WEBVTT 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:07.839 Well, it is um we're going through a series and it's called Pastor's Choice. 00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:25.039 And um this one was actually um a request uh from somebody that they had heard I'd given this message in my former church, and uh and I thought it would be appropriate to give it here uh because of uh a lot of you who are involved in our our daughter's life. 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:29.679 So I'm gonna give you a message this morning that I've titled Lessons from Jessica. 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:39.280 So the morning of December 27th, 1994 was a morning that my wife and I will never forget. 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:42.719 Uh we lived in Gladewater, Texas. 00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:51.359 We had an 18-month-old daughter named Brandy, and my wife was about two weeks away from giving birth to our second daughter named Jessica. 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:54.320 We had the first baby at home. 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:55.759 My wife did amazing. 00:00:55.759 --> 00:00:58.960 She was just wonderful at uh at the home birth. 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.280 And uh so we decided we were going to do that again. 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:05.200 And the night before, my wife had had what she thought was Braxton Hicks. 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:10.159 Uh all these names I never knew until I had started Jillian. 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:12.319 It was it was fake labor, we thought. 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:17.840 So our good friend Gina Caldwell, who uh was over, stayed the night. 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:23.680 And so I'm laying in bed sleeping, and um, it was the morning I was just kind of laying, you know. 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:38.400 I knew Hetty had gotten up, started making breakfast for her daughter and and Gina, and all of a sudden I heard Gina scream, Scott, she's having the baby! And I'm like, Oh, great! She's in labor. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.319 And then she screamed again. 00:01:40.319 --> 00:01:56.159 Well, what happened is my wife had a what's called a placenta abruption, and that's where the placenta partially pulls away from the uterine wall, and her water broke, and um, we ended up taking her in an ambulance to Tyler, Texas, which is about 30 minutes away. 00:01:56.159 --> 00:02:01.680 And I followed that ambulance, and uh, let me just say I said a lot of desperate prayers. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:06.239 If you've never said desperate prayers, you will sometime in your life. 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:11.439 And uh the good news was Jessica was born quite normally in the hospital. 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:18.159 Again, it was a little quick, but she was born and stayed the night, and the next morning we brought her home. 00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:22.319 Now, Jessica had some challenges right from the beginning. 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:23.840 She was tongue-tied. 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:33.120 Um, another thing I didn't know anything about uh if a baby's tongue-tied, that means they they can't really nurse correctly, they can't they can't latch on. 00:02:33.120 --> 00:02:38.879 And so a little we finally figured out what was going on, a little clip, and she was able to nurse. 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:40.479 Uh, she was jaundice. 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:49.199 So uh we had a bay window at uh at the home that we were in, and we she spent some time in the sun getting her vitamin D, and so she got through that. 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:51.919 Um, she was also colicky. 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:57.039 And if anyone here has ever had a colicky baby, you know that's uh a very frustrating thing. 00:02:57.039 --> 00:03:04.560 For about two months, she would cry a lot, and there was nothing wrong that we could tell, but she would cry, and so that was a challenge. 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:23.199 And again, we were comparing her to our first child, which was this beautiful, simple brandy was perfect, and so this was quite a quite a chore, and a couple times my wife said, We don't gonna have another one if it's like Jessica, because it was a she was a real challenge. 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:31.520 But things changed about 18 months, and she was about 18 months old, and and things started to change. 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:34.960 My my wife was, of course, the first to to notice it. 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:40.479 Uh Jessica kind of stopped stopped communicating with Pete with us. 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:45.439 Um she wouldn't turn her head when we call her. 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:50.400 She just began to kind of go into her own little world and and we knew something wasn't right. 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:53.439 And so we began to try to figure out what was wrong. 00:03:53.439 --> 00:03:58.000 First thing we did, of course, was let's get some hearing tests, because maybe it was her hearing. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.319 But um, I remember going to that audiologist and watching them do the hearing test. 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.159 They can do a hearing test with an 18-month-old. 00:04:04.159 --> 00:04:05.680 It's pretty interesting. 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:07.680 Her ears were fine. 