{"id":11542,"date":"2018-09-19T05:44:56","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T09:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/?p=11542"},"modified":"2018-08-02T03:01:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T07:01:55","slug":"parenting-a-child-with-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2018\/09\/parenting-a-child-with-autism\/","title":{"rendered":"Parenting a Child with Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I just came across this quote by NZ theologian Ian Waddington:<\/p>\n

As a father, I love all my boys equally, and appreciate their different gifts and abilities, their different characters and natures. I love them all equally, but paradoxically, I love James just that little bit more, just because for him life is harder. I think that God has a similar care for the poor and the powerless, and for a similar reason. Consider god\u2019s compassion in the Old Testament for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner (Ps 68:5; Amos 2:6), or in the New Testament, Jesus\u2019 concern for the poor, the disabled, the marginalized, the sinner, and the unclean. Many of those groups remain, to a large extent, to this day, and tehre are strong overlaps between them.<\/p>\n

Why does James have autism? I don\u2019t know. I know he makes life interesting. I can\u2019t imagine a world without him in it. But despite the challenges, he has already given me and the other of our family (and some further afield) a gift in helping us to learn about God \u2013 a God of compassion for those who find it tough; a God who invites us to partner with him in difficult things and who gives maturity as a reward; a God who calls for our attention, and who disciplines us to give us flexibility and strength, and finally a God who gives us hope, not just of a resurrection body, but of a world where everything now wrong \u2013 whatever that happens to end up being \u2013 is made right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ian Waddington, \u201cParenting a Child with Autism, the Father-heart of God,\u201d in\u00a0in Theology and the Experience of Disability: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Voices Down Under <\/em>(ed. A. Picard and M. Habets; London: Routledge, 2016), 32-40.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just came across this quote by NZ theologian Ian Waddington: As a father, I love all my boys equally, and appreciate their different gifts and abilities, their different characters and natures. I love them all equally, but paradoxically, I love James just that little bit more, just because for him life is harder. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":11545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nParenting a Child with Autism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I just came across this quote by NZ theologian Ian Waddington: As a father, I love all my boys equally, and appreciate their different gifts and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2018\/09\/parenting-a-child-with-autism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parenting a Child with Autism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I just came across this quote by NZ theologian Ian Waddington: As a father, I love all my boys equally, and appreciate their different gifts and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/euangelion\/2018\/09\/parenting-a-child-with-autism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Euangelion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/michael.bird.33\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-19T09:44:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-08-02T07:01:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/34\/2018\/08\/autism.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"275\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"183\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Michael F. 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