Out of the mouths of children

Sometimes what children say convicts me far more then a rebuke from an adult ever could. Today I spent time with a lady who had four special needs children. One was a boy of 13 who was autistic among other things. He was small for his age and looked and acted around the age of 8 or 9. He was a very skilled signer though and signed as rapidly as he tried to talk--which was nonstop. :)

In the van on the way to McD's, he talked about his struggle with school, how he failed math, was off and on different meds, and had tendencies towards suicidal thoughts. As we got out the van, he stopped, stared at the ground, and simply stated, "I feel very sad now". I turned around and faced him. "Do you need a hug?" His eyes lit up, "yeah!" So I hugged him and asked, "Do you feel better now?"
"yeah thank you", he beamed.

We walked towards the entrance and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "can I have another one?" Of course I gave him another hug and then he got excited/distracted at the sight of the playground. I could tell he wanted to play on it, but he hesitated. "Would you be okay if I played?"
Startled I said, "Yea, go on, have fun"
"But I don't want you to get lonely. You won't get lonely will you?"
I melted then and there. He had problems worse then mine and yet he was more concerned about the needs of others. He was what our society unfairly calls "feeble-minded" and yet he saw past my happy-go-lucky demeanor which fooled everyone else. Because in reality I did feel lonely. I don't know how he picked that up, but I signed to him, "I'll be ok, but thanks for asking." He ran off and I thought about how much smarter he was than I.

During a choir practice I went to today, a four year old boy somehow hit his finger on something and starting crying. He randomly stopped the flow of tears and shouted, "Everybody stop! We havta pray for my boo-boo right now!" Startled we all obeyed as he told us to bow our heads, close our eyes, and put our hands together. There was muffled laughter everywhere. He then prayed, "Dear Jesus, Thank you for my mom, thank you for my friends, help my brother to behave, thank you for my dad, make my finger better, and i pray for the cup on the table (?), for the cat, for the water fountain....for the teachers, for the all people in the world,....in Jesus' name, AMEN!!" Choir wasn't so exciting after that. :)