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:12.560 We talked to her doctors, didn't really have, they didn't have any solutions for us. 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:30.959 And and finally, my my wife, who by the way, what a she fought tirelessly for our daughter, and she was doing all this research, and uh and she uh landed on a group called the Andrews Center, and it was a certified community behavioral health clinic. 00:04:30.959 --> 00:04:39.439 And we made an appointment, and two of those, uh, two of their specialists came out, two beautiful women who were probably in their late 40s, early 50s. 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:46.959 And I remember I took the day off, or took time off from work, and we sat there and they just observed Jessica. 00:04:46.959 --> 00:04:49.839 They watched and they asked a bunch of questions. 00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:56.480 And uh it was, I think the thing I remember the most, excuse me, I got a bit of a cough here today. 00:04:56.480 --> 00:04:58.399 I remember the most was their kindness. 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:00.480 Yeah, they were so kind. 00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:10.160 And after about an hour, um, one of them looked at us with a kind of a real kind face and said, I think you need to have your daughter tested for autism. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:13.600 And we looked at her blankly. 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:17.360 Autism, and thus began a journey. 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:26.720 We did have her tested officially for autism, and she was diagnosed uh as having a certain having autism on a spectrum. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:31.120 So uh, what is autism? 00:05:31.120 --> 00:05:32.399 What is autism? 00:05:32.399 --> 00:05:37.360 I'm not here to teach you all about autism, but I think it's important you understand at least the definition of it. 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:49.759 Autism spectrum disorder is a complex, it's a neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person perceives the world, how they communicate and interact with others. 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:52.240 Um, there are two graphics I want to show you. 00:05:52.240 --> 00:05:54.720 The first is what's called the autistic spectrum. 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.680 Uh, it shows that autism is truly a spectrum. 00:05:57.680 --> 00:06:00.720 It's not like you either like you're pregnant or you're not, right? 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:02.720 No, autism is a spectrum. 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:08.399 And that spectrum basically is doing it with degrees of how impacted that person is. 00:06:08.399 --> 00:06:20.399 So you can go all the way from like high-functioning people, people with Asperger's, which might have some social issues, but they're typically very functional, all the way over to severely autistic people. 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:23.839 And and because of autism's prevalence, I'm sure a lot of you. 00:06:23.839 --> 00:06:27.920 Uh well, let me just ask you how many people know somebody who is autistic? 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:28.639 Yeah. 00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:30.399 Pretty much everybody, right? 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.360 And some of the is very, very severe. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.639 This next graphic kind of shows some of the typical characteristics of somebody that has autism. 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:42.160 Uh, so one of them is motor difficulties. 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:44.959 You know, one of the things about Jessica is she never crawled. 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:46.000 She never crawled. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:55.839 The left and autism impacts the left and right hemispheres, not connecting, and it usually starts that it's those connections stop right about that 18-month-old period. 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:57.439 And so she never crawled. 00:06:57.439 --> 00:06:58.879 She actually walked first. 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:01.600 That was the first thing she did, was she walked. 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:05.600 Um, the other thing is communication difficulties. 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:08.959 Um, Jessica did not talk for a long time. 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:14.000 Uh, we took her to um, we again, God just led us through a lot of this. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:21.040 She she went to uh we had he found a place called Winderidge, therapeutic horseback riding, or called hippotherapy. 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:23.680 And no, it doesn't involve hippos, by the way. 00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.720 But Jessica loved animals. 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:29.839 And Margot Duquet, I still remember her name. 00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:34.079 She had her on a horse, and Jessica wanted to go. 00:07:34.079 --> 00:07:38.000 So Marg was just saying, say go. 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.639 Jessica, uh she was just struggling. 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.360 And finally she blurted out, Go. 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:46.319 We started crying, of course. 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.279 By the way, I knew I was gonna get emotional up here. 00:07:49.279 --> 00:07:51.040 You guys have to forgive me, okay? 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:52.879 This is a tough one in some ways. 