Different, not Less

So, I'm a bit strange. (I know, I know. Some of you are laughing or saying something like "you don't say"--much sarcasm imbued) But it's more than you know. It's more than I knew. As strange as I have seemed for years, almost no one has had any idea how strange it has been inside my head.

Not even me.

I know. That sounds strange, but understanding sheds light on the shadows we live with.

I have been like a child afraid of the dark--afraid of the shadows and shapes that linger beyond what reason and self-assurance can assuage. Picture a child that, in the dark, sees the shadows and fears their shapes, KNOWING that this one is just a coat draped across a chair and that one is a lamp with a hat on it--KNOWING, but still fearing. And self-destructively critical because he DOES know, and can't stop being afraid, but there's no helping it, so he just gets used to being afraid and ignoring it. But you can't make it go away just by ignoring it; you can only learn to live with it and minimize its power in you life.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but there have been (and are) things in my life that I have known were different, things I didn't understand about myself, things that were WRONG with me that I basically forced myself to ignore and learn to live with.  Many of these things I have actually overcome. Many I still have to deal with.

As a child, I often found myself loathing the touch of others. Not always ( which actually made it more confusing), but often when someone wanted to hug me or just put a hand on me, it would make me mad/tense/irritable. For a season in my youth, it made me violent.
But I WANTED hugs. It was desperately important to me that people would still be willing, would still WANT to hug me; I just hated for them to try. It made me feel trapped/confined--like walking through the woods and your clothes keep getting snagged on branches or having spider webs get on you and you can't seem to get them off.  Logically I knew there was no danger or threat, but YOU try to just leave a spider web on you. . . hmm?

I'm passed that one. God did an amazing work through some awesome people in my life. One man, in particular, was very instrumental in this. He's a hugger, you see. And not just little hugs; no, he's the hug you way past what's comfortable kind of guy. Thing is, I knew he meant it. I knew that this was how he said he loved me and accepted me, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. . .  So, between that and some mind-blowing things God was doing where my self-image and identity were concerned, I found a place where I can hug and be hugged. It's a good thing. :)

I've also been highly sensitive to sounds, particularly high pitched ones or "crowd noises," but also sharp reports.  I flinch quite noticeably when a hammer hits a nail, or a nail gun goes off. I have a completely irrational "fear" of balloons (it's called globophobia, if you're curious). I KNOW it's just a balloon, but they set me completely on edge. When I see a child running around with a balloon, my first thought is inevitably something like "there's an accident/tragedy/disaster waiting to happen."

But the worst was always crowd noises. In a crowd, I would have a terrible time trying to think straight. I could barely follow any conversation, even if someone was right in front of me, I would keep getting pulled to a snippet of conversation here--a phrase there. It's like I'm compelled to try to follow every conversation in the room. . . and I CAN'T.

Keep in mind that I'm explaining a lot of this through the lens of hindsight; most of this just drove me crazy--I had no idea why: "There was just something wrong with me."

My default facial expression is "serious." I have had to learn to express emotion in acceptable ways over the years. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone yell at me or treat me harshly because they misunderstood the expression on my face. I've had people tell me that I looked like I thought they were stupid, when I was just listening intently. I've had teachers get mad at me because I looked like I "hated them" or like I was trying to look  . . . I don't even know. . .  Again, it's not all the time. . .

I had to learn to look people in the eyes when I spoke with them. I can't remember who it was, but one of the adults in my much younger life stopped me one day and told me that it was important to look people in the eyes/face because it made people feel like you weren't telling the truth (or something like that), so, as uncomfortable as it was (it made me feel exposed/vulnerable--like deliberately forcing your hands to your sides and sticking your chin out to be punched), I taught myself to look people in the eye. My natural inclination is to watch people's mouths or to look away and listen.  Especially when someone is sharing something emotional, where THEY seem vulnerable. It's REALLY hard to look at that.  . .  But not as hard as it used to be.

I have had to teach myself to smile when I greet people. This is not because I'm not genuinely happy to see them; I just don't naturally smile. I had to train myself to do it so that people could tell that I was happy to see them. It's habit now, but not a natural one.

