When Sage was the age Jude is now, I talked to him about God all the time. Told him who Jesus was. Read him Bible stories. I still do. He is going to a Christian school. Communicating the principles of our faith to him, explaining why we live this way and why we do what we do has been just as important as food and sleep and safety.

With Jude it is different. Language is garbled as it reaches his brain. How do I explain the difference between God and Barney and Elmo? The abstract just doesn't play. Singing bothers his sensitive ears (my singing, anyway, because it is off key.) I lie awake at night and wonder if my little boy will ever comprehend the basics of the gospel.

I think it is me that is having trouble thinking outside the box.

God's love surrounds Jude. In human form, was a child ever so loved and accepted by so many people? To be loved for exactly who you are, to kept safe, to be nurtured, is that not God's love?

I close my eyes and picture the Holy Spirit surrounding Jude like a fragrance, so tangible he can taste it in the air, in his bed, on his school bus, as he stands in the window waiting for a glimpse of the El through the buildings and the trees. How silly, how arrogant to think the only way he can experience God is through my words.

Jude was knit together in my womb and by human standards perhaps he is somehow defective; neurologically impaired, developmentally delayed, but I know in God's eyes he is perfect, exquisite even, and in mine, too. His mind may be a tangle of misfiring synapses but his soul is beautiful. So beautiful, angels weep with joy.

Maybe I am learning about God's love... from Jude.