Autism Has Silenced Me

This evening I have been watching Sandi Patty on Gaither Gospel Hour.  Bill Gaither asked her if she would share one of her favorite hymns.  What song means the most after all of these years, after life being kicked around and she started singing "His Eye Is On The Sparrow".  She spoke about that there was a time in her life that she felt like singing publicly was over for her.  As she spoke those words, my eyes filled with tears because I haven't sang since Christmas and before that was July 2010.  I have so many friends ask me "are you singing anywhere?"  I am so embarrassed to say "no".  I am 41 years old and have been singing since I was 13 years old.  Music has been a part of my life ALL of my life.  I don't know why I stopped singing.  There wasn't one thing in my life that silenced me.  It was a series of events that has silenced me.  The biggest reason AUTISM.  I can't tell you the pain I feel in my heart to know that the sound of my voice causes my son so much anguish.  He can't handle the sensory part of it.  He has to plug his ears because its just too much.  I once was doing a sound check at a church and he was sitting by the monitors.  I was singing his eye is on the sparrow and when the song was wrapping up I looked at Ty and he had this sad mournful face.  I had never seen that look before.  I went to him and held him and he just wept and told me that the song was just too sad.  He was touched deeply but he didn't know what these emotions were that he was feeling.  I just held him.  I didn't know what else to do. 

My singing has always been so theraputic for me.  You would think that music would be what gets me through the hardest part of my life but it can't be.  I know God has a plan for me.  He always has.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am right where he wants me to be.  There is a time and a place for everything.  My place right now is to be where my son needs me.  God placed this wonderful little man in my life and I am commited to his every need.  I feel that when the time is right and I go back to singing that I will be singing from a different place.  I think for the first time in my life I will have the soul behind the voice.  An old jazz musician once said to me in the recording studio when I was 23 years old......"you haven't lived long enough to sing jazz".  I now know what he meant.  There is a time and a place and a season for everything:)