I don't get claustrophobic in small places; those are actually very comfortable to me, but I can be in a very large place full of people and feel like I can't get enough air--I have recently learned that what I often experienced in grocery stores and other similar situations were "mild" panic attacks.  I still deal with this, but I've grown and learned how to cope in most situations.

I'm intelligent.  (You are probably wondering why I would list that with things like sound sensitivity and social claustrophobia.) The thing is that I've spent most of my life feeling stupid. INCREDIBLY stupid. I would walk into a room where no one had ever met me and be called the "genius" without even saying anything; I would have teachers and my parents all point out how smart I was, but then I would get a school assignment and be completely lost about how to find the answers.  I'd read a chapter in History and know the story, but then the questions would always seem to be about things that never occurred to me as important--most of them seemed so random that they seemed designed to make me fail, and then I'd see that I was one of the few that didn't get the answer. . . I'd work entire pages of math, totally sure that I was doing it right, only to find out that I had done every bit of it wrong. And I had no idea why. People would tell me how sad it was that I wasn't living up to my potential, and I'd be clueless as to how to do better--I'd study and still not know the answers. . . .

It wasn't until I went to college to be a teacher and started learning about different learning styles and being in classrooms where discussions were encouraged that I began to understand how my mind takes in information.

I'm highly auditory. I have been able to listen to people and take in most of what they are saying, and, in some cases, repeat it back word-for-word.  In conversation I can usually work out the meaning of what someone wants to convey, and the conversation is part of what makes it "stick." The thing is that while I'm talking or they are, my mind is flitting all around, making connections, drawing from other experiences and associations and using ALL of those things together to make the information accessible. I see patterns in things and the patterns make "three-dimensional" "pictures" in my mind, not necessarily about the individual concept that was being taught or discussed, but the "grand picture" of how that concept fit into the world as I know it. This ability was beyond useful in college classes, but I found that if I tried to take notes, one of two things would happen: 1. I would take terrible notes because I was trying to follow what was being said--making connection, etc..., or 2. I would write furiously, getting as much written as possible and have absolutely no memory of what was said. I would then have to go over the notes and try to piece together what I wrote with whatever memory of the lecture I could pull up. So I don't ever take notes any more. My memory is more reliable. For me at least.

There are other things that I have found out recently that make me different than other people. I think in pictures and concepts and then put those into words. When you speak to me, I see what you're saying as concepts or images and process them that way. Often my mind is randomly casting out for connections and will draw up puns based on how you said what you said, or based on the images that your words inspired. Through extensive reading and a love of language, I have learned (and am learning) to use language to bridge the gap between concept and words. Metaphors are more than poetic description to me; they are often LITERALLY how I think of something. If I say there was an ocean of people, rest assured that in my mind, I am picturing crowds of people moving like waves, waves that can crash over you, in which you can be lost and drown. It's more than a literary device for me. It's how I think.

But people don't talk like that, so I've learned not to either. . . mostly. I am happily learning how to tap back into it for the purpose of writing, though. :)

What's more, I've discovered that I see things--patterns, meanings, connections--that others don't see. I've written critical essays of literature on stories and poems that professors have been teaching on for decades and have pointed out things that they had never seen before. And I've done it over and over again.

In a previous blog post I talked about how I apparently have a gift where literary analysis is concerned; I now know why.

I mentioned in that post that God had shown me how to take that and apply it to my Bible reading.  I saw many things. SO many that I started to discount the ideas and connections I was making until Go d told me that He MADE me so that I would see things that others missed.

I am finally coming to understand what is different about me. I am finally beginning to see the pattern in me.
And it has a name:

Autism.

I have done extensive research on symptoms and characteristics from the low-functioning to the high function ing--from the Autistic to Asperger.  I have read personal accounts from other Autists and found voices calling out from "out there," and they all say the same thing: "I understand."

