Even though I’m not writing about Asperger’s syndrome today, the message can easily be applied to both AS and neurotypical syndrome people. My last activity yesterday, before retiring for sleep, happened to be caused by deciding where to relocate a dusty little red book on one of my shelves. I almost always go through such things whenever I’ve acquired a new book. It’s like defragging my hard drive so the Windows operating system can find files faster, since they’re more organized then. Excessive explanation? Not really. It’s to show God can work in strange ways even if they seem trivial.
The little red book (← a pun is there folks!) I’m referring to is titled The Book of Prayers: Compiled for Everyday Worship. It was published in 1981 by Avenel Books in New York and edited by Leon and Elfreda McCauley. Most people would glean through its pages and think it to be dull. Maybe I did too, since I never paid much attention to it during the quarter of a century that it’s been sitting on my shelf.
Anyhow, earlier last evening, I had been brought down in spirits because of being reminded of the harsh realities Aspies face in regards to employment due to how illogical (insane) the work force scene is. It came from the book Theory of Mind and the Triad of Perspectives on Autism and Asperger Syndrome: A View from the Bridge by Olga Bogdashina (more specifically from Temple Grandin’s statements repeated on page 158):
“Many people with autism expect all people to be good. It is a rude awakening to learn that some people are bad and might try to exploit them. AS people often cannot hold down jobs as they are unable (and often unwilling) to ‘play social games’. They are straightforward (not rude). They cannot accept that ‘know-who (to please)’ is more important than ‘know-how (to do the job)’.”
If all people lived to please God, then the work force scene would be logical and sane instead. Oh well, that’s for the new earth — for now, there is still work to be done in this present one. Even though I enjoy most of the work I do,¹ in spite of not getting paid and never receiving encouragement or praise for it, I don’t enjoy being constantly compared to and judged against the lifestyles of ‘normal’ women today.
Enough said about what brought me down; now to what elevated me! Page 28, of the prayer book, contained one called For a Purposeful Life. These are the words which blessed me with the same peace that children acquire from knowing their boundaries given to them from loving parents for their protection:
“When we have found life good, O Lord, we have asked for longer days; when we have found it heavy, we have asked for a lighter load. Teach us to accept whatever comes to us as useful cargo freighted with possible blessing. Help us to wrest a blessing from circumstance, to work with thee in making all things work together for good because we will to live according to thy purpose. Amen.”
Living according to God’s purpose, rather than according to what I want God’s purpose to be for me, is a comfort zone that no prescribed medication can offer. I should know that by now. It must go to show that knowing is not the same thing as humbly abiding in that knowledge.
I don’t know what other blessings lay ahead from the prayers in this book, but I’m eager to find out. The introduction The Strength of Personal Prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick is loaded with profound statements. I shall summarize this post with a portion from page 4:
“There are two aspects to every strong life—rootage and fruitage, receptivity and activity, relaxation and tension, resting back and working hard. A man who cannot do the former can never do the latter well, never! He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward. The offices of psychiatrists are littered with folk who have mastered the techniques of activity and aggressiveness and now are going all to pieces because they have failed to master that other technique: they have nothing to rest back upon.”
¹It’s the household engineering duties that can be a drag, but then when I feel that way, I know what’s in need of readjustment (me). Being thankful is the cure for most everything → the greatest is being spared from eternal annihilation!
