How has Asperger's helped you serve God?

[paul becke]

Same here. I haven't been able to serve other people except for giving which is something everyone can do.

Well, New_Believer, I tend to think that a good monk or contemplative nun would carry their own 'wilderness' about with them. Maybe, you too, are called to a life primarily focused on prayer and sacrifice/asceticism. It needn't be fasting. Asceticism of the will is the aim.

Maybe not so much 'doing things', as not 'doing things', like a recovering alcoholic, whose successful path is very similar to growth in the life of prayer, sometimes called, the 'interior life', in which, indeed, it partakes in some degree, . It is said that prayer is the hardest work of all.

Nevertheless, it's not helpful to go at such a life 'like a bull in a china shop', but to take thing steadily at first, at your own pace, under God's grace. Assuming we have love in our hearts, we cannot but grow spiritually. But there is no growth without sometimes heavy crosses, is there?

 

[paul becke]

I have thought this through for awhile and I honestly can't come up with anything. My relationship with God is largely one sided. Its him helping me to get by.

Hold onto that. It's the pearl of great price. We are all unprofitable servants.

 

[paul becke]

I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to find what I've been looking for--fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are also Aspies!

I was so worried that there weren't many people like myself. For a while I thought that I could only be one or the other--either a Christian or an Aspie. Like somehow if I was going to be a Christian I had to "become neurotypical" and "cure" myself. It took me a while to realize that I didn't need to do that at all. But I was still a bit lonely. There are all these stereotypes about people like us, and one of them is that we're either atheists or "fundamentalists", because we're just "incapable" of anything else. Like we just don't belong in God's kingdom

But, as seems to be the case with me a lot, I was wrong. I am an Aspie, but more importantly I'm a Christian who just so happens to have Asperger's. Lately it's been hard to just accept my condition and move on--I've known about it for years, but I feel sometimes like there isn't anything else to me. But there is, and I just want to find it and let God use it however He needs to.

May God bless all of you!

As to how my AS has helped me serve Christ, I'm not really sure yet. I know that my social skills are a bit...manageable, as in I can have a conversation if I really set my mind to it (although lately I haven't had many opportunities to do that), but I feel like my ability to write (I want to write stuff, maybe fiction or non-fiction, not really sure yet) plays a big part.

And if I need to be, I'd love to just be a bridge, metaphorically speaking (we Aspies know how to use metaphors, I don't see why people think we can't!). The Aspies of my generation are all addicted to nerdy things. Nothing wrong with being a bit of a nerd, but they're letting their whole lives run around it. And let's just say it's not going well for some of them.

They need Christ badly so that they can figure out that they have a REAL purpose in life, not just some hobby. Since I sort of know what it's like to think like them and feel for things the way they do (that most other people wouldn't care about), I feel like I'm in a position to reach them.

But I really just came to say thank you all so much for basically existing!

It took me a long time to figure out, but eventually God told me that I was never alone after all. He told me one night that He loved me in a strange sort of way...and because of that, I've finally been able to really love Him back. It's a wonderful feeling, to be free of all of the bitterness and hatred at the world. I want every Aspie to feel this way. I want them all to know that God loves them, even if the world can never really understand.

I wouldn't think it fanciful to believe that God would have a special love for Aspies. This thread is very touching to read. It is, after all a cross. I was going to say, like any other. But I think it's heavier than most temperamental crosses, on the face of it at odds with Christianity - as if God were having you swim against the current of a river. And yet if you didn't have that fierce Christianity at the core of your being, you wouldn't be attracted to Christ and his teachings. Ultimately, though, yes, a cross like any other. God could have allowed each of us to be tested with a different cross/crosses.

It reminds me of the saying to the effect that if you are looking for faith, you have already found it, since only God could have put that desire within you, in the first place.

'There are all these stereotypes about people like us, and one of them is that we're either atheists or "fundamentalists", because we're just "incapable" of anything else. Like we just don't belong in God's kingdom' - grandvizier

But the only important thing, grandvizier, is that you should never allow ourselves to be defined fundamentally by your particular affliction, since you know that your true nature, like that of all the children of light, is in Christ, whatever particular affliction they might have in this vale of tears.

