Pablo's Story- A testimony of God's healing of an autistic child.
(This is the testimony of Rebeca Garcia, originally from Madrid, Spain, now living in Maine. It is concerning her autistic son Pablo. The letter was written in Spainish, and was translated into English. It was written to her friends and family in Madrid.)
Contact info: remucar@hotmail.com; gracecc@nctv.com.
This letter is meant to be read by all those members of my family and friends that have been supporting us every day during these last three years, encouraging us to keep on, not letting us sink in the moments when we could bear it no longer and, above all, is meant for all of you that have prayed daily for our son Pablo believing that God was going to heal him. All the money in the world could not take the place of each one of you because without your support, phone calls, e-mails, prayers, etc, we would not have been able to write this letter today.
As all of you know, Pablo was diagnosed in the month of May with a Development Disorder at every level (PPD); we were told that the child was included within the spectrum of autism, and, therefore, would have to be facing this mysterious illness for the rest of his life that makes children be enclosed in their own world and does not allow them to communicate and relate with the outside world.
The moment when we were given this diagnosis, Pablo could not:
Say more than a word at a time
We could not hold our child for more than a few seconds at a time
He was not able to say his name, give his age, etc.
He did not have the concept of colors, shapes, etc.; we are talking about a three-year-old here
It was impossible to feed him two different kinds of food at once without him spitting one of the two out of his mouth
We could not go even shopping for food, because outside our home he would become very nervous and always ended up being a disaster
Every time he would get upset he would hit his head against the floor or the walls; when he would do this, my hairs would stand up on end as I watched it because the child, for some reason, does not feel pain, so he was not conscious of the hurt he was inflicting upon himself
He had not slept for a whole night ever, and there were many nights when he would wake up at two or three in the morning and I would have to get up because he did not want to sleep any more
Aaron (his brother) was really scared of him, because he would not let him breathe even, always hitting him.
That is to say, many other things that I could name but I am not writing this to let you know of the penury we had to go through (in fact, I have never done this in the three years he has been alive), but to give Glory to God for what He is doing in Pablo’s life right now.
When we found out about the diagnosis and after starting a very intense therapy that my son is involved in right now, you can imagine how down-trodden we were as parents. You start realizing that your son will not be able to be independent, ever, and that he would not be able to speak, that he was not going to be “normal” and, basically, life seemed to come to a halt that dreadful day.
Apart from the desperation, within me I knew that Pablo, after the complicated birth he had with that awful bacteria, medically speaking should be dead and in fact twice, when we took him to the hospital, we were told that if we had brought him a day later, the boy would be dead. Even then, God had allowed Pablo to come out of it all and I could not believe that after so much suffering that the will of God was to leave my son in a state of autism without being able to communicate with us. Deep inside I knew that God was not going to do that with Pablo’s life, that He had better plans for my little boy.
Many people around us have not known how to cope with this situation and, probably they do pray for my son and are concerned about him but it has been that situation where when they see us the just stare at us, greet us, but do not know what to say or do. Well, I am sorry for them, because they do not have any idea of what a beautiful moment we are living in right now.
Of course, thanks to many of you that have used your holidays and your money, that takes so long to earn, to come visit us during this whole summer, simply to support us, encourage us, help us, and sit with us in the living-room to pray for our son. Thanks to all of you, we have been able to keep our head above the water and have been able to have quite a decent summer in spite of what had come upon us.
Toward the middle of September, my niece Esther gave us the great surprise of coming to visit us, and as we were making plans on the phone, she told me that she wanted to visit Steve and Joyce in NC. At that point I thought about telling her that I would go with her, even though I did not feel very much up to it or anything else, but I thought, “Why not? I have nothing to loose and it is a good opportunity to rest, something which I really need”.
I am so happy that I made that trip!!!! It has meant a change of mind that I have experienced in those four days that it is very difficult to explain in words. Like always, I could talk to them a lot, tell them about the situation with Pablo (about which they did not know much) and simply ask them my questions as a mother and my intrigue as to why God had allowed this in my son’s life.
As you know, Steve is a pastor of a church there, and Sunday morning, with his sermon already prepared during the week and every thing organized, he felt very strongly that God was telling him that he should change his sermon in the very last minute because He had different plans for that day. The title of the message he gave to his sermon was “God is Good All The Time” and I recommend it to everyone.
To me it was as if God Himself were answering all my questions and was opening a totally new world before me. Toward the end of the meeting, the pastors and all those who feel to do it, pray for the needs, and Steve came looking both for Esther and for me to pray with the two of us. We first prayed for Esther and afterwards they started praying for Pablo by laying their hands on me (in proxy), asking God that in that very moment He would start opening the mind of the child and would start setting him free from autism; the only thing I could do was to cry and I felt a heat within me that burned. In fact, after we prayed, Joyce asked me if I was feeling bad because I was way too hot.
The next day all the good things were coming to an end and it was time to return to real life, to the every day routine, but what I did not know was that that very Sunday, after a prayer of faith of someone who dared stand with us and cry out to God for a miracle in the life of Pablo, another very different reality had opened before us. The miracle had already started happening and they started seeing it at home even before I got there.
We arrived home Monday (in Maine) at 11 p.m. and after a WHOLE night’s rest (by the way, the first miracle since it was the first time in three years that I could sleep for a whole night being near Pablo), we woke up and after greeting the child, I asked him what his name was and all of a sudden he looked at me very seriously and said happily, “PABO!!!” I was astounded, I could not believe it, it was impossible. I went running to tell my mother in law and she very calmly told me, “Oh, yes, Rebeca, he started saying it on Sunday”.