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:55.920 But she said go, and we were like, she spoke. 00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:01.839 And then from there, progressively the language started to come, and it was uh, but it took a long time. 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:06.079 Uh, repetitive behaviors, and Jessica didn't have a lot of this. 00:08:06.079 --> 00:08:15.839 Uh, she would pace a lot sometimes, and she would get into her imaginary world, she would pace, but uh typically not a lot of repetitive behaviors like that. 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:24.240 Uh, social and impediments, um, Jessica had trouble understanding the social norms, uh, and she couldn't understand that. 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:26.959 So interacting with people was a bit of a challenge. 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:30.319 Um, and I'll talk a little bit more about how that manifests even today. 00:08:30.319 --> 00:08:34.879 And then the uh really high sensitivity change and stimulation. 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:51.200 Hetty always told the story that we would go to her friend's place, she'd take the kids to go over, and she would say, We're gonna go to Uncle Marty and Aunt Janie's house and get in the car, and if Hetty didn't follow the exact same route, Jessica would freak out. 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:52.879 I mean, get really upset. 00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:55.919 In fact, one time Hetty forgot her purse and had to turn around. 00:08:55.919 --> 00:08:57.440 Oh boy. 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:04.639 That was a bad thing because she's trying to explain this to Jessica, but Jessica had trouble understanding, right? 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:07.679 So we've we dealt with that for a long time. 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:18.720 Now, autism rates have gone up significantly over the past 30 years, and there a lot of that's probably because of greater uh diagnosis and the ability to understand and diagnose autism. 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:24.000 Um, in the 1990s, it was basically one in every 1,000 children were diagnosed. 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:32.159 And today, and this is a hard stat to read, uh, 3.2% of all children born will be on the autistic spectrum. 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:34.080 That's one in every 31 children. 00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:36.000 So it's become very prevalent. 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:40.080 And um, and by the way, males to females, it's four to one. 00:09:40.080 --> 00:09:47.600 Males typically are more commonly have and suffer with autism than than do uh children, uh women uh females. 00:09:47.600 --> 00:09:52.879 So now I want to get a little personal here just for a second. 00:09:52.879 --> 00:10:09.440 Um when you get a diagnosis like this from your doctor or from you know a psychologist, and and you now are faced with the fact that your child has a disorder like this, there's some hard things you go through. 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:11.840 And one of them was grief. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:15.039 You might say, What do you mean, grief, Scott? 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:16.639 Nobody's dying. 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:18.639 No, but dreams are. 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:21.120 Dreams are. 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:25.440 You know, we went through some dark times. 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:31.120 Uh Hetty started, of course, what any woman would do, what did I do wrong? 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:36.960 And of course, I told her many, many, many, many, many times, and everybody else said it wasn't your fault. 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:42.399 And it took her a while, though, to get over that because a woman is very protective and like, what did I do wrong? 00:10:42.399 --> 00:10:44.960 What did and there was nothing she did wrong. 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:47.120 Nothing I did wrong. 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:50.320 Um, but what had to die was the dreams. 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:58.559 Jessica would never get married, she'd never go to college, she wouldn't have children. 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.360 So it was a lot of dreams we had to let go. 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:06.480 And by the way, I know there might be some people saying, Well, I know some autistic people that got that got married. 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:12.879 Well, yes, maybe really high functional autism, but not on her level. 00:11:12.879 --> 00:11:16.960 Because to maintain a relationship like that is very, very difficult. 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:28.000 I mean, most of us have trouble with having a marriage, so the other thing is our own personal dreams had to die, and that wasn't as important, but it was still a thing. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.559 Um, we were never going to be empty nesters. 00:11:30.559 --> 00:11:34.080 We were now gonna care for one of our children for the rest of our lives. 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:37.759 Some of you have probably experienced that or are experiencing that. 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:42.639 And the sad part about this whole thing was we were really not with the Lord at the time. 00:11:42.639 --> 00:11:45.360 We were fallen, we'd kind of walked away from church. 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:52.080 A lot of you know my story about coming from a cult-like church, and um we had been disillusioned with that. 