The Therapist

I am a therapist. Every day I experience the challenges & difficulties and joys & blessings of working with lots of little special needs students. As a provider of occupational therapy services, it is my job to help my students learn…learn to feed themselves, dress themselves, regulate their bodies and emotions, interact with their peers, play appropriately, use their hands and fingers to perform intricate tasks…the list goes on. The funny thing is, though, I’m not the only one in this “teacher-student relationship” doing the teaching. It’s incredible how much my students have to teach me!...Or how much GOD has to teach me through my students!

I think, speak, learn, and understand in terms of analogies and metaphors…and believe me, a special needs school just happens to be FULL of them! It’s amazing how many spiritual life lessons my eyes have been opened to while my arms have been elbow deep in poop, pee, snot, Trix yogurt, applesauce, and play-dough!

***

I squatted down on a much-too-small chair, my knees scrunched up and towering over the tiny table. I leaned over, extended a jar of writing utensils to one of my students and said, “Pick a marker, Tommy! Open it! Today, we’re going to trace letters!” (All names have been changed to protect students’ identities, of course.) Without a sound, without making eye contact, and without moving more than his hand, Tommy took a marker. He did not open it, but rather, he proceeded to wave it continuously up and down in front of his face, watching the movement out of the corner of his eye as he stared blankly off into space. “Open the marker, Tommy!” I prompted encouragingly. No response. “Come on, Tommy! Open the marker! Let’s color!” I cheerfully invited yet again. Still no change. So, I placed my hands over his and helped him open the marker. “Good job, Tommy! Now let’s draw! Will you show me how you can write on the paper?” Tommy, who had yet to look at me or the paper, immediately brought the marker back up to his face and continued to self-stim. I tapped on the table, pointing to the letters on the page. No stop in waving the marker. I tapped louder. Still no break in the stare. So, I guided his hand down to the paper and began to assist his small fingers in tracing over the dotted lines that spelled out his name. Tommy pulled away from my hand. The second I let go, he returned to waving the marker. I brought his hand back to the page and began again…only to be pushed away a second time…and a third…and a fourth. I’m usually pretty patient, but by this point, I was starting to get a little frustrated. “WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HELP YOU?” I thought. “UGH! IT’S ONE THING FOR YOU TO COMPLETELY IGNORE MY DIRECTIONS, BUT TO IGNORE ME!...THAT’S ANOTHER!...AND NOT JUST TO IGNORE ME, BUT TO PUSH ME AWAY??? I KNOW THIS IS HARD FOR YOU, BUT THAT’S WHY I’M HERE! I’VE GOT MY HAND ON YOU…I AM TRYING TO HELP YOU…WHY WON’T YOU LET ME?”…

…“Hey, Ben! Let’s play with the cars!” I exclaimed. I grabbed a couple of toy cars and began to drive them back and forth on the road map rug, across a bridge of blocks, and down the toy car garage ramp. “Isn’t this so much fun?!?” I asked excitedly…to which Ben responded by pushing away my hands, throwing my toy cars out of reach, kicking apart the block bridge, knocking over the toy garage ramp, and picking up his one and only favorite car and staring at it as he spun the front wheels around and around and around and around, just as he had before I came over…

…“Ooo! Katie! Let’s make a big tower with the blocks!” I demonstrated quickly to engage her attention and then asked her to join in. As I handed her the blocks one by one, she put each one in her mouth, chewed on it for a few seconds, spit it out, threw it, and then knocked down each block I had added to the tower myself…

…“Ashley, it’s time to put on your shoes!” I sat her down in front of me and began to aid her in putting on her socks. Enraged that I had pulled her away from her favorite toy, she began to squirm violently (for real, if it’s possible to squirm violently, she is in fact very good at it!). After a few minutes of wrestling, Ashley’s shoes were on, but I may have taken a few punches to the face in the process…

***

In these moments, my heart breaks for my kids. When I look at them, I see their potential. I know what they are capable of, and what has to be done in order to take them to the next level. But so often they not only ignore what I have planned for them, but they go out of their way to resist me as strongly as their tough little wills allow!...Because they can’t see the big picture like I can!

