Chosen Families

This is from one of my favorite blogs written by various authors on "hidden disabilities". It's called ChosenFamilies.org. Check it out if you get the chance. God just keeps sending these straight to me.....


Oh No You Didn’t
October 27, 2011 By Sarah 1 Comment
The wind’s seeping and moaning through the cracks in our poorly insulated bedroom windows today as I sit at my computer, gnawing a knuckle. I’m getting myself all worked up again. I’m prone to these little mini-paroxysms, you see. By nature, I’m a pacifist, a mercy-giver and a chicken, so when the time is right to be angry, I don’t say anything. When the time is past however, I’m a veritable colossus of articulate and righteous indignation. I’m really good at getting mad AFTER the fact.
I can’t think of a single instance when my rebuttal was timely delivered, save for that one time when my staunchly left-leaning atheist of a boss – the one who preached equality and social reform – called me a “fascist” for going to a Christian college, whereupon I managed to retort, “Oh wait. Aren’t YOU the one who’s supposed to be open-minded?”
You can high five me later.
But now, I’m angry thinking of all the self-righteous comments and looks my Noah’s received. To be fair, our burden is in some ways lighter than most. As a boy with high functioning autism, Noah may seem just a little “odd.” That he flaps, or chews his clothing or talks your ear off about Super Mario Brothers. His verbal ability and his self-sufficiency often belie his disability.
From another vantage, this actually makes our burden heavier than most. Because you’d never notice his difference from a distance, you might look down your nose when, in the middle of his flag football game, he halts a play to have a complete and total meltdown in the middle of the field. Or, you might snort a little out of disgust when you’re standing behind him in the checkout line and he remarks in full voice that the woman in front of him “sure is fat!” Remember that scene from “Terms of Endearment” when Emma doesn’t have enough to pay for her groceries? Yeah. It’s EXACTLY that painful.
You know what else bugs me? “There’s nothing wrong with him.” Why? Because you can’t see a missing limb? Because he’s not in a wheelchair? My choice responses? (1) “Nothing wrong with him? That’s because we pay a lot of therapists a lot of money to make sure he doesn’t gag at dinner because there’s a candle on the table”; (2) “Nothing wrong with him? Good. Then I’ll send him to your house the next time he has a meltdown. And while you’re at it, do you mind teaching him to use a belt?” Or, my favorite, (3) “Nothing wrong with him? Well, duh! He’s perfect the way God made him!”
I know Jesus experienced anger (Matthew 21:11-13). I know He was enraged that the temple was being used to buy and sell – making a holy place nothing more than a common street bazaar. But before I silently fist pump my own angry, internal tirades, I have to remember that Christ said, “It is written…my house will be called a house of prayer.” In other words, “you should have known better, guys. You had the book!”
When I get the supercilious looks and the incredulous comments, I need to take a breath and remind myself that they can’t SEE what Noah has, and they don’t KNOW its manifestations. They are ignorant – not just in the Maury-Povich-chair-flipping- “Oh no you didn’t!” sense of the word, but they literally “know no better.” They can’t “see” his Asperger’s like I can.
That means, much as I would like to verbally eviscerate them, I need to practice the mercy I like to preach, keep my trap shut and smile. After all, God loves them just as much as He loves Noah and me.
If you’re reading this and you’ve experienced that familiar prick of rage, here’s my knowing glance from across the cyber-distance, telling you that I’ve been there, too. We just have to forgive these poor blokes for their ignorance, because they just don’t know.
Not yet.
- Sarah