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:57.679 So even though I still prayed and talked to God, I had no community around me. 00:11:57.679 --> 00:12:00.799 We had no community around me except some of our close friends. 00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:02.799 So it was a dark time. 00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:11.840 Um, so let me address some of the ways that Jessica's behavior uh and some of the challenges we had that came from autism. 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.159 Uh, obviously, I've already talked about language. 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:16.240 That first that was really difficult. 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:19.360 And you might say, well, she wasn't talking, but you can still communicate. 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:20.159 Well, that's a problem. 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:21.279 You couldn't. 00:12:21.279 --> 00:12:25.279 Uh something was wrong and she was upset about something. 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:28.000 You now had to try to figure that out. 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:34.320 And she couldn't tell you, and she couldn't even explain with her hands, and you had to figure it out. 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:38.639 Add on top of the fact that she was had a high pain tolerance. 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:45.039 I mean, sometimes you'd find out she was sick, and for two or three days you were trying to figure out what's going on. 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:47.759 And it just was tough, really tough. 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:48.639 She couldn't tell you. 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:55.840 And then, of course, as you're trying to guess what's going on and you're you're trying different things, she would get upset because she couldn't tell you. 00:12:55.840 --> 00:12:57.600 And it was a really difficult time. 00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:00.799 So it wasn't just languages or any kind of communication. 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:08.399 Um, Jessica was always also super sensitive to any type of conflict, any type of conflict. 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:15.679 If her sister started to fight, she would literally insert herself in that and she would just make it worse. 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:20.240 She would just spiral and have meltdowns, and it was really difficult. 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:21.440 It really was. 00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:28.879 Um, any sign of anger from us, even if I just my voice changed to something like this. 00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:30.480 Why is this here? 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:32.240 Oh, trigger. 00:13:32.240 --> 00:13:35.679 And it was tough, and it's still tough, by the way. 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:40.879 She can watch the same Disney movie every time, and there's drama in Disney movies, by the way. 00:13:40.879 --> 00:13:43.600 And when it comes to that, she still gets upset. 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:45.840 She might have seen the movie dozens of times. 00:13:45.840 --> 00:13:50.159 She will still get upset because uh that's just a trigger for her. 00:13:50.159 --> 00:13:53.759 Um, and by the way, this impacted our daughters as well. 00:13:53.759 --> 00:14:02.399 My daughter Brandy and my daughter Jessica or Kate, both of them were impacted by that because they had to live with that as well. 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:08.000 But by the way, they were also very much a part of Jessica's therapy and healing. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.440 My daughters were great with her, uh, but it was a challenge. 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:15.279 One of the challenges, I didn't write this down, but was correcting her. 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:21.279 Um, you know, with your children, if they do something wrong, you can correct them and the appropriate punishment. 00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:24.320 With Jessica, she didn't know what she did wrong. 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:30.559 If you ever swatted your child for something they did wrong and have them look at you with those eyes, like, why did you do that? 00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:32.720 That will tear your heart out. 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:35.519 So we had a real challenge there. 00:14:35.519 --> 00:14:40.720 Little things like sensory things, like she didn't like wearing, she always wore sandals. 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.559 You put socks and tennis shoes on her when she would go to school. 00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:46.559 Of course, she was in special programs. 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:49.840 She would take her shoes and socks off. 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:54.639 And of course, the you have to keep your socks on and your shoes on at school. 00:14:54.639 --> 00:15:04.000 Well, finally found out the reason was her feet would sweat inside of her shoes, and her socks would get wet, and she hated that feeling. 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.240 Additional, a like hyper sensitivity to something like that. 00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:14.080 Um now there are some legendary stories about Jessica. 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:18.480 These are ones we can kind of laugh at now. 00:15:18.480 --> 00:15:21.840 My favorite one to tell was at my old church. 