I read an article  (<--click a="" about="" among="" and="" but="" came="" dealt="" different="" do="" else="" for="" have.="" have="" herself="" i="" in="" it="" known="" like="" lived="" many="" me="" naturally="" no="" of="" one="" other="" others="" p="" read="" same="" saw="" see.="" seemed="" she="" someone="" sounded="" talked="" teaching="" that="" the="" things="" to="" was="" ways="" where="" who="" with="" woman="" world="" yourself="">
I recently watched the movie Temple Grandin and was AMAZED at how well the way that noises and images were portrayed. At one point, I stopped the movie and turned to my wife and asked, "When people talk to you, do YOU see pictures like that?" She said no, and I suddenly realized that I always had, and here this movie was saying that this particular characteristic was unusual.  . . . Huh. I never knew.

I think, based on my early language development, and my over-all desire to have social relationships, that I would probably be classified with Asperger's, but due to the changes being made in the classification system, they, the powers that be, are doing away with the Asperger's Syndrome label anyway.

I think I much prefer Autist.

Gah! When I look back at my life and think on the times when I was so socially awkward and couldn't seem to figure out WHY I was different and HOW to be like others. . .  and it all makes sense now. Life, experience, and, most importantly, GOD have allowed me to make enough connections that I can get along fine in most situations. I still have problems in some, but I press through for the most part.

I am SO BLESSED!  Knowing WHY doesn't change anything, but it DOES lift off the burden of "What's Wrong With You!?"

Now I know that it's not that there's something wrong with me, I'm just made to see things differently.

So I Guess I'll Write Something. . .

So, I've been in a hard place lately. I've been frustrated by things I couldn't even put my finger on. I'd just be going along fine, and suddenly, I'm so tense and irritable I could hardly see straight.

I've been frustrated at work, at home, in my writing, and in my relationship with God (and others).

I've been increasingly bitter about things that I would have sworn weren't even issues, but that I couldn't seem to get past--I'd just suddenly have something spark a memory and I'd be instantly angry and incredibly bitter.

I knew the problem had to be unforgiveness; all the signs were there. And I just kept getting angrier and angrier. I was snapping at everything.

It broke for a little while a month or so back when I was hit by the realization that I didn't know how to have joy in my walk with God. I mean, I experienced it when I was teaching, or prophesying, but to just walk around with joy? I had no idea.

My church had a combined meeting with several other churches that are affiliated with us--we do this twice a year--and when the meeting was over, our pastor called the pastors of the other churches up and encouraged everyone to come up and seek a blessing or get prayed for.

Well, I'd spent the whole service feeling like my heart had been weighed down by a tombstone. I heard the message--about how God wants to move in the Spirit and in Power in His church again--and I agreed WHOLE-heartedly. I knew it was true. And I knew/know that I can hear God, that I can feel Him move in the Spirit, that I have heard Him SAY that this is what He wants. . .

And yet.

There I stood, feeling like my heart was suffocating.

So I went forward. I went to a pastor and his wife that I knew fairly well, and explained the situation--briefly.  The pastor prayed for the dam inside me to break and for the life to flow in me again, AND I FELT IT! And then his wife looked at me and said that it was so good to see me smiling. She said that when they came in, she saw me, and I looked so serious!
Ever have one of those moments when someone says something and it hits you "right there"? I felt those words like a blow to the heart.
And I heard God. He said "You're trying too hard." and "You've forgotten My joy." Echoed softly by the quote, "The joy of the LORD is my strength."

And that's how the "funk" broke for a little while. You see, I had an answer, sort of. I at least had a direction to look. So I looked, and looked, and looked, . . .

And gradually, the funk came back. Harder and more brutal.

I thank God for my wife and for my children. My children are a constant reminder that I'm not free to allow myself to indulge in stupidity, and my wife is a constant, and the God-send that defines "help-meet" for me. She saw the turmoil in me and was understanding. She stood in the gap and freed me to back off when the strain and stress were pushing me to the breaking point. And, she sat me down at last and told me it was time to figure this thing out and fix it.

I wanted to fix it. I'd been trying to fix it. I knew all the advice that I would give to someone going through the same thing, and I KNEW it was the right advice, but it just wasn't working.

About a week before my wife had the "sit-down" with me (I'm smiling as I call it that, she was so kind and apologetic as she tried to explain it), but anyway, about a week earlier, I was at work, beating myself up about the rut I was in when God gave me an image of how I saw my ministry and my relationship with Him.

