His Story

 

I was probably 16 years old when my Sunday School teacher once played a little game in class.

Each student was allocated a million dollars, and the teacher opened an imaginary auction. We were asked to bid on items like good looks, popularity, maybe even superpowers like x-ray vision or invisibility. I don’t remember exactly. But what I do remember is that I was willing to blow my whole budget on “being understood.”

Which leads me to believe that I’ve always felt myself to be misunderstood.

As an adult, I’ve done some learning and introspection, and come to the conclusion that I am autistic, which makes sense of the fact that I often misunderstand others, and they misunderstand me. Though, I have ironically found that those who have the most trouble understanding me are those who most vehemently deny that I could have autism.

All that to say that I have kept diaries or blogged or tried to write poetry over the years, in the hope that someone, somehow, someday, would “understand me.” And then I morphed into talking about my thoughts (with a few people), trying to explain my perspective. That often sounds like complaining, I’m ashamed to say.

Anywho, I’ve been reading the Betsy-Tacy books to R. Betsy once wrote some “trash” stories based on the dime-store paperbacks of a friend, and upon becoming ashamed of herself, she burnt the stories. Where I would have put them in a box to be read posthumously in order for someone to know where I’d been.

THEN, two weeks ago at church, Pastor talked about “locked doors” – places we don’t want God to clean out. Sort of the concept of holding on to our own ways in case we decide to revert to them. I didn’t take a lot of notes, and I didn’t write this right away, so I’m not able to fill in the blanks very well as to what was actually going through my head. But the grand conclusion of all this is…

I don’t need people to understand ME. I just need to point them to God!

Whether or not I did stupid stuff (I did), or suffered unjustly (maybe), or had long, convoluted thought processes (apparently!), none of that is what defines me. None of that is what is ultimately going to help other people. None of that is going to make me famous, or rich, or an “influencer.”

What defines me NOW, more than anything, is that God reaches down and touches my soul. Sometimes I respond appropriately and sometimes I don’t, but he never gives up on me, and so that is the best thing about me. And that is what I really want people to understand.