Understanding your affliction, temporary though it is, is of course, very helpful, especially if, as someone suggested, you exploit the 'positives', it offers you.

 

[ValorWoman4Jesus]

I often think that because of us aspies being disillusioned, that are expectations are too high or selfish or that we dream pipe dreams that we don't deserve to dream. I'm noticing a trend though not just because I am an aspie and not just because I'm passionate about the social sciences, but because the mentally disabled are being targeted for bad or ignored for good. Christians know that there is a one world government being formed that is not unlike Hitler's Nazi government targeting those who are weak or deficient in their social skills. Too many disabled people are unjustly not being allowed to move up or live any kind of important meaningful life despite their longing for it more than most people. I know our God will make a way for us to prevail. His is so powerful over the injustices that we suffer. The year of jubilee is coming! He will deliver the oppressed. He will perform greater miracles for the mentally ill in His time. It doesn't matter how much we come up short. We've done our best and God will gladly more than make up the difference! He is turning our weaknesses (and strengths) around for His greatest Glory!

 

[grandvizier1006]

I wouldn't think it fanciful to believe that God would have a special love for Aspies. This thread is very touching to read. It is, after all a cross. I was going to say, like any other. But I think it's heavier than most temperamental crosses, on the face of it at odds with Christianity - as if God were having you swim against the current of a river. And yet if you didn't have that fierce Christianity at the core of your being, you wouldn't be attracted to Christ and his teachings. Ultimately, though, yes, a cross like any other. God could have allowed each of us to be tested with a different cross/crosses.

It reminds me of the saying to the effect that if you are looking for faith, you have already found it, since only God could have put that desire within you, in the first place.

'There are all these stereotypes about people like us, and one of them is that we're either atheists or "fundamentalists", because we're just "incapable" of anything else. Like we just don't belong in God's kingdom' - grandvizier

But the only important thing, grandvizier, is that you should never allow ourselves to be defined fundamentally by your particular affliction, since you know that your true nature, like that of all the children of light, is in Christ, whatever particular affliction they might have in this vale of tears.

Understanding your affliction, temporary though it is, is of course, very helpful, especially if, as someone suggested, you exploit the 'positives', it offers you.

Thank you so much for saying all of this. Last night I was sort of worried that I was slipping back into my old self--a few months ago I was really depressed about all this. But over the past few weeks, I've learned a few things.

Namely, that I'm really no more fallen than anyone else. I don't really know if my challenges in life are the hardest to overcome, but there's no real way of finding that out.

It's kind of tough to type with this big lump in my throat, but I guess there is one thing I can say about "us" that the Church needs to know. The thing that we want most of all, more than knowledge or accommodation or social permission to act however we want, is for things to be the way that they should be. Our prelapsarian characteristics make us realize that things are not the way they should be. A lot of us seem to be quick to interpret that as there's something wrong with us. But it's not JUST us. It's the whole world.

The relationship we have with society and "regular" people is like the Christian's relationship with God--no matter how much we understand, there's just something in the way. The curtain is still in the temple, metaphorically speaking, and because we don't know how to brush it aside we feel like it's a wall, and that we're alone on one side of that wall, cut off from whatever is on the other side. Everyone is cut off from God in some way, and everyone is blind to something that should be obvious to them.

And so is the unsaved person's relationship with God. Being a Christian restores you to a relationship with God, and just like it is with being an Aspie and navigating a strange world, you have to work at it to make it stronger. It's never perfect, but as long as you remember that you are loved, you have the desire to keep at it. The thing that motivates us and many other Christians is the knowledge that because we have chosen to let God teach us, He will help us learn what we need to know--not necessarily superficial social skills we might lack, but just how to live sin-free.

 

[paul becke]

'A lot of us seem to be quick to interpret that as there's something wrong with us. But it's not JUST us. It's the whole world.'

Precisely, grandvisier1006. How beautifully you and ValorWoman4Jesus write. In some measure, it seems a characteristic of Aspies on CF, judging from this thread. I think writing from the heart tends to make all the posts on here 'a bit special', in soccer parlance.