I was standing in a great hall. There was only one door, and I was standing right next to it. Meanwhile people were coming to hear from God, and as they came I would press my ear HARD against the door, hear what God was saying, and tell the people what I heard. It was great to be able to hear Him, and awesome to be able to help others hear Him, but, while in the vision it was satisfying, as I watched it happening, I immediately saw the problem, and then heard God put it into words. The problem was that I (and all of God's people) wasn't supposed to be listening from the outside; I was supposed to be in His presence. What God said was, "You've been working so hard at being the 'good and faithful servant' that you've forgotten to be my son."

I revisited that scene several times up to the night that my wife spoke with me, but as hard as I tried, I couldn't get through the door. I looked, and there wasn't even a door knob. It was heart-breaking.

I shared all of this with my wife, and she prayed with me, and I still felt miserable. (Sorry, but it's true.)

The next day--possible the day after--I was listening to a Christmas album by David Phelps. The first song of the album is Joy, Joy. It's one of my favorite songs of all time. It is so passionate, and I have always felt that it embodies the passion that God felt when Jesus was born. So I wasn't terribly surprised to find myself tearing up while I was listening, and then...

I suddenly realized that one of the reasons that I love that song is the abandon with which Phelps sings it. It's one of the reasons I love to play my saxophone in worship--I can pour out my heart through it.
And I heard God say, "You bottle too much up. You hold too much back. You suppress things that I put in you because you think that they aren't how 'things are supposed to be,' or that they don't fit your image of what you're supposed to be or be doing."

--I hate playing softly when I play my horn. It leaves me breathless; NOT because I've run out of air, but because I've held back so much that the air I have in my lungs is empty. I feel like I'm left with a lung full of wasted potential.

I've been working on a story about an interview that an angel has with someone. The interview starts as the angel steps in and runs off a demonic nightmare.

Well, when I sat down to write the story, I started at the beginning--with the nightmare. As I wrote, I drew from nightmares I'd had in the past. . . and they kind of took on a life of their own. I didn't want to sell them short; after all, I had actually experienced these, and I figured that I could just write it down and edit out anything that didn't work.

There ended up being a lot of it.  I really felt like it was too much, and that it took away from where I wanted the story to go, but I left it in and sent a copy off to my Alpha Reader, known in Blogger Land as "Rebecca at the Well," to see if she felt the same.  She did. She actually said it was borderline (if not crossing the line) horror. She had lots of other comments which were spot-on what I was already seeing myself, and I was initially encouraged, but then I got bogged down by the fact that I'd just poured so much into what I'd written, and it was all wrong.  I couldn't just edit bits out, I had to completely rewrite it, which I started to do, but then it didn't have the right "voice." And that's when the funk was already hitting hard.

I went to a men's meeting, from which I was supposed to go with a dear friend to talk some of these issues out with, but he got called away so I ended up staying and talking with an old mentor of mine. It was good. I got to talk about my writing, and my hope for it. I explained the trouble with the angel interview story, and, at the end of it, he told me a long (and fascinating) story, ultimately leading to this: "Don't worry about what you're writing. Don't make it HAVE to look a certain way, or fit a certain mold. If it's what you feel like writing--then write it."

Now, you have to realize that the last four paragraphs flashed through my mind in about two heart-beats. One second God's saying that I'm repressing myself, the next, all of that flashes through my mind, and then God says, "Yes, even the horrific nightmare stuff was supposed to happen. That wouldn't have poured out if you hadn't been bottling it up. It serves a purpose too."

None of this made sense to me. All I could see was me standing next to the door in that vision, wanting to scream in frustration at not being able to get through.

Then, in the vision, I heard a voice behind me saying, "I'm not ON the other side of the door."
"Then why can I hear You hear," I nearly sobbed back.
Then, in a voice so compassionate it hurt to hear, He said, "Because you WANTED to hear me."
I found myself arguing, trying to fight the implications in that. "But I've had to concentrate, I've had to try so hard to block out distractions, I've had to--"
"No," God interrupted like a gentle avalanche. "You didn't."

