The Church that Loved Us Anyway

"I'm so embarrassed. I'm just so embarrassed." 

My husband and I quickly talked through the different ways our embarrassment had triggered us that night at the Christmas Eve service.

We both felt so defeated that we couldn't convince our five year old to sit still long enough to watch the Christmas program.

We were visiting the church, and she had seemed excited about it, but she got locked in to the fact that she didn't have everything out for Santa back at the house, and the fixation on this caused her so much distress that she was willing to scream or even try to physically fight us to get out of there and get home.

This was one of many manifestations we saw early of the PANDAS Syndrome which caused sudden onset OCD in her. The good news in our case was that as quickly as the OCD symptoms would come, they would leave when treated with antibiotics and cognitive behavioral therapy. Many families are not as lucky.

We have learned so much in these moments about what it is like to have a child with special needs. That said, we can't begin to compare our experience with someone who experiences a lifetime of it. We feel exhausted, when it is on and off.

Our daughter's very wise therapist had told us going into the holiday season, "don't try to fight rigidity with rigidity. Commit to being flexible. Even if it means leaving somewhere, even though you don't want to leave, didn't plan to leave, or think it's bad timing to leave." So we left - 20 minutes into the Christmas Eve service. Leaving an empty pew, and some perplexed faces among the members and staff of the church we were visiting, who I'm sure were really confused about why we weren't trying to force our daughter to stay.

But really? Force someone to stay at church? What is that going to accomplish in the long run?

"We will never see them again," we told ourselves. "It's more important to work through this with our daughter in a way we are proud of than try to put on appearances and act like everything is okay." (Not that we would have been successful at appearing like everything was okay anyway, judging by the volume and intensity of the meltdown ensuing). 

We sat with her in the car through the discomfort of feeling like things weren't prepared for Santa and that that was catastrophic. She was extremely sad and anxious, but we were there with her through the big emotions, and she rode them out. And we decided to take the therapist's word for it that maybe next time she would be a little bit more ready to handle emotions like that in a public setting.

And we decided to prepare better. Sometimes that includes preparing those around us when we can. We were brave enough to go back. To the same church. More prepared that time. More authentic. Not afraid to ask for help even.

I emailed the Children's Minister and said that we would love to visit but had a child with some special needs that it would be helpful to give her a heads up on first. She responded immediately, thrilled to meet with me at my convenience, and to do everything that she and her volunteers could to help make the experience a positive one for our daughter and our family. What an incredible way to show us Jesus.

We took baby steps. They let one of us go to the Sunday School class with her for a few weeks until she was ready to fly solo calmly because her symptoms were more at bay, and she was more comfortable and less overwhelmed in the environment. She never once asked or tried to leave early - so we give the therapist a lot of credit that her theory was right that our willingness to be flexible would actually improve her future behavior and not cause any sort of manipulation to repeat leaving early. She grew in confidence and loved it. And we grew in our willingness to draw others from the body of Christ in, into our struggles, and grow together.