And then one day I realized: I AM MY KIDS. Yes, I did just say that…I’m a little special needs preschooler…and everything I’ve wanted to say to my naughty, yet pricelessly precious little kiddos, God wants to say to me (metaphorically speaking, of course):

“LAURA, WHY ARE YOU SO CONTENT TO SIT THERE AND SHAKE A MARKER IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE WHEN I HAVE GIFTED YOU TO COLOR AND DRAW AND WRITE???...WHY ARE YOU SO CONTENT TO SPIN WHEELS ON YOUR LITTLE CAR IN ONE PLACE WITHOUT MOVING WHEN I HAVE CALLED YOU TO GO OUT AND DRIVE IN HIGH-ENERGY CHASE SCENES???...WHY ARE YOU SO CONTENT TO CHEW ON BLOCKS WHEN I HAVE EQUIPPED YOU TO BUILD ELABORATE CASTLES??? STOP IGNORING MY DIRECTION. STOP PUSHING ME AWAY. MY HAND IS ON YOU. I AM HERE TO HELP YOU. I KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR…YOU DON’T. I SEE THE BIG PICTURE…YOU CAN’T. I LOVE YOU AND I HAVE BIG PLANS FOR YOU. I WANT TO TAKE YOU TO THE NEXT LEVEL. IT MIGHT BE HARD, BUT THAT’S WHY I’M HERE…TO GUIDE YOU AND ENCOURAGE YOU. YOU CAN AVOID MY GAZE, BUT I STILL SEE YOU. YOU CAN THROW AWAY MY GIFTS THE SECOND I PLACE THEM IN YOUR HANDS, BUT I WILL CONTINUE TO GIVE. YOU CAN TRY TO KNOCK DOWN AND TEAR APART EVERYTHING GOOD THAT I HAVE BUILT IN YOUR LIFE, BUT I WILL PERSIST IN PERSUING A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU. YOU MAY SIT THERE UNWILLING TO PARTICIPATE, OR YOU MAY GET UP AND RUN IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, BUT I’M NOT GIVING UP ON YOU. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU ATTEMPT TO VIOLENTLY SQUIRM OUT OF MY EMBRACE. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU PUNCH ME IN THE FACE. I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU AND DESIRE WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU. I WANT TO TAKE YOU TO YOUR FULLEST POTENTIAL. NOW, WILL YOU PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE JUST LET ME LEAD YOU THERE?”

As I enter into a season of intentional ministry through service, I realize that I am empowered to do so, only because of the “therapy” that God has been doing (and will continue to do) in my life…taking me out of my comfort zone…pulling me away from things that are small, safe, purposeless…leading me in pursuit of things with greater meaning, greater value, greater worth…allowing me to enter in to a much bigger picture, a much higher calling. There have been, and I’m sure will continue to be, many moments that cause me to ask “WHY?”…but I have to trust that just like me with my students, God has a purpose, knows exactly where He wants to take me and how He wants to get me there, and that He will in fact bring me to that place, if I will just simply submit to the picture I cannot clearly see, surrender to the plan I do not fully understand, yield to the direction of One wiser than I, grab hold of the hand that is more skilled than mine, and allow HIM to be MY THERAPIST.

Beautiful Disaster

[When entering into any sort of ministry, I think it’s important to keep a few things in mind: 1) We should never try to determine the effectiveness of our attempts to minister by our own humanly defined notions of success and failure (God works in mysterious ways and we do not always have the privilege of understanding His reasoning or seeing the results), and 2) Sometimes, in ministry, the prayers we pray, and the prayers we SHOULD pray, are two very different things…]

Sometimes God has a different plan than we do…

IMAGINE THAT! ;)

…a different motive…a different agenda…a different outcome…

Sometimes, even when we feel that we are so in tune with God and His will, yes, even then, God may have something else in mind…something that even our greatest, most God-honoring thoughts cannot conjure up!