And all at once it made sense. I've been like the tree straining to bear fruit, caught in the lie that my efforts had anything at all to do with the fruit that showed up--I strained and fruit showed up, so I thought that I did it, but God was telling me that the fruit would be there whether I strained or not. I would hear Him whether I tried or not, whether I was distracted or not--as long as I WANTED to hear Him. It really had nothing to do with me at all.

I was free.

And then I heard in the song the lines "Jesus has come to bring, Jesus has come to bring JOY!"

I'm not going to lie to you: I cried. Right there at work. I cried, gasping for breath. Because I could feel the Joy. I could FEEL it. I still do.

Not ten minutes later something came up that directly related to some of the things that had been setting me off before, and it didn't even phase me. Imediately, several side issues jumped to mind, and I recognized them as spiritual attacks. And THEN. . . I realized that all of the "unforgiveness" I'd been beating myself up over wasn't actually unforgiveness, it was distraction and frustration that the enemy had used to beat me down and keep me feeling defeated, but that God used to prod me until I could finally understand.

So now I'm having to learn how to be me again. And to figure out what that means. I can do what I feel led to, however I feel led to. I can write whatever I want--God says He'll use what He wants to--I don't have to try to make it "fit."

I just can't wait to try out all of this new freedom. I don't know how to relax into this. I've always felt like I had to live up to "something." So this is so strange as to be completely foreign, but I have hope again, and I've felt joy. . .

And that's a start. :-)
Here is a link to that song. Enjoy!

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So I've been sitting in front of my computer for a couple of days now, trying to think of something to write.
I've got a new story idea, but I'm still in the pre-writing stages of that one, so no good there.
I'm just sitting here.
Trying to think of something inspired. Something clever. SOMEthing.

And suddenly it comes to me: How often have I been given a WORD for someone, just a small thing--a phrase or so, and when I start to tell it, it becomes FAR more than I realised it was.

So often I've waited in writing until I felt like I had the "whole picture" when my entire experience in ministry has been, "Just do it and let the rest happen."

How often have I heard and said that prophesy is only a word in PART? How many times have I had to step out in faith with little to nothing to go on, and watched as God did something amazing? How often, and yet, here I am, believing that I am SUPPOSED to write--called to do it, yet I forget everything I learned about following God.

This isn't just for me either. I don't know who you are; I know a couple of people who regularly read this blog, but my hope is that the things I've written in all sincerity will reach out past my realm of influence and long after I'm gone. So, whoever you are, listen:

Take a chance. Even if all you have is the barest sliver of a hope that God wants to use you in something, step out on that sliver. And then keep stepping in ALL areas of your life. Don't let the world or the devil cheat you by limiting where God can fill in the gaps for you.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In ALL of your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight."

Not the Least of These

Well, I've been thinking about King David lately.  And, you know, he gets a lot of publicity from the whole "giant killing" thing, and he's well known for a lot of his other "kingly" actions, but how often do we stop and think about how he got there?

Most of my life I've heard people talk about how David wasn't important at all; the fact that he was left in the field when Samuel came to visit has been cited many times. After all, OBVIOUSLY he wasn't very important if no one even thought to call him in, right?

But let's think about that: Jesse had eight sons. Seven were brought with him to see Samuel. One was left behind.

Now, was that a slight? Does it say that David was thought less of? Or does it say something else?

What was Jesse's occupation? He was a shepherd. His family made their living off the produce from the sheep. They depended on the welfare of those sheep.

When I think of that, and then think of Jesse's response to Samuel's question "Are these all the sons you have?", I have to see it differently. Jesse said, "There is still the youngest, but he is out in the fields watching the sheep and the goats."

Jesse had EIGHT sons, but the youngest was the one put in charge of the family business. David was trusted with the sheep. If my family depended on the well-being of those sheep, I would be tempted to have more people taking care of them than just one person, especially the youngest!

And I know that some suggest that David wasn't out there alone, but when David spoke of fighting the bear and the lion, he didn't talk about anyone else being there. . .

