When I had my cafe, there was a cook for a while who was a little on the cranky side. For instance, I designed a new menu and listed the ingredients in the chicken salad because customers always wanted to know what was in it. “Is it mayonnaise or vinegar based? Does it have nuts?” This cook had a fit when she saw what I had done. “You shouldn’t tell people what’s in the chicken salad! It should be a secret!”
“How can it be a secret when you can SEE the ingredients for yourself?” After all, the red seedless grapes were right there in front of you. She still insisted I had shamelessly revealed a sacred secret to the world.
I sometimes feel there are secret ingredients in the work we do serving women and their children, things that may not be visible to the naked eye. Naturally, we are dealing with addiction, abuse, poverty, homelessness, the list could go on and on. Those things are obvious. But the average person probably doesn’t realize we also deal with lots of over-sensitivity with our children. In fact, I would say the intense sensory issues have worsened through the years and have become almost predictable.
For instance, we have lots of kids who can’t stand the feel of grass on their bare feet. No, it isn’t because they were raised on concrete in the city. They truly cannot stand the sensation of grass touching their skin – something most of us love. It causes them to cry and scream as if they are in excruciating pain.
We recently had a little girl who was the most fun loving, carefree, outgoing child, but she could not tolerate raindrops on her skin. She would scream hysterically if she got caught in the rain. Can you imagine a mom trying to navigate the weather to avoid a meltdown?
Then there are the children who have severe problems with the different textures of food. (Tell me that isn’t a nightmare trying to manage community meals...)
There has also been a tremendous increase in the children we see who have been diagnosed with autism, and there are lots of theories as to why. But two specific boys immediately come to mind.
Nathan was a sweet boy who was autistic, and he absolutely loved to roll down the hill outside my office. He would flip and tumble until he was almost out of sight and I captured it on video every chance I got. We believe he thrived on the intensity of all his senses being stretched at the same time.
But get this. A few years after Nathan left Blue Monarch with his family, I looked out my window one day and saw another boy rolling down the hill just like Nathan. He had just moved in that day with his mom. I yelled to the next office and said, “Hey y’all, come in here and look! That little boy is tumbling down the hill exactly like Nathan. He’s the only other child who has ever done that.”
Well, if you can believe this, just two hours later I learned that both boys had the same biological father but different moms. We might assume their father taught them to roll down a hill. But that was definitely not the case with this dad. Surprisingly, this boy had also been diagnosed with autism, just like Nathan. (Sounds like good material for a thesis to me.)
Years ago, there was a sweet little boy in a wheelchair, who had severe disabilities and was non-verbal, so he wasn’t able to tell us what was upsetting him. Adam struggled with different issues periodically, but this particular phase was extremely difficult. Going from one environment to another made him scream, sometimes up to forty-five minutes at a time. For instance, going from a dark car at night to a brightly lit gas station. Or simply going from a room with a low ceiling to one with a high ceiling. As you might imagine, this was extremely hard on the mom as well because it was so hard to understand or avoid.
Children with the same sensitivity, who can articulate how they feel, describe a sensation of falling when going from one space to another. But how could we keep this boy in one space forever?
I went to bed one night with this issue really heavy on my heart. It tore me up to see sweet Adam suffering so much and it hurt just as much to see the mom struggling to help him when nothing seemed to make a difference. Adam was scheduled for an upcoming surgery, and I couldn’t imagine what they would go through as he transitioned from one room to another during all those hospital visits, which would begin in a couple of days.
So, that night before I went to sleep, I earnestly prayed to God for a solution. “Please, Lord, give us some idea how to help this child!”
That night I had a short but powerful dream. In the dream, God told me, “Put a ball cap on Adam’s head. That way his ceiling will never change.”
When I woke up, I couldn’t wait to tell this mom what God had shared with me. We both laughed as if it was a crazy idea, but hey, I was determined to at least give it a try.
Later that day I shopped around until I found a child sized ball cap. The next day Adam wore the ball cap to his appointment at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and let me tell you how it went:
During the transition from the familiar van to the dark parking garage, to the open breezeway, to the tight elevator, to the crowded waiting room, to the bright exam room, to the dimly lit x-ray room...not a peep. Adam did not cry one time. It was a miracle!
This incident proved to me that God is truly in the details. He, too, was concerned about Adam and showed me how to help him. In a similar way, I believe God shows us how to help the other children who come to Blue Monarch with profound sensory issues and needs. It’s as if they show up with their brain waves sparking like an electrical wire in water. But with time, as the mom becomes more consistent, and the child’s routine becomes more predictable, the world becomes a safer place, and we see these symptoms improve or even disappear in some cases. It’s as if each child puts on a divine, virtual ball cap that blocks out the chaos and confusion – as it did for Adam.
Some of the issues we face at Blue Monarch may not be visible to everyone, but through the supernatural healing power of God, and his direction through ordinary people, we see tremendous healing take place. And that should never, ever be kept a secret because it brings great hope - for all of us.
Lord, thank you for always being in the details. May we never forget to seek you for answers. Amen
