The Sideways Lens - Chapter 2 - Picture Perfect Can Be Achieved By God Alone

Chapter 2 – Picture Perfect Can Be Achieved By God Alone

As for God, His way is perfect… (2 Samuel 22:31a)

Have you ever looked at a bubble? I mean really looked at one. To the casual observer they may be just little balls that float through the air, but there is far more to a bubble than that. Next time you blow a bubble (and it’s perfectly okay to blow bubbles without kids around…I do it all the time!) catch it on the wand, and look directly at it. Bubbles are beautiful little masterpieces. The detergent in them captures the light ever so slightly, allowing the observer to see rainbows of color swirling around their outer layer. If you hold one up to the light and peer into it, it fragments the light source into a beautiful display of twinkling lights. You can even look directly through them to see a distorted version of the object on the other side. You could blow bubbles for hours and never see the same one twice.

Sheldon has a crazy obsession with bubbles. It’s common to see bubbles going in our house for hours every day. I originally thought that Sheldon was fascinated with bubbles because of the way they moved across the room. With his sensory integration disorder, he never gets enough visual stimulation to make him feel “right”. He loves anything and everything that moves, and if an object isn’t moving, you can be assured that it will be shortly after he touches it!

But one day, as I blew bubbles, I spent some time watching him and how he behaved as the bubbles came streaming forth. I noticed that yes, he did an excited little jig when the bubbles left the wand, but he was even more excited when I captured one and he could look at it closely. He looked at bubble after bubble with exacting detail. He looked at them from above. He looked at them from below. He closed one eye, leaned his head to one side, and looked at them sideways. He looked directly through them, and looked at them with the lights on and off. Sheldon didn’t just like to watch the bubbles move, he appreciated every tiny, minute detail about each bubble he looked at.

 

 

Look at the two pictures Sheldon took of bubbles. These aren’t normal bubbles. These are what we named “sticky bubbles” because you can actually catch them on your finger and look at them closely for a few minutes before they burst. In the first picture, you can see bubbles as we are generally used to viewing them – floating carelessly around the room, reflecting light as they go. But look at the second picture. Can you see how the light goes through the bubble and actually bends the image you can see through it? I was amazed at the perspective Sheldon caught on camera. This must be why he loves bubbles so much. Not only are they beautiful, but each one provides a completely unique viewing experience.

It hit me - this must be how God looks at us. He created us with the exact specifications that would result in us being precisely the person He wanted us to be. We are each a unique experience! Psalms 139:14 says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” In this verse, the word fearfully comes from the Hebrew word ‘yare’, meaning to stand in awe. (James Strong, 2001). You are wonderfully made by the Master himself, and he is so pleased with who He created you to be that He stands in awe of you, just as Sheldon stands in awe of each little bubble that we create.

Created for a Purpose

How on earth could he stand in awe of me? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Do you know what kind of mess I am right now? I know the questions. I began to ask them myself. No answers seemed to come to me at the time, so I watched the bubbles again. No matter how beautiful the bubbles I blew were, each one of them seemed to have one major flaw – eventually they all popped. In an instant their perfection disappeared, and all I was left with was a splattered, goopy mess.

Can you identify more with the beautiful, fascinating bubbles or the splattered, goopy mess?  For me, that question was easy. I was a mess! I began to remember all of the times I’d fallen short and sinned. The pressures of life seemed to just keep adding up, and I knew all too well what it felt like to be crushed under their weight. Sometimes I could even tangibly feel the weight of our family’s finances, my responsibility to care for my loved ones, and outside commitments at work and church bearing down on me. I had a difficult time seeing the beautiful creation God made in me. All I could see was the flawed mess I had allowed myself to become.

Unfortunately, our society would generally consider children with Autism flawed as well. At first glance they appear “normal”, but the flaws seem apparent when their internal challenges become expressed outwardly. I’ve heard many assumptions about those flaws from people who aren’t informed about Autism Spectrum Disorders, or ASDs. (Of course, most of them thought they were out of earshot before they voiced their opinions, but I’m a music teacher, and we hear everything!) I can’t even count the number of times Sheldon has had a meltdown in a grocery store, and I overheard the people near us making unsavory comments. “Why don’t they do something with that boy?” “A good spanking is what he needs!” “Why would a mother allow her child to hit her like that?” “If my child screamed like that, I’d drag him out of the store by his ear!”

Comments like those can make even the most resolved of mothers think they are doing a terrible job. I’ve struggled for a long time with feeling guilt and blame for somehow causing Sheldon’s condition.

Maybe the medications I was on are to blame.

If I’d only spent more time working with him as an infant, perhaps he’d be okay.

 What if the way I discipline him or how I choose not to discipline him for certain things is contributing to the meltdowns.

Should I have decided not to let him get vaccinated?

Do the foods we eat really have an effect on him?

Does God really want him to live in this world of broken communication and overwhelmed senses?

The guilt and frustration can be all-consuming. Because so relatively little is known about ASDs, questions and regrets seem to whirl around constantly. Then one day I looked through a scrapbook of my pregnancy and Sheldon’s first few years of life. I began to notice things I hadn’t noticed before. There was a picture of a sonogram when he was still like a little teddy bear with nubby arms and legs, and I remembered that he spent the entire sonogram bouncing the yolk sac off the wall of the uterus. I looked at the picture the hospital took when he was just a day old and noticed that even then he was playing with his fingers. In almost every picture from that day on he was playing with his fingers. He still spends a large part of each day studying his hands.

