{"id":377,"date":"2010-09-24T09:01:56","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T09:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html"},"modified":"2010-09-24T09:01:56","modified_gmt":"2010-09-24T09:01:56","slug":"can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html","title":{"rendered":"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/dancingwithmax.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"dancingwithmax.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/113\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"311\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/a><\/span>I know. You know my answer to the question already. But the purpose of this post is to point you to Emily Colson&#8217;s new book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dancing-Max-Mother-Broke-Free\/dp\/0310293685\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1285254337&amp;sr=1-1\">Dancing with Max<\/a>. I have a review of it in this month&#8217;s Christianity Today magazine: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2010\/september\/27.81.html\">A Gifting Child<\/a>.&#8221; Although the review is written with a Christian audience in mind, I commend this book to anyone who is interested in a memoir about raising a child with autism. She&#8217;s honest about her faith, but she doesn&#8217;t impose it upon her reader in any way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The review begins:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">Early on in Emily Colson&#8217;s memoir about raising her son&#8211;<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"citation\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianbook.com\/Christian\/Books\/product?item_no=WW293682&amp;p=1006327\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"citation\">Dancing with Max: A Mother and Son Who Broke Free<\/a><\/span><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">&nbsp;<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">(Zondervan)&#8211;she writes, &#8220;Max is not a burd<\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">en; he is my greatest gift.&#8221; This autistic child, who cried most hours of the day as an infant, had long tantrums as a boy, and now has trouble forming words as a young man&#8211;surely this child is a burden. But he&#8217;s not. Max, now 19, is a gift, not only according to his mother but to all of us who are invited into his story.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">To read more, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2010\/september\/27.81.html\">here<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know. You know my answer to the question already. But the purpose of this post is to point you to Emily Colson&#8217;s new book, Dancing with Max. I have a review of it in this month&#8217;s Christianity Today magazine: &#8220;A Gifting Child.&#8221; Although the review is written with a Christian audience in mind, I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-disability","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can a Child With Autism be a Gift? - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift? - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I know. You know my answer to the question already. But the purpose of this post is to point you to Emily Colson&#8217;s new book, Dancing with Max. I have a review of it in this month&#8217;s Christianity Today magazine: &#8220;A Gifting Child.&#8221; Although the review is written with a Christian audience in mind, I&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-24T09:01:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift? - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift? - Thin Places","og_description":"I know. You know my answer to the question already. But the purpose of this post is to point you to Emily Colson&#8217;s new book, Dancing with Max. I have a review of it in this month&#8217;s Christianity Today magazine: &#8220;A Gifting Child.&#8221; Although the review is written with a Christian audience in mind, I&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2010-09-24T09:01:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg"}],"author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html","name":"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift? - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg","datePublished":"2010-09-24T09:01:56+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-24T09:01:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/09\/dancingwithmax-thumb-200x311-18076.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/09\/can-a-child-with-autism-be-a-gift.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Can a Child With Autism be a Gift?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}