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:24.399 It's probably one of the reasons I had to come up here. 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:36.000 So Jessica used to go up and sit in um the children's ministry's office, which had a balcony that overlooked the whole sanctuary. 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:38.159 I could see her up there if I was preaching. 00:15:38.159 --> 00:15:42.960 She would go up there and she would color and draw and stuff, and Curian was wonderful with her. 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:45.039 And so she would typically be up there. 00:15:45.039 --> 00:15:46.399 But the bathrooms were downstairs. 00:15:46.399 --> 00:15:49.679 And one time Jessica went down to the bathroom to go to the bathroom. 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:59.679 There was like three or four stalls in the women's room, and um, apparently there was another woman in there, and apparently the other woman wasn't just uh tinkling. 00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:17.279 And Jessica, being the socially conscious person that she is, got out of her stall and she went and found an air freshener and hung it over top of the stall that this lady's in and let fly. 00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:26.080 Right about that time, another woman had walked in the door and said, Jessica, what are you doing? 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:27.759 She said, It's smelly. 00:16:27.759 --> 00:16:32.559 Oh, fortunately, we don't know who that woman was. 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:39.360 I guarantee you, she never went to the bathroom in our church again, that's for sure. 00:16:39.360 --> 00:16:41.279 Oh, it was funny. 00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:42.480 It was great. 00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:45.600 She was just doing what we all thought she should do, right? 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:48.159 Yeah, but it was it was wonderful. 00:16:48.159 --> 00:16:50.080 We got lots of stories about that. 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:53.120 Now, Jessica has a lot of beautiful gifts. 00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:55.919 One of them is she's incredibly creative. 00:16:55.919 --> 00:17:06.720 All our daughters are artistic, and uh she loved to, she would, she would take, uh, she'll take characters from like Disney movies and she would combine them together. 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:11.039 Here's a Disney, here's a Mickey Dragon, or and she would combine them. 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:20.160 She would, you can buy, I don't know if you know this, you can buy comic books that are all blank, and she would take them and take her characters, and she would, I'm talking about thick. 00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:23.279 She would fill them up with long stories and draw them. 00:17:23.279 --> 00:17:25.599 She just really, really artistic. 00:17:25.599 --> 00:17:30.160 When she was uh in high school, uh she joined a pottery class. 00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:36.400 And we came to pick her up one time, and the there's the woman who was doing, apparently she was doing the pickup duty at the time. 00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:39.440 When Jessica got into our car, she said, You're Jessica's parents. 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:40.400 And we said, Yes. 00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:53.440 She said, Your daughter, within two or three weeks, is doing things on the pottery wheel that our we got people, kids that have been taking pottery for two years can't do. 00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:55.839 She's just gifted with her hands. 00:17:55.839 --> 00:17:58.880 Of course, in my mind, I'm like, I know what we're gonna do. 00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:02.079 We're gonna get her to make a bunch of pottery and we're gonna sell it. 00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:08.880 But she didn't like doing pottery, so there went that dream. 00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:11.279 Getting rich off my kid. 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:25.200 Uh, she actually did sculpting and and she actually had a um uh an art show, art exhibit in downtown Eustace uh that her um her art her sculptor teacher had uh had arranged. 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:25.920 It was really beautiful. 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.279 Jessica was so proud to have her sculptures there and people looking at it. 00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:30.240 It was great. 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:31.200 We're very proud of her. 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.200 She's incredibly good with animals. 00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.440 She's incredibly good with animals. 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:37.039 They just they they just like her. 00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:40.079 I think they get her, and she gets them. 00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:41.839 It's really beautiful to watch. 00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:46.079 Uh, Jessica did graduate from high school, in fact, the same year as Kate did. 00:18:46.079 --> 00:19:00.000 And because Jessica was going to a school in a different town, and they were graduating the same night, we actually got it worked out through our hometown, Umatilla, that they allowed her to walk across stage with Kate. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:05.119 And so, yeah, this picture of her graduation was a special day for us. 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:05.839 It was really wonderful. 