 

[paul becke]

I often think that because of us aspies being disillusioned, that are expectations are too high or selfish or that we dream pipe dreams that we don't deserve to dream. I'm noticing a trend though not just because I am an aspie and not just because I'm passionate about the social sciences, but because the mentally disabled are being targeted for bad or ignored for good. Christians know that there is a one world government being formed that is not unlike Hitler's Nazi government targeting those who are weak or deficient in their social skills. Too many disabled people are unjustly not being allowed to move up or live any kind of important meaningful life despite their longing for it more than most people. I know our God will make a way for us to prevail. His is so powerful over the injustices that we suffer. The year of jubilee is coming! He will deliver the oppressed. He will perform greater miracles for the mentally ill in His time. It doesn't matter how much we come up short. We've done our best and God will gladly more than make up the difference! He is turning our weaknesses (and strengths) around for His greatest Glory!

A beautiful post, if I may say so, ValorWoman4Jesus.

Incidentally, I was once told on a forum by a retired scientist who had worked at NASA that there is an 'in joke' there that NASA is really protected housing for aspies - since so many of them are on that part of the spectrum!

 

[ValorWoman4Jesus]

'A lot of us seem to be quick to interpret that as there's something wrong with us. But it's not JUST us. It's the whole world.'

Precisely, grandvisier1006. How beautifully you and ValorWoman4Jesus write. In some measure, it seems a characteristic of Aspies on CF, judging from this thread. I think writing from the heart tends to make all the posts on here 'a bit special', in soccer parlance.

Thanks so much Paul Becke. It is so encouraging to hear your compliments. That really makes my day!

 

[grandvizier1006]

'A lot of us seem to be quick to interpret that as there's something wrong with us. But it's not JUST us. It's the whole world.'

Precisely, grandvisier1006. How beautifully you and ValorWoman4Jesus write. In some measure, it seems a characteristic of Aspies on CF, judging from this thread. I think writing from the heart tends to make all the posts on here 'a bit special', in soccer parlance.

Thank you. I'm not good with verbal conversation, so all of my thoughts tend to be better expressed in writing, where I can say everything that I need to and take as long as I need to. And this topic is very near and dear to me since as a Christian Aspie I feel like it's very important that I am a good representative of what God can do with a person like me, and a good representative of what a Christian is supposed to be if I ever run into people with similar interests as mine.

 

[paul becke]

I find it difficult to beleve you are only 19, GV. Maybe it's a function of your particular cross that it makes you more profound than most. He could snap his fingers any time and make all of you super empathetic, but evidently that can't be a sure ticket to sanctity, and as the French writer Leon Bloy once remarked, ''Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint.” Perhaps yours is the surer path.

Too late to continue gibbering now, so later.

Paul

 

[paul becke]

'He is turning our weaknesses (and strengths) around for His greatest Glory!'

Like the tortoise and the hare, VW4J ? I can imagine the tortoise being very purposeful and determined, and the hare, well ..... a bit on the superficial, cocky side.

 

[grandvizier1006]

I find it difficult to beleve you are only 19, GV. Maybe it's a function of your particular cross that it makes you more profound than most. He could snap his fingers any time and make all of you super empathetic, but evidently that can't be a sure ticket to sanctity, and as the French writer Leon Bloy once remarked, ''Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint.” Perhaps yours is the surer path.

Too late to continue gibbering now, so later.

Paul

I've found that God has given me more concern with other people since coming to him. I think I've certainly gained a lot more empathy lately.

And yes, I really am 19. I've been called "borderline brilliant", but that means little when you've had social struggles. Not all Aspies are "super-geniuses", though. I was a lot like one of those knowledgeable fools in Proverbs.

Hope you have a happy new year!

 

[Sabertooth]

''Life holds only one tragedy: not to have been a saint.”

Do you mean like the "saints in Philippi" kind of saint...?

 

[paul becke]

Yes and no, Sabretooth.

