April is Autism Awareness Month. It also happens to be the month in which our son, Pierce, celebrates his birthday. In less than two weeks, my boy will be (gulp)…a teenager. I can hardly believe it, though he’s had acne and a mustache for months now.

Last week, Tim and I went to a meeting for parents of children that would be entering the 7th grade in the fall to learn about the church’s youth group. As most parents would, I had some mixed emotions about being there. The youth program at our church is fantastic. Pierce is going to be surrounded by great kids and Godly adults during his teen years. However, I got a little sad when the youth minister began to talk about one of this group’s main goals: To help our teens become mature disciples of Christ. This, for us, just isn’t going to become a reality. I began to think about a parenting class that Tim and I attended at our former church some years ago. Parents of a child with Asperger’s Syndrome made a guest appearance one week. Their son was a teenager, and they talked about some of the struggles they’d had as parents. When they asked for questions at the end of class, I raised my hand. I tearfully asked if their son had been baptized, and if he understood what it was all about. I should probably first give you a little background to explain why I asked this question. You see, I grew up in a Church Of Christ. There is a very strong belief that baptism is THE act that saves your soul. If you want to start a debate in the CofC, just pose this scenario: A man/woman makes the decision to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They get in the car and head to the church where they will be baptized. However, on their way to the church building, they are killed in a horrible car accident. Will this person enter into Heaven, or be turned away at the pearly gates?

Pierce is nearly 13-years-old, and he still LOVES Veggie Tales, Blue’s Clues, Dora The Explorer, and other such shows aimed at preschoolers. Honestly, he is obsessed with quoting lines from these shows. I won’t lie; some days, it drives me absolutely CRAZY. I want him to love shows that a normal 13-year-old would watch. I want him to talk about cars and video games and other such stuff. I also want him to keep up with his peers at church and one day become a “mature disciple of Christ”. One Sunday morning, when I was struggling to keep Pierce from talking out loud about Blue’s Clues, I got a smack in the face. The sermon that day was, “Blessed Are The Pure In Heart”. At one point, our minister started giving examples of kids with special needs and their innocent hearts and minds. I began to cry. Here I was, wanting my kid to be a normal teenager, when Jesus was looking into my child’s heart and saying, “THIS is what I want!”.

The answer those parents in that class years ago gave me was this: Yes, their child had been baptized, because he wanted to be. They didn’t know if he fully understood Christ’s sacrifice, but they believed he loved the Lord with all of his heart. It is not my intention today to debate baptism’s role in a person’s salvation. It is such a slippery slope, and I don’t want to trip and roll all the way down. I’m simply telling you the thoughts that I’ve personally wrestled with. I did my time worrying about Pierce’s soul. It’s going to be so hard to see all of his friends mature and accept Christ, and I don’t know if Pierce will ever “get” Christianity. But, if he never comes to us and asks to be dunked in a tub of water, I will not mourn. His heart is pure, which is just the way Jesus wants it. And if it’s good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.