00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:12.640 Of course, it was a special, um, you know, her her degree was, of course, uh related to her, you know, disability. 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:16.079 Um, Jessica's baptized. 00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:19.039 Uh, she knows the Lord. 00:19:19.039 --> 00:19:23.920 And I had the blessing to be able to baptize her, and it was a beautiful thing. 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:26.880 Uh, she knows the Lord, she really does. 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:33.839 Every night at 7 o'clock on the dot, she's up in her room praying. 00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:37.440 And God help you if you get in the way of that. 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:41.200 And she does, she's up there every night, 7 o'clock. 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:47.920 In fact, we go to somebody's house, she's like, We got to get home. 00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:49.599 Because I got to pray. 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:51.359 She's prayed in the car before. 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:53.920 Sometimes she's prayed in somebody else's house somewhere. 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:55.039 She wants to pray. 00:19:55.039 --> 00:19:56.480 She wants to talk to God. 00:19:56.480 --> 00:20:02.799 And if you've ever talked to her and said that you've got something wrong or whatever, she'll pray for you. 00:20:02.799 --> 00:20:07.119 She's prayed in our house church many times for people, and it's beautiful. 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:16.400 Um, when Sean McCracken, the lead pastor of our other church, had a brain, uh, he had a brain tumor taken out, and so we went to see him. 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:20.079 I went in first and and uh he was hurting bad. 00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:23.359 He was had a headache, you know, his head was hurting, obviously. 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:28.480 And I said, Is it okay with if Jessica or Hetty and Jessica come in? 00:20:28.480 --> 00:20:29.920 Uh, and he said, Yes. 00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:34.720 And so they came in, and her immediate response was empathy. 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:40.960 And I was gonna pray for Sean, that's why I was going there, but the through the spirit just told me, let Jessica pray for him. 00:20:40.960 --> 00:20:43.119 It was the most beautiful prayer. 00:20:43.119 --> 00:20:47.119 She loves to pray for people, she has a heart for people. 00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:54.480 So I wanted to give that background, um, but then I I guess I want to ask all of us a question. 00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:58.960 How do you view people with disabilities? 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:04.079 You think it was a mistake? 00:21:04.079 --> 00:21:07.599 You think that maybe that autism was a mistake? 00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:10.559 You think God was in control of that? 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:13.519 Or maybe he didn't see that coming? 00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:14.799 It kind of slipped by him. 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:21.519 The bigger question really comes down to what do you believe about God's sovereignty? 00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:33.680 I've really come to understand a lot through Jessica, and I'll be talking about some of the lessons we've learned, but one of the things I've learned is that God is sovereign in all ways and in all things. 00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:41.359 He could have easily not allowed the autism to kick in with Jessica. 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:42.799 He could have easily done that. 00:21:42.799 --> 00:21:47.200 And I'm sure in some cases he probably does, but he didn't with Jessica. 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:55.359 And I believe God's in control of all these things, and through it he fulfills purposes that we don't see. 00:21:55.359 --> 00:22:05.359 You guys probably remember in John 3 where Jesus heals the Blind man and and the people that were there say to him, Who sinned? 00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:07.440 This man or his parents? 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:10.480 And you remember what Jesus' response was? 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:19.119 Jesus said that neither of them, but this man was born, so the works of God might be displayed in him. 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:24.559 Now, in that case, it was the healing that Jesus did. 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:32.000 But I believe just like that, God has that situation, God has a plan for every person that goes way beyond what we can imagine. 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:33.599 Way beyond. 00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:51.519 Our daughter will be 32 this December, and the impact she has had on me, my wife, our children, our other children, the people, her family, extended family, and all of the people that she's come in contact with, a lot of a church family, has kingdom purposes. 00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:53.759 I don't think it was a mistake. 00:22:53.759 --> 00:22:59.680 So I've got five lessons that I wanted to share that my wife and I have learned from Jessica. 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:04.000 And my motive for giving this sermon is really first and foremost to honor God. 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.799 I thank God for her all the time. 00:23:06.799 --> 00:23:09.440 I stopped praying for her healing a long time ago. 00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:11.759 And if you want to say that's lack of faith, go ahead. 