I want to recognize here that each family’s experience with ASDs is unique, and that there are a wide variety of factors that can contribute to Autism in children. Our situation may be one of a kind, but I realized in that moment that Sheldon was just made that way. God wasn’t surprised that Sheldon was diagnosed with Autism. He created Sheldon to be exactly who he is on purpose. He was fearfully and wonderfully made by the Creator of the Universe, and that design just happened to include Autism.  What those people in the store, and I’m ashamed to say myself at times, saw as flaws, God saw as part of the exact characteristics necessary for the creation of his picture perfect masterpiece entitled Sheldon Castleman.

“As for God, His way is perfect.” The author of Second Samuel recognized something that I didn’t consider.  God doesn’t make mistakes. That was it. What God created in each of us is perfect according to His way. Only God knows what tomorrow will bring for us, and He equipped us with exactly what we need to make it through each tomorrow. What we see as a flaw, God sees as a necessary component of who He wants us to be. Each and every aspect of your creation was put there on purpose.  God made you exactly who you are on purpose.

Not only has God provided us with what we need to make it through tomorrow, but He also hand-crafted us with gifts and abilities that are designed solely for the purpose of bringing glory to him. In I Corinthians, the Apostle Paul describes the church as the body of Christ, and as such, each member has been given diverse gifts to be used to benefit the body as a whole. What stands out to me in this book is a little verse found in chapter 12, verse 18. “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it has pleased him.” In other words, our talents as well as our weaknesses were given to us on purpose, to bring glory to God.

God Works All Things for Good to Them That Love Him

Okay, but that doesn’t answer the question - what about my sins? I’m the one who purposefully chose to sin against God. How can God stand in awe of this sinful, goopy mess I’ve allowed myself to become? How could God use the mess I’ve made of myself to bring glory to him? As I asked God these questions, He led me to a surprising verse. Romans 8:28 reads, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” Now I felt even more questions brewing. How could God possibly use my sin for my own good? Isn’t sin the exact opposite of good?

 In his wisdom, God blessed us with free choice. Humanity in and of itself is not a flaw. It’s an ingenious part of our creation that allows us to build a stronger personal relationship with God. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read, “…My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness…”

I had probably read this verse a hundred times, but for the first time I was stunned by the power in these simple words. Our weakness brings about God’s perfect strength in our lives. It is through our sin, our trials, our struggles, and our pain that God’s strength is perfected in us, because it is through those times that we recognize that it is God alone who has the power to transform our lives. When we hand our sins and imperfections over to Jesus Christ, His blood washes us clean and sets us free.

We bring glory to God when we learn from the decisions we make and draw closer to Him in the process. We bring glory to God when we share our mistakes and how God has used them with others. We bring glory to God when we acknowledge that although we aren’t even close to perfect, His love motivates us to try our best to live like Him and for Him. Can you see how our weakness can make Him strong?

I then thought of my precious baby boy. Imagine the perfect strength God is building in his little life! While I do not consider Autism to be a weakness, I do acknowledge that Sheldon has many areas in his little life that make it difficult for him to function in a world of sights, sounds, tastes, textures, movements, and communication. Even as Sheldon struggles to navigate a sensory-rich world, God is building His perfect strength in my little man, and He is using Sheldon’s unique talents to bring Him glory. (I can’t wait to see what God has in store for him!)

It is because of Sheldon’s Autism, that he is simply the most honest little guy on the face of the earth. Because he doesn’t understand what lying is, it would never occur to him to do so. I don’t even know how many lives have been blessed by the honesty in my little man’s smile. He has no idea what it means to fake a smile, so when he does smile, his entire body glows with happiness that is pure and honest. He may not be musically talented or have the ability to speak about his struggles to a crowd of people, but God gave Sheldon exactly what he needed to bring glory to Him and bless others in the process.

Embrace the Work God Created In You

One of the greatest blessings Sheldon has given me is his refreshing lack of social conditioning. While it can be embarrassing that he doesn’t always understand social rules like taking turns, I feel blessed to have a child who couldn’t care less what others think of him. As a teacher, I’ve seen that children learn early in life that having and doing certain things will make them appear “cooler”. Even children as young as Kindergarten-aged have already been prejudiced to know the “good” clothing labels, houses, cars, etc., and they are already identifying themselves by what their families have or don’t have.

These kinds of social norms are completely lost on a child with ASD. Sheldon simply is who he is and he wouldn’t even consider the possibility of feeling any shame for that. He doesn’t choose friends, clothing, or toys based on what everyone else says is cool. He plays with people he wants to play with. He chooses toys that make him happy. He wears what makes him feel comfortable. Sheldon is completely comfortable with who he is, and it does not occur to him that he should be something or someone else.

At the age of four, my little guy seemed to have unlocked a key that I struggled with finding – truly loving myself exactly as I am, flaws included. Society dictated what I should wear, how I should look, and what I should own to become that picture perfect person. I was setting myself up for failure. Trying to live up to those standards is an impossible job.  When we try to become the person that others want us to be, we lose love and respect for the person we were created to be.

I began to realize perfection truly belongs to God alone. If God doesn’t make mistakes, and that He created us to be exactly who He wants us to be, then the prejudices we allow to come into our lives are the very things that keep us from truly loving and respecting ourselves.  While it’s true that we can never achieve perfection, we can hold to the promise that God’s way is perfect, and He’s building His perfect plan in our lives.