So, I'm thinking that Jesse was saying "Well, there's still the youngest, but I need him to watch the sheep." Jesse had to have trusted David, or he wouldn't have put him out there, alone, with all the family's sheep.

To support David's position as a highly regarded youth, let's look at the scene just before David takes on Goliath.  When he was standing around asking about Goliath, one of his brothers, Eliab, got angry and said "What are you doing around here anyway?” . . . “What about those few sheep you’re supposed to be taking care of? I know about your pride and deceit. You just want to see the battle!”

Hmmmm. Well, what do we know about David? Was he proud? Was he deceitful? No. Everything that we know about him suggests that he was honest and confident in God, not himself. So where does this attitude of his brother's come from?

Let's look again at the fact that while David was watching the sheep, Jesse had all of the older brothers there to see Samuel.  Why weren't they in charge of the sheep? Especially the oldest?

Then, look at how Eliab describes the sheep: "those few sheep you're supposed to be taking care of. . ."

This reads strongly of envy. Eliab is slandering David's character and then belittling his work and responsibilites. (I feel fairly certain that Jesse would have taken exception to Eliab referring to the family flock as "those few sheep.")

Another thing to consider is that in the Hebrew tradition, you weren't just given a job--especially in a family setting-- you were appointed to a task. You were sent. This implied that the one sent was granted the authority to do the task, and it meant that the one sending trusted that the one sent was well able to do what was needed.

This is very important, because it tells us about where David's mind might have been while tending the sheep.

Here he is. He has the responsibility of the entire family flock. That could be a MAJOR source of stress, but David KNOWS that his father believes that he is capable, so David doesn't stress over it. This is super important! How often do we fail/stress because we aren't sure about our place in a job or ministry? How often do we simply not act because we don't know if that's "our job." David knew.

So what did David do?

We all know that David wrote psalms and praised God, but let me show you another part of that picture.

Often, the shepherds would take their sheep out to their own pastures to feed, but at night, to help protect from predators, the shepherds would bring several flocks together and keep them in a large fenced pen. This allowed all the shepherds to work together in a controlled area to protect the flocks--Very Economical.

The problem was to separate the sheep in the mornings.  So, during the day, the shepherds would either talk to the sheep or sing to them so that they would become accostomed to the shepherd's voice. This way, when the shepherd came to the gate in the morning, he could call the sheep, they would hear his voice (probably associating that voice with feeding) and those who belonged to him would come to him, while those who did not belong to him would not.

This is what Jesus meant when He said "My sheep will know my voice."  David would come to know God's voice too.

David was out there, not stressing about his job, and required to talk or sing so that the sheep would know his voice. So what does he do? He sings of the goodness and greatness of God. . . day in--day out. All day. Every day.

Have you ever been in a worship service and just felt the presence of God there? That is God expressing His delight in you loving Him. He's showing you that He loves you back.

Imagine a mother. Her small child brings in a handful of partially crushed flowers--dandelions and other wild flowers/weeds--but it's not the quality of the gift that she responds to, it's the heart of the giver.  Our praise is not remotely qualified to give God His deserved honor, but He is SO excited that we care enough to try. So He "cuddles up" and shows us He's there.

The more we worship (truly worship--focus on Him, His greatness, gratitude for His grace, kindness, etc.) the more we experience this--the more we recognise His "voice."

David worshipped ALL THE TIME. He felt that presence constantly. He was constantly aware that God was close.

When he fought the bear and the lion, he didn't have to stop and ask God to come be with him; David knew that God was already there. David could "hear God's voice!"

This is how you begin (and improve) hearing God. Spend time honoring Him in your thoughts and prayers and songs. He is drawn to that. And soon you'll begin to recognize Him even weh you don't feel the "warm fuzzies" that we often associate with the presence of God.

I've said all this to say, David wasn't the least of his brothers; he was the greatest. God said this. And he wasn't the greatest because of any great skill or good appearance; he was great because he was close to God. David was a "man after (following, persuing, hunting, tracking, desiring. . . ) God's own heart.

What are you after?

Do you think of yourself as "the least of these?" Maybe you just read it wrong. 

:)