Yes, in the sense that the world, indeed, our little communities, have plenty of saints, both churchgoers and non churchgoers, and even agnostics - like the sheep in Jesus' account of Judgment Day, who didn't consciously recognise Christ in the afflicted, but nevertheless, helped people in dire straits, whenever they could, anyway, under the inspiration of supernatural grace, 'out of the goodness of their hearts'.

No, in the sense that 'the saints' seems to have been a generic term, a term of convenience, used in the early church in reference to all church members, so it is unlikely that all will have be saints under even the broader definition.

We in the Catholic church have a long history of producing extraordinarily outstanding saints, canonised as such by the Church. The canonical sanctity of a person is not, in principle, an infallible pronouncement, so many prayers may be said by the Pope before issuing one.

As bona fide saints, all members of the true vine, the Mystical Body of Christ, will be fully ingrafted as 'other Christs', so I use the term, 'outstanding saints' guardedly, and meaning only that they literally 'stand out' as extraordinary souls, such as the late St Padre Pio, who lived on just one ounce of food a day (sic), slept a similarly exiguous amount, nightly, and spent much of the remainder of the 24 hours either in prayer or hearing confessions (I believe 14 hours a day, the latter).

 

[paul becke]

I've found that God has given me more concern with other people since coming to him. I think I've certainly gained a lot more empathy lately.

And yes, I really am 19. I've been called "borderline brilliant", but that means little when you've had social struggles. Not all Aspies are "super-geniuses", though. I was a lot like one of those knowledgeable fools in Proverbs.

Hope you have a happy new year!

I like that: 'borderline'! I wouldn't mind being indifferently wise under that definition. I've just read your detailed advice on another thread, and it 'blew me away'. I hope the poor woman with the difficult husband uses it. She faces a daunting task, anyway, doesn't she? But we have supernatural Hope, and God's help.

Thank you for your good wishes and also yours, ValorWoman4Jesus; both of which of course, I return with bells on!

 

[Rachel96]

Rachel, you're so lucky! My obsessions were all fleeting. Like I'd have one for just a few months or a year and then it would go away. And now I have like...NO OBSESSIONS. I've betrayed my kind!

But I don't think your deal with languages is an AS thing. I have the same language learning difficulties as other people, where they hear something from their own language in a foreign language when it isn't there. So I'm not sure if it counts as an AS trait. I will say that I have been pretty good at piecing together slang, idioms, and the meanings of words (sometimes, though, I see a word written down before it's spoken, or I don't quite use it right). But Aspies are normally supposed to have trouble with slang due to literal thinking.

It's interesting what you say about the head-covering thing. Boy, do I have some news for you!

I got this book for Christmas called "Misreading Scripture through Western eyes". Since you're not a white, southern, American male like I am, you might get slightly less out of it, but it did have some very interesting ideas you should consider. Essentially, I found out that a lot of Christians in the West read the Bible the same way that we Aspies perceive society and the world around us. And so Westerners might miss out on things in the Bible that would have been understood implicitly in Jesus' culture, just like with how Aspies have trouble reading social cues. Come to think of it, I've seen a lot of "spiritual autism" lately, and sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't.

For one thing, Western culture is very individualistic. I was somewhat relieved to find out that even though as an Aspie I have tendency to look inward and be a bit self-centered (I prefer not making excuses about it or saying that having AS means I'm incapable of seeing the needs of others), Americans in general do that same thing! What a relief to know that everyone else around me is also selfish! So sometimes when you read a verse you might think it applies to YOU personally when it really is meant to convey a collective you (which is known as "y'all" in my culture, meaning "you all").

Another thing that I thought was an Asperger's trait but is actually a Western trait is this idea that a rule must apply to all people all the time. Sound familiar? So in the case of something like head-coverings, it isn't actually mean to be a precedent for Christian women everywhere. In Hebrew culture, it was understood that every human-based rule had exceptions, whereas something like prohibitions against sin certainly did not. It was confusing to read about, as a Westerner and an Aspie, but the book really helped. I'd recommend it to any Christian in the Anglosphere, but especially to my fellow Christian Aspies (I'm so glad I can actually say that! )

Yeah, I thought I explained that the language thing was probably a SID (Sensory Integration Disorder) thing rather than an AS thing - but given that SID/APD is like the most common comorbid of AS, I usually just lump it in as an AS thing.

