Faith and neurodivergence are not opposites – they’re the path to my truest self, where authenticity and divine purpose meet.

Aww, that big word “neurodiversity” that hovers on the periphery, obscure, a little mysterious slowly making its way to more mainstream prominence, consciousness. One I had put in its own buffer outside myself as a point of vague interest met with compassion for those “affected”, impacted by such a label. Experience. We are a world of so many labels these days. Neurodiversity for me was simply one added to the list where diving into each can leave one spinning trying to make sense. Understand. Correctly label. In my finite mind, my only point of reference culturally speaking was Autism and its counterpart high functioning Asperger’s. Male centric stereotypical of course.

Neurodiversity did not check my world, existence, until it did, and my entire life started to make sense. Like God had put a huge spot light on how He formed me, different. And, just like that all the nuances and quirks, the ways I experience the world, a chronic not fitting in despite all my tear- stained, sweaty, marathon efforts to do so always, always coming up empty, short. Even, and most piercing, debilitatingly inside God’s church where you are repeatedly told Jesus’ blood makes it so, this belonging.

You know in the nagging pit of your experience, you don’t, and forever you have no clue why life for you is so isolating, perpetually rejecting, scapegoating, confusing, shunning, shaming. Your life so filled with suffering until one label floating in the ether grounds you bringing Light to every fiber of your being and you begin to rest inside yourself. For the very first time in your life.

Old labels: misfit, defective, broken, weird, extra, too much, too intense, too sensitive, outcast start to fall off of you. And, finally for the first time in your God-given life, you are at rest knowing the Creator knit you this very way on purpose with purpose from the very beginning, right there in your mother’s womb. You are not a mistake. Psalm 139:13

From here your self-discovery begins with more discoveries to come. God wants you to know exactly how He knit you together .. different. Beauty awaits.

With Love,

Raya

Your Seat At The Table