Spectrum of Normal

" Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms." - 1 Peter 4:10 In 2023 I discovered one of the gifts God designed and entrusted to me - autism. The unwrapping of this gift has taken time, but little by little I have begun to learn how to use it. There are many downsides to being neurodivergent (the inconvenience of needing detailed explanations, the lack of automaticity, the pressure to keep up - or at least show determined effort, the anxiety and frustration of falling short AGAIN, the self-awareness that while there can be growth, there will always be struggle, the knowledge that most people will not understand the struggle, even if they are sympathetic. And this is not a comprehensive list). With all this against me it is tempting to think I have nothing to celebrate about and very little    useful to contribute.  But I have been a child of God for 35 years and know differently . So......

  12 Giving thanks unto the Father... 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: Cossians 1:12-13 In early March, 2026, I was visiting with family out of state. The church I attended that weekend was beginning a series on Daniel. The pastor introduced the sermon this way: "Every place/society you enter (e.g. job, school, city, friend group) is trying to "train you." Nobody hands you a speech and says,    'Here are the *official* rules, and here are the *real* rules.' You just have to learn them. You learn by observation what gets rewarded; you learn what makes people uncomfortable; and you learn what kind of person you need to be in order to belong in this space." That hit a little bit of a raw nerve with me because of its reality. My whole life, I have struggled to learn, or be aware of the nuances of prosocial standards. I NEED that "speech" about what the rules are.  I am often n...

"You search out my path... "Psalm 139:3 ESV  A year ago (September 29, 2023) was a day that changed my life. It was the day I was told I have autism. My life did not "change," per se," I still have the same job I was holding a year ago. I still have my same supportive circle of friends and family. I still face the same challenges to understand nonverbal communication, nuances, situational awareness, social " norms," and anything new that is expected of me.  Even so, these 12 months have been full of change, progress, and growth in ways I never expected. For example, I have learned how to advocate for myself when I need more time or more detailed information to understand and complete a task. I have also found more ways to explain how my mind maps out information and procedure. My diagnosis changed my life because it has allowed me to come to terms with my normal and to face my challenges with even more determination. One of my common challenges is pro...

  His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night,” (Psalm 1:2). “ In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul,” (Psalm 94:19). Imagine you are outside, stuck in a blinding blizzard. The snow is swirling - not in a delicate, magical way, but in a chaotic, disorienting, aimless way, obscuring your sense of direction. The wind is beating against you as you struggle to find shelter. You feel stuck, hopeless, exhausted. What if you find a tow line that someone has set? You know there is a comforting shelter at the other end. You still must struggle on to find the shelter, but the tow line is itself a source of comfort and provides some sense of direction. Now imagine that the swirling, blinding snow represents your own thoughts and the destabilizing wind represents the flood of varying emotions that accompany those thoughts. What if you were “stuck in your head,” for hours at a time, trying to fight your way through your swir...

  “ As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed…” Psalm 103:13-14a When I received my diagnosis of autism in September 2023, I remembered Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is an inventor,  animal rights activist, and author. Grandin has autism. I remembered reading about the way her brain processes information. She does not hear a word and think of the definition. Instead, she hears a word and her brain represents that word or concept with a picture. I can relate to this.  Part of the reason it takes me so long to process new information is because my brain also has to turn every word or concept into a picture. It is like using an interpreter to understand a foreign language. My brain needs some lag time to formulate a picture interpretation of what was said.  This also happens when I read. For example, I might read, “The house was located on the corner of 5th and Chestnut.” My brain would ...

  “A person has joy in an apt answer, And how delightful is a timely word!” - Proverbs 15:23 (New American Standard Bible) In September 2023 I was assessed by a neuropsychologist. The goal (as far as I was concerned), was to secure a professional referral for vocational rehabilitation. I wanted to hone some skills in situational awareness (accurately interpreting nonverbal communication and being more generally observant to what was happening around me). These skills are essential in a kindergarten classroom, and it seemed I needed some specialized, focused training in this area. Little did I know that I would be diagnosed with autism in the weeks that followed. As the introduction interview progressed, I asked the specialist a question: how would assessments give her accurate, real-time data about things that challenge me? I wished she could secretly install a camera in my classroom  and catch me in the act, so to speak, instead of “fabricating the scenario”.by conducting an ...