January 19, 2024
I’ve just had a wonderful play session with God and I am delighting in him right now as He is delighting in me. Let me give you a little bit of back story before we begin with the session.
As a play therapist, I see a great deal of children that have an ADHD diagnosis or end up getting an ADHD diagnosis. They are some of the most fascinating individuals to me. The way they think is sometimes completely different than my own thinking. I also have friends and family with ADHD. I understand that our society calls this a biological disorder that is caused by a lack of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, and yet my heart hurts sometimes to think this is a disorder.
As I was driving my son to school this morning, we were discussing how challenging it can be for him to hold a piece of information in working memory before he is off on another piece of information. He shared about how his brain skips from file to file, and it was extremely entertaining to hear him talk. He has such a good sense of humor about how his brain functions. I understand that this may be a real challenge in a classroom setting and at the same time, I wanted to hear more about all the connections that he can make in just a few minutes from one idea. I seems like this is also his superpower. You know how they say ADHD comes with superpowers. I was watching it in action. We had a great drive.
That brings me to the play session. I began by playing on the keyboard, tinkering with each of the keys. I thought about how God is our great Maestro and how he uses each of us as notes to compose and play beautiful pieces of music, whole musical scores. It occurred to me that each note is important, not only in the sound it makes but also in the time it is played and whether or not it plays alone or is accompanied by another note at the same time. We are fearfully and wonderfully made for a specific time and purpose to be a part of something wonderful that God is creating. How delightful. Oh that I would wait patiently and play my note at the right time and not try to be another note.
After playing on the keyboard and harmony drum, I decided to paint. It was right next to the music and the idea of multiple things creating beauty was stirring in my mind. So, from sound to color…. I began by choosing a piece of paper. One corner was torn out, but instead of choosing a perfect square, I decided the imperfect one felt more right at the moment. I painted a red swish first and then a blue swish, and then I did the magic swish with red and blue together. I love mixing paints and seeing the beautiful colors that can emerge from this, especially blues and purples.
I continued to paint, swirling colors until I had a picture of some sort that seemed to have developed. And, then around the picture, I painted a red background. I was about to move onto a new activity, when I heard a voice tell me to “Be still” and just sit with the picture. I thought of how God did not rush through creation, but rather he looked at each thing he created and he declared it good.
So, I sat with the picture for a while and noticed a blue dot outside the picture all by it’s lonesome. I wanted to do something with the dot, but wasn’t quite sure what. So, I added more color to bring the dot into the picture. That’s when the AHA came. The dot was outside in order to broaden the picture, to make it bigger, fuller, more complete. The dot was right where it needed to be. Maybe that ‘s what “neurodiverse” minds do for us. They broaden our view and make it more complete. Don’t you just love how God creates all types for all different reasons. All types of brains, all types of races, all types of cultures, all types to show HIS GREAT GLORY.
Adding the dot into the picture was good. But, I still didn’t quite know what the picture was??? I sat with this for a minute and decided to try turning it, to look at it in a different way, from a different viewpoint. That’s when it came into focus. It was a beautiful D for Diversity. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I felt a God wink and chuckled. Thank you God for all your great creations. May we seek more to understand rather to be understood and to be still and enjoy your GREAT GLORY.
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