With the slang, I think it's because we're so used to thinking about it and trying to work it out that after a while it comes automatically, trying to work out what phrases mean, while NTs don't have to bother with that so it's harder for them in the second language.

I can't believe that the headcovering thing was meant solely for Hebrew women in the 1st century - given that the main passage relating to it was actually written to the Corinthian (Greek/gentile) church. That, to me, implies that I was something the Greek gentiles weren't automatically doing and had to be corrected on - therefore, as an Anglo-Celtic gentile, it is equally applicable to me.

Oh, I am white and southern, but an Australian female. (South Australia being significantly further south than anywhere classified as the 'south' in the US). In many ways our cultures are similar - given that we have the same roots in imperialistic England and being a colony. I'd even go so far as to say that Australia has more in common with the southern US than with the rest of the US (Texas, when I was there, was like a cold version of where I live. Full of utes [pick-up trucks] and unusual-looking cattle).

My people say 'youse' or 'yez' where your lot say 'y'all' - except it's generally considered to be uneducated and bogan. It bothers me slightly that English got rid of the second-person-singular a couple of hundred years ago and now applies the plural to everything, because it's confusing, particularly as every other Indo-European language (that I know of) has the singular-plural (or informal-polite) distinction in the second person: tu/vous, du/Sie, thu/sibh, etc.

Finally, I'm not sure the languages thing is an obsession. I mean, I know some other Aspie language geeks (most of whom have probably never heard of AS, all of whom use the word 'polyglot' to define themselves) who spend four hours a day working on languages, have tables to say when to do what, grammar now, vocab then, their life revolves around languages. Now, *that's* an obsession.

In a language class recently (which isn't an obsession thing, it's a Year 12 thing), we were asked "What's some advice you'd give to help learn languages? What have you found useful?" And everyone said things like "use this programme for flash cards" or "work on it for 1/2 an hour every day" and so on, and I'm just sitting there thinking, "I've got to be the laziest language-learner in existence!" I'm like, "Languages are fun. I will go to classes, do my homework, and talk the language at whomever will listen". And I usually don't get the homework done.

 

[grandvizier1006]

I've heard of some autistic savants who could learn languages really well, like this one boy who learned Arabic just by hearing some people speak it. Maybe you're not on that level, but we Aspies tend to have this "overspecialization" don't we?

So there's a y'all in every language?!? Wow! And they said we Southerners were so backwards! (But yeah, I guess you're "more Southern" than I am! )

Well, you can technically wear head-coverings if you want to--Aspies aren't the only ones taking the Bible too literally sometimes but I'd really consider checking out the book even though it's more geared towards Americans. There's still a lot about Bible interpretation worth reading.

 

[Sabertooth]

... It bothers me slightly that English got rid of the second-person-singular a couple of hundred years ago and now applies the plural to everything, because it's confusing, particularly as every other Indo-European language (that I know of) has the singular-plural (or informal-polite) distinction in the second person: tu/vous, du/Sie, thu/sibh, etc...

Would that be the thou/you distinction...?

Colloquially, we do the same thing for the third-person-singular of undetermined gender: they/their/them.

 

[softspokenLamb]

For me, it's been give and take. Yeah, at first, my social skills were appalling, and in a way, they still are a little awkward. But, it has also given me immediate access to my emotions and an amazing memory, which I've used to my advantage as an actor. It also has instilled in me a firm belief in God's rules and a certain intolerance for sinful lifestyles. I never let myself be put into social situations that I could be tempted into abusing any substances, or losing my virginity before I choose to get married to a Christian woman. While it does hamper my relationships somewhat, in that I'm very goal-oriented in everything I do, it hasn't been too bad for the people I want to hold close to me, like my Christian friends and my family. God's always been a constant in my life, and I thank Him every day for both the good and the bad.

 

[Sabertooth]

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