That very day I asked him how old he was and as if he had been answering that question for months, he said, “Threeeee”.
From that day on, our life has been an adventure; at the beginning, I did not want to say very much at home because I was afraid that it was my imagination that was leading me on, but as the days went by, I could not hide it any more, the miracle was happening and we all had to agree on believing that God was working in Pablo’s life.
Only three weeks have gone by and during that time:
Pablo has not gotten up in the middle of the night even once.
He has not hit his head anymore
He says his name, age, and answers and understands an 80% of the things that you ask him or say to him.
Not only has he started using more words, but also has even used FIVE WORDS at a time. You probably do not get to understand how important this is, but for us it is a real miracle because his teacher four weeks ago was desperate because she was not able of making him use two words together. In fact, we were communicating with the child through sign language and through a system of pictures and the teacher has already told me that we do not have to use this anymore.
He can tell between four colors and knows the names of all the rest
He knows the difference between the circle, the square and the rhombus
He has started singing songs
He counts up to 20
He has started relating with other children in school for short periods of time
We can go to any store or restaurant without having to have everybody staring at us due to his bad manners; in fact, today I was able to take them BY MYSELF (4 weeks ago it would have been impossible) shopping and to McDonald’s and have been playing the two of them perfectly well as if they had never fought before. Tears came to my eyes as I watched them, because a month ago Aaron was terrified of his brother and now they are best friends.
We have started enjoying him, since we can hold him for long periods of time and he allows us to read some to him or simply to just hug him and pamper him a bit. One assumes, when one has a baby, that holding your baby, kissing him and hugging him is something very normal and common, but we are just now starting to enjoy something as simple as holding your own little one.
There are those that attribute the change to the therapy he is undergoing, but , what do you say? Even the doctors and therapists that are in charge of the child cannot believe the change in such a short period of time. They cannot explain it!!!
A week after the transformation started, the principal of the school called me and with tears in her eyes told me that she could not explain the change in the child in such a short period of time. Two days after this phone call, the therapist called me crying and said that she did not understand how the child in only two days had been able to expand his vocabulary so much and how he had started responding to the atmosphere around him. In fact, I had the privilege of watching, together with this doctor, when, for the first time ever, my son got near to another girl in the school and started playing with her (he had been attending this school for three months already and had never established any kind of visual contact with any of them).
The story has been repeated with the specialists that work with Pablo at home two days a week, and fact one of them told me yesterday, “Rebeca, I do not believe that the child presents right now any of the traits of an autistic boy and I think that we are going to have a great surprise in the next tests we run on him”.
Yesterday, another of the therapists told me that this Pablo was a completely different Pablo from the one from the week before.
When the experts are confused and even crying because they do not understand what is happening with Pablo, is when you can see God’s powerful healing hand. What has made me want to definitely write this letter has been when today I went to get my son from the school and the principal approached me, moving her head from side to side in awe and literally told me, “I only have one word to describe what is happening with your son; it is a MIRACLE, A MIRACLE”, and has repeated again screaming, “A MIRACLE”. I smiled and answered, “I know, I know”.
People out there that probably do not even know God, are seeing the transformation that is taking place in Pablo and are attributing it to a miracle. Why???? Well, because that is what it IS, we are seeing a miracle every day and it is an experience that I had to share with all those that we love, so that, not only will you rejoice with us, but also so that you, in your problems, situations, sickness, whatever it might be, (only you and God know), would be able to come close to the Jesus of the New Testament, the Jesus that did miracles and believe, not just that he can do it (to say that Jesus CAN do miracles, one does not need to exercise a great amount of faith, you just need to consider yourself Christian and know how to read the Bible to see that Jesus can do miracles). Let us not come to Jesus telling Him only that He can do it. Let us go a step beyond and let us declare by faith that HE IS GOING TO DO IT. That affirmation is where we exercise our faith.
All this situation has made me go to the Bible and study the Gospels and, even though I have been attending church my whole life, these weeks have made me see a completely different Jesus. If you look at each one of the miracles that Jesus did, in everyone of them Jesus did NOT heal everyone that was around Him and were with Him, but He healed absolutely EVERYONE that came to Him, ALL the ones that believed that with just saying the word, the sick person would get healed; ALL that believed that with just touching the hem of his coat they would be healed. This same Jesus is the one that we are seeing at work in Pablo’s life and the changes in him are astounding.
We are starting a prayer chain for Pablo on Mondays at 3.30 p.m. (Spain time) and I encourage you that if you believe in this same Jesus that we believe in, it does not matter what denomination you are in or church you attend; if you believe that this Jesus is going to take Pablo out completely from this disorder in his development, I would ask you that where ever you are you would stop for a few minutes every Monday and would join us in a battle that we are winning everyday and every hour.
God is a good God, a God of love; He is our Father and He does not want for His son, Pablo GarcÌa MuÒoz, to be autistic and that is why God, in His mercy and fatherly love, is bringing him out of this dark tunnel he has found himself in during these last three years, both Pablo and us.
Keep in contact with us; it encourages us a lot and brings us happiness to know that you are in this with us in spite of distance. Thank you because I already KNOW that on Mondays we will be together from now on, crying out for a complete healing of Pablo.
We love you and remember you,
Robin and Rebeca GarcÌa