00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:12.559 I don't care. 00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:14.720 Fortunately, you're not my judge. 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:22.160 The reason is I prayed from, we've had her anointed and we've prayed, we've fasted, we've done everything, believe me. 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:27.359 And by the way, if you've got some solution for autism, I'm just gonna ask respectfully, don't come to us. 00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:28.640 We've heard it all. 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:30.319 We've heard it all. 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.680 We've tried every kind of treatment you can think of. 00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:40.400 But what we've come to understand is that Jessica's here and she's here for a reason and a purpose, and we can see it now. 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:42.799 We can see it now. 00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:44.960 So I'm here to give God the glory. 00:23:44.960 --> 00:23:47.119 Secondly, I want to honor my daughter. 00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:51.920 She's not here today, and she's not here today for a reason. 00:23:51.920 --> 00:24:06.319 Um, Jessica has an intellectual capability to grasp certain things, but we do not like to talk about autism in front of her because she can't stop that and not think that she's somehow broken. 00:24:06.319 --> 00:24:09.920 And so we didn't bring her for that reason. 00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:11.599 But she'll be here next week. 00:24:11.599 --> 00:24:13.279 She'll be here next week. 00:24:13.279 --> 00:24:19.200 But I didn't want her to uh, you know, we have to talk frankly, so I just to honor her, I didn't want to do that. 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:32.640 But finally, what I'm really hoping is that sermon might challenge all of us to examine how we view people like Jessica who struggle with disabilities, and maybe realize that God has a greater purpose in their lives that we can see. 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:44.480 And maybe looking at these lessons from Jessica, maybe you'll come to understand that I did that God places people like this in our lives, maybe not so we can fix them. 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:48.319 But maybe they can fix us. 00:24:49.599 --> 00:24:57.440 So I also wanted to first thank all of you who have just embraced our daughter. 00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.160 Uh, you guys are very special. 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.960 Um Patty Clemens, I just gotta tell you, she loves you. 00:25:04.960 --> 00:25:06.240 Yeah. 00:25:06.240 --> 00:25:11.039 She might have favorites. 00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:13.519 It's probably Patty, so get over it. 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:21.839 But Patty loves her unconditionally, seeks her out, listens to her stories about Gilligan's Island and just hugs her. 00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:23.440 It's wonderful. 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:24.400 All right. 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:28.559 So the first lesson I learned from Jessica was to be unselfish. 00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:29.759 Unselfish. 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:38.240 Philippians 2, verses 3 through 4 says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:45.440 Let each of you look not on his own, not only on his own interests, but also the interests of others. 00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:48.640 Jessica epitomizes this. 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:50.640 She is so unselfish. 00:25:50.640 --> 00:25:57.279 Um, she will give you anything you want without a thought. 00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:03.759 When she was uh when she was a baby, when she was younger, she had her toys that she loved. 00:26:03.759 --> 00:26:08.799 And one time my wife observed, I don't know if it was one of our other girls, whatever, they just went over. 00:26:08.799 --> 00:26:10.000 They were all small. 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:15.839 They probably Kate crawled over and took that toy from Jessica, like kids do. 00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:17.519 And what was it normally? 00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:20.079 What would the other the kid that got the toy taken away? 00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:20.880 What would they have done? 00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:23.519 Well, they would have cried and fussed and hollered. 00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:25.359 Jessica just kind of looked. 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:31.119 She's just unselfish. 00:26:31.119 --> 00:26:37.680 And if she hears you having a conversation, and she, by the way, she's always listening. 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.440 You think she's not, but she's listening. 00:26:41.440 --> 00:26:43.279 And we'll be talking about something. 00:26:43.279 --> 00:26:47.680 A lot of times, my wife and I'll be talking about finances and can we afford this or whatever? 00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:52.319 And Jessica will chime in out of the blue and say, You can have my money. 00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:55.119 Now, just so you know, she has money. 00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:58.480 It's in a little treasure chest thing up in her room. 00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:03.680 It's all change that she's collected, mostly from me, by the way. 