wandering soul.

It's 5am and as I deal with another round of insomniac episodes, my heart is troubled.

There is an 11 year old boy with autism missing from a community very close to us. The boy had told his grandmother that he was going to go outside and when she checked on him later, he was nowhere to be found.

Search crews did as best they could all through the day yesterday but stopped when it grew dark, hoping to regroup and find the boy in the morning.

My heart aches.

I can imagine that this family has gone through something like this before...the "where is he now?" type of panic that runs through your body - but never this long. Never overnight. I know his mother and father are not sleeping tonight either.

It's common - too common - for children with autism to wander. To hide.

And it's terrifying.

Maddy has her episodes as well. Usually they are relevant to the fact that I muttered "it's time to go" and didn't remember to either 1) wait until I am absolutely ready to leave to say those words or 2) say "wait for everyone else, Maddy" or I will find myself looking for her.

Recently I had an adventure of "Looking for Maddy" when our new neighbor came over and I was giving her some fresh spinach from our garden. The girls were eagerly telling neighbor Char all about life in general and it wasn't until Char left that I did the usual Maddy surveillance check and didn't see her anywhere. After a routine house and yard check, my heart began to pound. It took me and the girls 20 minutes to find her. Hiding in the back of Char's car in her own mini game of Hide and Go Seek.

Only she didn't tell anyone else that we were playing that game.

I was terrified.

My backyard is next to a nature preserve and my mind could only imagine where she had gone too. And I thought with dread about the river that runs through it.

This past week I lost her twice at the city pool. Once because she was told (by me) that if she went down the slide, she could get her coveted Princess Luna pony - only they didn't do slides at swimming lessons that day and as I wondered how I would deal with her being upset about her not being able to "earn Luna", I realized that I couldn't find her anywhere. My eyes darted to the water, praying not to see her at the bottom of the pool. No. Checked all the locker rooms. The playground. As I was walking to the car, I found her at the top of the slide waiting for someone to catch her.

The second occurrence happened when I went to get Eva out of the locker room and left the twins with my grandma, mentioning that we were gonna go home after I got Eva. I came out of the locker room with Eva and found Maelle and my grandma but no Maddy. Minutes later, I found her in the car by herself, waiting to leave.

Even at VBS, they assigned one helper just to make sure Maddy didn't wander off to do her own thing.

From experience, I know that this boy's parents have gone through similar situations...but I'm sure nothing that has lasted longer than minutes. Nothing like hours. Nothing like overnight.

Please, Lord Jesus, bring that boy home.

More information about the missing boy can be found here: http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/408466/group/homepage/