This is in relation to what I wrote today about my son Anthony:  My wife and I have often felt that we were given the challenge of Anthony's autism because we needed it to spur us on to be better people.  Up until that time, neither of us had had particularly difficult trials in our lives, and our outlook on life could well be characterized as somewhat lacking in depth.  We would like to think we were decent people, certainly, but we just didn't "get" what many others go through.

But dealing with Anthony's autism, and all the uncertainty about how to raise him and do the best possible for him--along with the considerable financial resources used in that regard when we were already struggling mightily in that area--gave us far more life experience, so to speak, than we ever would have asked for.  And, we have often had very little control for good or bad over how things progressed.  So, for instance, when we had concerns about Anthony being potty trained at five years old so that he could attend school, we viewed it as a blessing when he very suddenly started going on his own seemingly after many fruitless efforts on our part.

Then until very recently, I had felt like we were finally getting a handle on how to deal with Anthony after so many years.  But virtually the moment I thought that, we ended up with greater stress than we have had in some time with the new problems of wetting himself and ripping tags off clothing for which we have no answer.  The coincidental timing of these things leads me to believe that it could well be a continuance of Anthony being used as an instrument to test and refine us.

Our belief is that there is a purpose in our existence, and that we are to be constantly striving to better ourselves with an ultimate goal infinitely far beyond where we started as human beings.  For what it is worth, I think that most people also ultimately believe that, deep down, regardless of decisions they have made that curtail their growth and may lead them to abandon that idea, even from a very early age.  So, as much as I would prefer things to be better with regard to Anthony, I can accept that they are an integral part of the transforming process intended for us.

Marcus and I went to the Priesthood Session of General Conference together for the first time yesterday.  I have been looking forward to doing this for a long time--at least six years, since that is the gap between him and Anthony, who I haven't been able to take because, being severely low-functioning autistic, he would neither get anything out of it--as far as I can tell--nor would he likely allow me to sit through the entire session, and maybe not even a little of it.  So I told Marcus as we started watching the conference how glad I was to finally get to go with him, and he seemed pleased with that.

Most Priesthood sessions are pretty good, and this one was no different.  In particular, there is always one talk in the first hour directed specifically at the young men, and yesterday's was about how we spend our time, particularly with regard to the Internet.  This just happens to be a huge issue for Marcus, and one we as parents are constantly talking about.  As we listened, I remembered how I have been inspired over time by listening to and reading the words of others who are trying to live correctly, and I am grateful now that our kids as well will be able to hear ideas besides those of their parents to also help motivate them to be better people.