Please welcome Patti Janzen as she joins us
once again as our Guest Blogger.
I was recently reading something in which the author, a friend of mine, expressed how she’d been gently drawn toward Christ many times. After reading her beautiful examples of this, I may have even verbalized my thought: 'You get drawn in; I get driven.' I couldn’t help thinking about the times God’s knocked me off my feet to get my attention.
One of the biggest examples of this happened 25 years ago. I rode on a rollercoaster one too many times and ended up springing a leak in my cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid circulates around the brain and spine and a perfect balance of this is important for our equilibrium, among other things. Unaware of what had happened, and after running around for days with an atrocious headache, my brain swelled and I ended up with a mild brain injury. In reality, I couldn’t fulfill my duties as a registered nurse for 18 months. Why? Because I couldn’t concentrate, read, watch TV, or even speak correctly for the majority of that time. The only treatment included a few medications that didn’t work, and lying flat in hopes that the leak would eventually seal. I’d been quite literally knocked off my feet.
Interestingly, the day before that happened, I’d prayed for something to change in my increasingly stressful life. God certainly came through with a resounding, “Yes! I’ll help!” It wasn’t in a way I expected, but He designed it perfectly, to prepare me for the two things that came next—one more immediately, and one a few years later.
Through exercises to regain my concentration, the beginning of my writing journey began with a weekly humour column, which I still write today. But that isn’t what I’ll expand on here. From early on, my husband and I had been concerned with our son’s lack of reading and writing skills. We spent many hours reading with him, only to see very little, if any, progress. His printing and attempts at writing also lacked form and structure, with no spaces visible between the words he struggled to pen. He was in grade 3 when a teacher finally admitted that he was having issues.
It would take reams of words to explain all the specialist appointments and tests we attended over the next few years. The result was always the same: Something’s wrong, but we don’t know what.
At some point, a psychologist suggested we ask our son what he saw when he was reading. I went home that very day, pulled a typed letter out of our mailbox, and placed it in front of him. My first request was that he point to the spaces between the words. He couldn’t. Then, I asked him to read me a few sentences before I stopped him and finally queried what the words looked like. “You mean the letters?” he answered. “Sure,” I said nervously. “You know, Mom,” he shrugged. “The letters move.” In my confusion, I’m sure I squeaked out something like, “What?” He smiled up at me then, as if it would be obvious since I knew how to read. “They jump up at me,” was his pleasant response.
In the moments that followed, all I could think was that this had been his normal. For all those years of sounding out the letters that made words, they’d been moving in front of his eyes. The whole time. Besides the guilt that poured through me for insisting he write and rewrite his many illegible assignments, all I could think was, 'How in the world has he been able to read or write anything? How could he concentrate at all?'
I quickly remembered how I’d had to retrain my brain to read, write, speak, and concentrate only a few years before. Since he was struggling even more in school, it quickly became clear that there was only one option to help our son best. Over the next three years, I homeschooled that sweet boy. I won’t say it all went smoothly, but at least God had given me a personal glimpse into what it was like to walk in my son’s shoes.
Sometimes God’s grace shows up in the strangest ways. It may even literally knock us off our feet. Although unpleasant at the time, now, when I’m travelling through the tougher stuff, I can’t help but wonder what God is preparing me for. Maybe I’ll need what I’m learning through my present pain, to help someone else. It might even be as simple as writing about it, to touch someone else’s heart.
As God’s children, there will certainly be times when He’ll more gently draw us to Himself. But sometimes, if you’re like me, you may occasionally require a more drastic approach—more like being driven toward Him. Either way, isn’t it encouraging to know that God never wastes our pain? He is incredibly good, whether we’re being drawn or driven.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 (NASB1995)
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Note: Today, we know our son’s condition is termed dysgraphia. It is a lifelong neurological condition and learning difference in which a person has difficulty writing at their age level. They may or may not have trouble translating thought into written words. (No wonder he aced those verbal exams!) There is no cure. Treatment focuses on management through interventions, accommodations, and exercises.
(Top) Image from Pixabay
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