Full Circle Moment

 This might be the most important thing I've written...

    Some context for my story. What is Jessica & Friends and what connected us to them leading me to end up at their program at LBC chapel? Jessica & Friends Community is a non-profit organization that provides faith-based services and supports for adults affected by autism/intellectual disabilities. Peter and Paulette Teague started it. Jessica is their daughter. Also, Lancaster Bible College is where Brad and I went to college and Dr. Teague (Peter) was the president of LBC during our time there. He's very good at remembering students and faces. We both loved him when we were students. We reached out to them after Leo was born and got to spend some one-on-one time (or two-on-two) with them with Leo. They are wonderful wells of wisdom to draw from--as well as examples to see.

   

    I heard that Jessica & Friends was doing a program for the LBC chapel last week. The Teagues said that Leo and I could come and watch! So, at 9:15am on a Tuesday, Leo and I went to chapel at my old college. It was a weird feeling. College kids are younger than I remember them. I felt out of place and yet a bit at home. 

    I sat with Leo and watched people play handbells, read Scripture, sing, and dance. Leo really enjoyed the music. I saw some familiar faces, but not close friends. I tried to picture my college self watching the Jessica & Friends program, and remember how I had perceived it back then. Answer: very differently.

    Back in college, I applauded the folks at Jessica & Friends. I sat a little uncomfortably, but knowing that positive feedback was a good thing to give--and I wanted to give it. It's not that I thought they didn't deserve to be applauded. But I didn't know how to act in the presence of differently able bodied people. They made weird sounds or didn't respond to something the way I thought was normal. They made movements that I perceived as childish. They didn't respond to something right away and I felt uncomfortable in the waiting. I know I'm describing this as if I was interacting with them--which I wasn't--but I'm trying to say that even watching the Jessica & Friends program was a little bit of the same feelings. I just didn't know what to do with my discomfort. I felt that I had no frame of reference (my exposure to special needs and disabilities was nearly nonexistent before Leo).

    So, I remember watching the Jessica & Friends program in college and applauding the members while thinking, "They're trying. I see them trying to do the correct hand motions or sing the words at the right time." I thought my applause for them was because they were trying to do the music, dancing, reciting, etc. correctly.

    Boy did I have it wrong.

    Flash forward to sitting in their program with Leo. The whole group got up to sing a couple of songs and perform motions. They had a leader in the front to copy. I noticed different levels of motions. Some people did all the motions but not smoothly and a bit slower than the song. Some people caught certain motions at intervals of the song. A couple people sitting in chairs or wheelchairs had people moving their hands for them. I noticed one gentleman standing towards the back of the group--he was really tall--not doing any motions. The next song he swayed more. And on the third song he had his hands lifted above his head. What he was doing was very different from what the leader was doing. He wasn't doing the motions. 

But he was doing it. 

And then...it hit me.

    See, college age me would have seen that and thought, "That's nice. He's trying to do the motions, but he's not doing them." But current me thought, "That's what it looks like for him to do the motions." 

You see, I don't know what it takes for him to get his hands above his head. I don't know all the noise that is in his body and/or brain that gets in the way of smooth, coordinated movements. Thinking of Leo, a simple push of a button is no small feat for him considering the way that his brain and body are wired. It takes so much focus and control and learning of his own body to coordinate his movements. The action that Leo completes says nothing about how much effort he put in, and how much intention it required. Now, this gentleman was standing and singing. He clearly had very different capabilities than Leo. But I still understood (more than college me understood) that he has different noise in his body and brain. I don't know the kind of effort or amount of effort that he has to put in in order to put his hands above his head, sing, and move to the music. Are you seeing the picture that I'm painting here? Am I painting it well? 

    It clicked. He was doing the motions. That's what it looked like with his body and brain to do those motions. It was completely about his effort and engagement. He was no less engaged and no less intentional because the motions didn't look the way that they would on a normal-able-bodied person. 

It was about his heart.

    And then I started applying this to almost every area of my life. It was a lot that flooded my brain in about two seconds of watching this man perform the third song. It's about the heart. That's where the special needs community gets it SO RIGHT. Folks with disabilities and special needs understand in such a deeper way that it's not about how it looks but about your heart. Are you expressing what you mean to? You mean to express joy? Then express it in whatever way you can that expresses the extent of that joy. Do what you need to communicate the joy that's in your heart. It's not about doing something joyful. It's about communicating your joy. And with everybody's bodies and minds working so differently within the special needs and disabilities community, it's so clearly not about what you're doing but how you're doing it. 

    My first flood of thoughts was, "Oh my gosh, it's about the heart." My second flood of thoughts was,

"I think I just stumbled onto a key that, dare I say, the rest of the world needs. I think this is something that the special needs community understands so deeply, even without realizing it. Like, literally, I think they get it. And I think we all need to get it." 

    And then my mind is flooded with:

The fruit of the Spirit! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. None of those are specific actions but attitudes of the heart!

Verses like 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

1 Samuel 16:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”"

And many sermons that I've heard preached redirecting us from what a godly life looks like to addressing where our heart is at. God wants our hearts! I don't care about what you want to do for God if you are not intentional in your heart attitude.

It's about the heart. And I've wasted a lot of time judging people's hearts based on what I see. And I focus so much of my time on "what I'm supposed to do" rather than addressing where my heart is at. Truly, truly there are so many things going on beneath the surface for everyone that I can't know just by looking at what they do. I don't know the lies that Satan is telling them and the steps that they are taking to break out of his strongholds and take ONE step closer to God. 

    It's about the heart. And it's about my heart. Where is my heart at with God? Am I holding on to control of things that I desperately don't want to give him? Am I saying one thing with my words and showing another thing with my time? Am I disregarding certain difficult people, but I've made up for it because I was kind to another difficult person? Just not that person. 

    This message will forever be incomplete. There are many roads you could go down after this. But I'll let that to God to take you down the one that you need to go down. But I felt that I found a key of sorts to understanding the world that God made a little bit better. And I wanted to share it. 

    And it was in a full circle moment for me, from college student to mother of a special needs child, sitting in the same building.