Seeing Miracles

As parents of a child with special needs, David and Mercedes Rizzo learned to see miracles in everyday life.

When you are the parent of a child with special needs, one of the most incredible things is being able to see miracles in everyday life. These miracles are often everyday accomplishments often taken for granted, but these seem miraculous to the parent of a child with disabilities. Things like cooperation at a routine dental cleaning, buttoning your pants, tying your shoe all seem miraculous.

For us, when our daughter was young and newly diagnosed with autism, we were looking for only one solution. A cure. Once that would happen, we could put autism in our back pocket and never have to deal with it again. As a matter of fact, we took our daughter to a shrine. We were hopeful that after a visit to the shrine she would obtain a miraculous healing. We could sense the hope at the shrine, which was very helpful to us.

family praying at Padre Pio Shrine

We learned that reliance on God would not necessarily mean that she would obtain a miraculous healing, but that we as a family would learn to see her autism as part of God’s plan for her life and for ours. That in itself is miraculous.

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We learned that reliance on God would not necessarily mean that she would obtain a miraculous healing. #catholicmom

We have learned to see her as both inspiring and heroic. Inspiring because we see how she works so hard to learn things the rest of us may think are no big deal. Heroic because she faces challenges of being non-verbal, yet is determined to get her message across daily. We can’t stress enough the miracle one sees when our daughter learns something new. It does not matter that she learned it maybe ten years later than her three siblings learned it. The important thing is that God continues to lead her each day to new discoveries and accomplishments.

What are the miracles you are looking for in your life? It does not matter whether you are a parent of a child with special needs. Miracles can occur every day and in every situation. What are the miracles that you see?

girl praying in front of cross and statue