Because Mari taught me how to be patient.

I always tell people that God has given some people the gift of patience, but I’m not one of them. Since I can remember I’ve struggled with being patient. I guess using the cliché, “She has a short fuse,” can be pretty accurate most of the time.

The thing is having a daughter with autism doesn’t exactly mesh with someone who doesn’t have patience. So who do you think is going to have to change? The person with autism whom you can’t communicate with or the one without it. Talk about rhetorical because in this case it would be me.

I always wondered what in the world God was thinking the day He gave me a child with autism. Yet through all of this, here I was with a beautiful little girl who made her way into my heart the moment I found out I was pregnant.

Did I change over night. Nope. Quite frankly the changes were so subtle that I hadn’t even realized I’d changed any. But I did. I slowly but surly learned how to be more patient. I also learned how to tell when I had hit my limit to where I needed to take a step back and breathe.

So how am I today? I still am not that great with patience. In other words, no one will ever say she has the patience of Job (don’t I wish). However, I’m able to better understand things now and that all goes back to how God one day granted me the beautiful gift of raising my daughter who happened to have autism.