When I was in 5th grade I was labeled at ADD/ADHD…I don’t remember which one. For one entire school year I was sentenced to take medicine called Ritalin. Not knocking the diagnosis or the medicine but for me it was an undisciplined social little girl who wasn’t “good” at school but loved being there to hang out with her friends.
I vividly remember walking back to the class room one day after lunch. My friend and I were near the front of the line. We had a hold of each other’s hands goofing around when I suddenly let go of her hands leaving them to fly loose and smack her in the face. It bloodied her lip. She began crying {as would I if I was 5th grade and my BFF just made me bleed}. Our teacher rushed toward us and her first words after checking on my friend were directed in my direction, “Did You Take Your Medicine?!?” I had forgotten it that day. I don’t know that it would have made a difference in my behavior. The whole class stared at me in disapproval. I was so embarrassed. I was the girl who was broken and needed medicine to correct her. She was in need of assistance to make her like everyone else.
I begged my mom over the summer to release me from my sentence as a convicted “hyper child”. She allowed me to begin 6th grade free of my daily walk of shame to the nurse’s office for meds. My teacher that year sweetly invited me up to her desk the first day of school and politely asked me if I’d be taking “medicine” this year. When I timidly informed her I was “trying it without” she never said another word. I trained myself to behave as directed and along with many other things that transpired over the next few years I began a relationship with Jesus Christ.
It’s been almost 18 years; high school diploma, wonderful marriage, a degree in psychology, and 3 children since that dishwater blond girl stood in the hall ashamed she wasn’t “normal”. I’m still the girl who doesn’t want to be labeled. I want to rely on that relationship with Christ to overcome my faults in the eyes of the world. I want a “fixed” life through Christ. I’m still learning to accept that I am who I am because Christ formed me this way. Hyper activity. Timid. Outgoing. Odd. Silly. Blunt. Originally Me. Some days I like me. Some days I don’t. Either way, it’s the way God made me. It’s the way He is continuing to make me. I’m being formed more into his likeness every day. Squishing out the bad, filling it in with some good. He's using everything for His glory. It doesn’t always look like what the world expects. It doesn’t always look like what the world accepts. It doesn’t always look like what the world wants. It doesn’t always look like what I expect, accept, or want. God has so many different facets that there is no way he could make one human being to fulfill his likeness. That’s why we are called the body of Christ. It takes each, unique Christ follower to make up His image. I’m learning my role in this body.
What are you? An arm? A mouth? A tooshy? An eye. A leg? A fingernail?
Find what God is creating you to be. Enjoy it. What’s your purpose in the helping the BODY accomplish its big picture? Relish in the fact that even among your body parts there is none exactly alike. As I look at my fingers as they type, none are the same. Even my pinkies have something a little different about each one. That’s what makes them…them.
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