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:06.799 It's rolled up in little all the rolls and everything. 00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.680 And I bet you there's probably 30, 40 bucks in there. 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:11.759 She will gladly give it to you. 00:27:11.759 --> 00:27:15.039 And by the way, so her concept of money is a little bit difficult. 00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:21.039 So sometimes we're talking about, you know, going, we want to go somewhere and we'll tell Jessica, well, we can't afford that. 00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:23.279 Because it would be like a few thousand dollars. 00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:25.200 And she's like, you can have my money. 00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:27.359 Like that would solve it, you know. 00:27:27.359 --> 00:27:29.920 Um, I don't dare touch her money, by the way. 00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:32.079 That's it's God's money. 00:27:32.079 --> 00:27:36.079 But she truly is unselfish. 00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:40.640 And if you haven't experienced that with her, you spend more time, you'll see that. 00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:44.559 The second lesson I've learned from Jessica is to be a servant. 00:27:44.559 --> 00:27:48.000 Jessica is truly a servant. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:51.279 She loves serve days here at the church. 00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:58.640 And whatever you point, whatever direction you point here, and if you lay the task out, believe me, she will do it and she will do it well. 00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:01.440 She does everything well. 00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:06.960 You know, uh, when we were at our other church, my wife ran the coffee bar there. 00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:09.839 And Jessica loved to be behind the coffee bar. 00:28:09.839 --> 00:28:13.440 And we had coffee urns that you would hold the little thing and fill up. 00:28:13.440 --> 00:28:16.240 So someone would come up and say, uh, I'd like a cup of coffee. 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:17.920 Jessica said, Okay, great. 00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:23.440 She would fill it up, place it down, and then she'd pick up a spoon and she'd watch you. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:29.200 And they would put like some creamer and stuff, and she'd just dip it in and she'd stir it. 00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:32.720 Some people just kind of freak out at first, then they got to use it. 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:35.279 By the way, you never ask for half a cup. 00:28:35.279 --> 00:28:38.000 She could not comprehend half a cup. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.599 But frankly, Mark, is half a cup of coffee really even? 00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:44.960 I think it's a sin, personally. 00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:52.079 So she would, she would ask, get a half a cup, and she'd fill it right up and just give it to them, and people would look. 00:28:52.079 --> 00:28:56.960 And, you know, we people finally got used to what's going on, but it was just kind of funny. 00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:00.799 She loved to serve and her chores at home. 00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:07.279 She's had specific chores to let the open, let the chickens out, and feed the chickens in the morning and put them up in the evening. 00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:11.359 Uh, she has chores, uh, she has to empty the dishwasher. 00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:11.920 That's one of them. 00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:16.000 And when you tell her to dust, because Hetty, of course, has worked with her. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:24.319 By the way, you have to understand where you see her now is a result of a 32-year love affair that my wife had with her. 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:27.599 My wife has been amazing with her. 00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:29.920 And yeah, absolutely. 00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:43.359 Um, she made Jessica eat good, healthy foods because typically autistic people don't want to, they'll they'll live on chicken nuggets for the rest of their life if you let them. 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:45.440 But my wife works so hard with her. 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:47.599 So these chores, she'll knock this stuff out. 00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:51.519 So she Jessica has to dust, and believe me, she'll just grab it and go. 00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:55.920 She never complains about having to do her chores, she just does them. 00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:57.119 It's it's beautiful. 00:29:57.119 --> 00:29:59.039 She works, by the way, at Love Kitchen. 00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:00.799 I think I've mentioned this before. 00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:05.440 Um, there's a program called Employment and Community First through Tennessee. 00:30:05.440 --> 00:30:07.200 We didn't even know about that when we got here. 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:08.160 ECF. 00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:13.440 And basically what they do is they fund uh an aide that works with Jessica. 00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:16.559 Um, well, I guess it's three days a week, right? 00:30:16.559 --> 00:30:20.079 And and two of those days she works at Love Kitchen. 00:30:20.079 --> 00:30:23.039