It's Not The Skill. . .

Good Afternoon!!   How are things with you?  Good I hope.   It's good here, I have my coffee, some sunshine and my one-of-a-kind,  113 pound dog spinning around in preparation to lay down on the rug next to me.

She's just passed her seventh turn around and still has not laid down yet.  LOL There's been a couple of times she's had to do the "bed dance" - as we call it - thirteen or more times before she will finally lay down. That's thirteen very slow, head down watching the rug for just the right spot, turns.

Now, she has finally settled down but only after turn number nine.

I struggled  all through school, and this was from the 60's through to the early 80's.  And at a time when they didn't know what Sensory Processing Disorder was, and they still thought of Autism as a form of mental retardation and most children were institutionalized for it.  They also didn't have a clue about Attention Deficit Disorder, or even what AD/HD was.  All those things that get in the way and cause some children to learn differently than others.  They CAN learn, it's just not how the average student learns.

I'm not sure if I have enough of the indicators to be diagnosed with full Sensory Processing Disorder, but having three children with it and learning about it, I now know that I have some, and that they played a huge part in my school struggles.

One of the issues is becoming visually overwhelmed.  To explain this in the simplest way- there are times when I see something, like words on a page and my brain over-reacts to what I'm seeing and "panics" and basically tries to not process what it sees.  The same happens when it comes to seeing all the groceries bags sitting on the floor after a shopping trip.  I start to panic and suddenly can't figure out where to begin or how to get it all put away, even though there's no problem when there's only three or four bags. 

Studying has always been the same way, very overwhelming for me, even when it was something I was really interested in.  The same with reading.  It's not that I can't read, I can, but normally to read most books, visually it's like being trapped in an elevator with 100 people.

A person's normal reaction when they see an elevator that crowded is to just let those doors close and wait for the next elevator, and the emptier it is, the better.  Right?  For me, reading is the same way, it usually causes the same feeling of just wanting to close the book and wait for the audio version.

And when I push myself to study something, everything I read doesn't make sense.  It's like I'm trying to read a foreign language.  I do the same thing with instruction manuals. 

Except when I study something in the Bible, about the Bible or about God.  Then everything makes sense.  It just flows.

Just like when I'm sharing with you about what I've learned. It just flows, with no effort, no "panic", no being overwhelmed. 

SO, if I can study the Bible and be able to understand and really get something out of it, so can you.  Because it's not what you skill you have, it's the fact that you want to know God.  If you truly have the desire in your heart to know God, and to know His Truth, He'll give you everything you need.  And all because He wants to have that relationship with you.  He already KNOWS you.  He's just waiting to teach you about who He really is.