of course this earthly, mama part of me that felt a pang in my chest every time I saw him corner someone and start in on a mini-sermon. Because it’s weird, there I said it. There is a part of me that can’t help but see him and know that he is different, and wonder what that will mean for him when he’s 14 or 23 or 41 and he’s not short and fluffy-faced and it’s not so cute anymore. I can’t help it, I still grieve a little bit over what Autism has meant for us.

But man. God is good isn’t He? He creates us vessels out of clay, and He does it for His purposes. And I can’t waste all my days aching over what “could have been” for my son when I see the purpose God has chosen him for instead.

God has used Autism to draw Benjamin closer to Himself and to bring Himself glory. And everyday, as we watch that, and we watch Benjamin ask the people in the drive-through, and the store, and out in our backyard, “Do you believe in Jesus as your Savior?” …our hearts are turned to the Lord as well.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson for anyone else in all this. Probably not. I’m just a mama sharing. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat with all this and I process well through writing things down. If nothing else, it’s been good for my heart to share this story.
But also, please do enjoy this picture of Benjamin’s new Christmas “Bibamas.”

Yeah, that’s Bible + Pajamas.

Bibamas.