***

My sister and I sing together…for church services, baptisms, weddings, etc. Music is very important to us, and therefore, delivering a musically accurate “performance” is very important to us. For the longest time, this was the focal point of my “ministry” in music…to blend in unison as if we were one voice, then break into a vocal dance of perfect harmonies…to nail the melodic runs, to hit the high notes, to get the lyrics right, to build into the bridge, to belt out the final chorus after a climactic key change! I thought that our execution of each song had to be musically perfect in order to best “reach” our audience. Ya know, the greater the musical intensity, the greater the emotional intensity…and the greater the emotional intensity, the greater the effect on the listener…and the greater the effect on the listener, the more we have succeeded in bringing that listener closer to God!

Oh, how disturbing this is!...to think that this is actually what I believed! I had made my ministry just that…MINE! I had left no room for God to intervene in HIS own work! IT IS NOT MY JOB TO MANIPULATE SOMEONE ELSE’S HEART INTO “FEELING” CLOSER TO GOD. It is my job to take the message that God has placed on my heart and share it…perhaps through song…and then allow Him to use that testimony in whatever way HE sees fit, to touch peoples’ hearts and lives through the working of HIS Holy Spirit!

I used to pray, “God, please help me to get this song right, so that my listeners may be blessed by it!” (A prayer prayed with the most innocent and sincere intentions…yet oh, so delusional!) This past Easter Sunday, however, I prayed a different prayer: “God, take this song and do whatever you want to do with it…even if it means I deliver an imperfect musical performance…even if it means that I look like a mess in the process…do whatever it takes to bring the most glory to you!” (A very SCARY prayer to pray!)

I should have known that my prayer would be answered!

The piano accompaniment grew progressively louder, and my sister and I were about to erupt into the chorus with powerful harmonies, when I was suddenly consumed by the intensity of the TRUTH in the lyrics. They became SO real to me…more real than any lyrics have ever been before: “And I hear the voice of many angels sing ‘Worthy is the Lamb!’ And I hear the cry of every longing heart ‘Worthy is the Lamb!’”…As the image of multitudes of angels eternally worshiping God filled my head, and the reality of my deep, deep longing for God overtook my heart, I saw my broken self in contrast with the GLORY of the risen Lamb, and I was instantly overcome with both MY UNWORTHINESS and HIS unfathomable WORTHINESS…I could not sing…I could not even squeak out a few of the words…I burst into tears. For a split second I tried to stop, but I couldn’t, so I just let it overtake me. My hand began to shake…not a nervous shake, but honestly tingling and trembling…like my fingers wanted to unfold and just shoot straight up, point towards heaven, and give credit where credit is due! It was almost as if I did not raise my hand, my hand would raise itself to direct glory to God!...I was no longer in control of my body…everything in me poured out in a wave of gratitude, across my tear stained cheeks and through the tremors of my barely audible voice.

What I experienced was so raw, so real, that for what was perhaps the first time in my life, I was not embarrassed by my apparent failure…it was truly such an honor to be made vulnerable so publically, so that through such a display of genuine vulnerability, the transformation that God, by His Spirit, had orchestrated in my heart and life was raised up as a testimony of His saving and redeeming grace!

***

Sometimes we are allowed to “fail” so that we may be reminded of our inadequacy apart from God. (It keeps us humble!) Sometimes we are allowed to “fail” so that others may see…and realize that they too can serve God and bring honor to Him despite THEIR inadequacies. AND SOMETIMES, WE ARE ALLOWED TO “FAIL” BECAUSE IN “FAILING” WE ACTUALLY SUCCEED…FOR IN OUR WEAKNESS, GOD’S STRENGTH IS THAT MUCH MORE STRONGLY DISPLAYED!

I do not know the reason for my musical “failure” on Easter Sunday, but I have no doubt that God had a reason, and that He answered my prayer…by using my song as He best saw fit for HIS purposes!

Practice may make perfect, but let us not forget that so often God chooses to work in the imperfect…bringing glory to HIS PERFECTION…one BEAUTIFUL DISASTER at a time!