The Cross of Emotional Suffering: A Good Friday Reflection, by Anne Jones

Lent is a time that recalls suffering with no day more poignant than Good Friday. As parents of children with special needs, our lives can be marked by suffering in different ways; be it extra paperwork and appointments filling our days, grief over our lost dreams for our children, or feelings of isolation, to name a few. Today, though, I want to reflect on a particular suffering that parents of children with special needs experience– the sorrow around watching our children suffer emotionally.

There have been many times my son has been stared at by both children and adults in the community for his autistic behaviors and for using a gait trainer. I have brought him to adaptive playgrounds in hopes that he will be able to enjoy the play structures, but he gets overwhelmed by all the children that push by him. Rather than inviting him to play, he often is asked, “What’s wrong with you?” or “Why do you have to use that?” (referring to his gait trainer). Of course, these are always great teaching opportunities presented to me, but my heart desperately wishes that someone would just ask him to join in. I wish other kids could look past his walker and hand flapping to see that he is just an awesome 11-year-old, who, like many other children his age, loves playing baseball, watching NFL football, and video games. This cross of watching your child being excluded can be particularly hard to bear some days. This is furthered by knowing my son suffers too. He wants to be able to keep up physically with his peers, but his body won’t let him. He tries hard to communicate but there are times when his speech delays get in the way of telling others what he wants to say. As his mother, I wish I could take away his suffering in this regard.

I chose to reflect on this suffering today, Good Friday, because I think Mary can relate. It must have been incredibly hard to watch Jesus suffer physically but also emotionally as he gave up his life for us. How she must have felt watching all of Jesus’s friends, except for John, abandon him to suffer alone! How her heart must have hurt watching her fellow Jews yell for his condemnation, stare at Jesus as he carried the cross, and then
ridicule him as he hung on it, stripped, for hours. Standing at the foot of the cross, she must have heard the mocking words of the one of the criminals crucified with Jesus about saving himself and them. Yet through it all, she trusted in God’s plan, despite the immense pain she must have been feeling as she witnessed her innocent son suffer with the knowledge she was not meant to fix it. Today is a good reminder that we can bring these crosses in our lives to Mary and ask for her to help us through these difficult moments.

Good Friday also reminds me of Jesus’s immense love for everyone. I was recently on a retreat in which the priest carried the monstrance during Benediction around a group of teens, who were kneeling on the floor. He paused in front of two individuals with special needs who were in the group, and, instead of holding the monstrance above them, hegot down on his knees so that the monstrance was directly in front of them. It was such a beautiful reminder that even if the rest of the world does not see our children the way we wish they would, that God does. And he loves them so much. So, whether you find your heart heavy with his cross today or in the future, I hope that you can bring it to Mary and Jesus. Know how much you and your child(ren) are seen and are deeply loved amid your and their suffering.