National Children’s Craft Day
Today (March 14th) is National Children’s Craft Day. This day could have been established by my mom. She used crafts to keep me busy, because when I had too much free time, trouble always followed me.
Love: Learning and Allowing
Emotions are a strange labyrinth within a rabbit hole for Aspies. Often, we struggle with the interpretation of social cues, missing jokes as the room fills with laughter.
How to Love Someone Afflicted with Mental Illness?
Mental illness takes a toll not only on the sufferer, but on everyone around them. Stigma and shame make it very difficult to find…
Challenging Verses: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 are difficult verses for those afflicted with mental illness or/and autism. This verse contains four items that the afflicted struggle with in their Christian walk. How can I rejoice always when I feel depressed, manic…
Just Start with Hello… My Name Is…
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year is an old Christmas song made popular by Andy Williams. For most, Christmas is a wonderful time of gathering, giving, and most importantly grace - His grace. For some, Christmas is difficult and lonely. The song itself illustrates the dreaded social aspects of Christmas - parties for hosting.
Thankfulness
When we are thankful to God, it is not just a polite “thanks.” Our thankfulness is an outpouring of praise to God for who He is and what He has done. We need to be grateful for ALL that He has done, whether we see it as good or bad. God’s ways are beyond our understanding. The world sees many disabilities and afflictions as inferior, inadequate, and imperfect…
The Digital Contagion
I have been reading about the effects of social media and digital technology on people, and it reminds me of the cultural climate after World War I. In no way, am I making light of the brutal reality and deaths of World War I. Like many Aspies (code of someone with Aspergers), I think in pictures, but many times my mind relates to artwork…
Dialogue
It is always hard leaving at the end of a mission trip. I love serving others, and this trip was no exception. It has been a wonderful God-glorifying trip.
Last week with our SALT Ukraine partners was amazing. It was exciting to have face to face fellowship with partners I had previously only met on Zoom.
Two Years…
Who would think that someone afflicted with bipolar and Asperger’s would live on mission? Who would think God would call someone with such afflictions for His Kingdom? God knows and we can never understand His ways and plans for us. Who are we to comprehend the wisdom of God? (Illustrated in Job 38:4-42:6)
Love One Another
Jesus gave us a new commandment to love one another as He loved us. Believers are to be known by their love for other followers of Jesus. Although these followers may be from different ethnic, tribal, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds, our love for one another transcends all.
Madness Within the Inferno
Suicidal Ideations are a numbing, deafening isolation from reality, an all-consuming fire erupting within my brain. My skull can barely contain the burning inferno, mindlessly submitting to the raging flames. These thoughts are involuntary and submerge logic and reasoning into a helpless, drowning consent to lunacy.
August: A Month I use to Dread…
August has always been my least favorite month. As a child, August meant the return to school. The free days of summer quickly passed, and the dreaded complexities of the school days arrived. I hated school for different reasons than…
What Comes to Mind When You Think of Serving on the Mission Field?
What comes to mind when you think of serving on the mission field?
Feeding people, clothing people, helping people in need… these are all the traditional images of serving others. My years serving in Ukraine, God has shown me other ways, ways that seem insufficient to us. I took photographs of those…
New Journey in Serving
The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.
- Hudson Taylor
Beginnings
In 2005, I graduated with a MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art, but my life was full of what seemed to be endless discouragement. My mental health was borderline stable. In the summer of 2009, I was invited to serve…
Four Hidden Aspects of Bipolar
1. The side effects of my medication really bother me.
Medications are essential for stability, but their side effects can be very intolerable. I have developed a twitch…
Different. Not Less.
God creates us in His image. (Genesis 1:27) He creates us man and woman. (Genesis 1:27) And He creates us wonderfully. (Psalm 139:14) He weaves us in our mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13) He knows every hair on our head. (Matthew 10:30; Luke 12:7)
He creates us all different, but not less. (John 9:1-3) We are all perfect in…
Mission to Germany and Poland
God provided an opportunity for me to travel to Germany and Poland this past week. The trip was short but very impactful. In Germany, I met with six families for whom Ben Roundtree was able to organize their…
Autism is Awesome!
Autism is not a dirty word, because it doesn’t define who I am. It is a label. It is a condition God wove into His perfect design for me. Autism is awesome!
Describing autism as awesome doesn’t diminish the struggles in my journey…
Smiling During the Storms
But how can Christians, especially those afflicted, smile in the face of these storms despite our sin-filled world? As I think about this question, proposed in my church last Sunday, my mind wanders to the events in Ukraine. People, especially women and children, are living in an endless nightmare…