Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

“I will praise you oh Lord for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…and that my soul knows full well.” Psalm 139:14

I memorized this Psalm on a dare. I was about 13 years old, and my youth director at the time dared me to memorize a large volume of scripture. Psalm 139 and the Sermon on the Mount were the two main ones. I’m sure he didn’t think I would attempt it. But that just shows he didn’t know me very well. I memorized it and recited it in front of the whole church.

Fearfully and wonderfully made but …

But it never made the trek from my mind to my heart. I never believed that I was fearfully and wonderfully made. I was an awkward kid, too clumsy for sports. I was smart enough to make good grades, but never the best in my class. I was perpetually losing assignments and books, had horrible handwriting, and was too impulsive to carefully read or listen to directions, so I had to redo a lot of work. I missed a few deadlines, but more often, I ended up feverishly finishing an assignment moments before it was due. This led to a symphony of teachers, guidance counselors and college advisors telling me I just needed to apply myself more. After all, I had proven that if I was interested in something, I would pursue it to extreme limits. It was obvious to them that I wasn’t living up to my potential.

My lack of attention to detail hounded me my entire career. I made frequent preventable errors and pushed deadlines to the limit. I made bad financial decisions and forgot appointments. Bosses would tell me “You can do better.” I wanted to believe it, but I certainly didn’t have the track record to prove it.

An Unexpected Explanation

What my detractors didn’t know, and what I didn’t know until a few years ago, was that I had ADHD. Even now, when you mention ADHD, the image that comes to mind for most people is of a child, usually a boy, who is out of control in the classroom, running around and wreaking havoc. You don’t see the girl zoned out, lost in her own thoughts in the middle of a classroom discussion. And you don’t see the adult who struggles with inattention and selective hyper focus.

Women with ADHD tend to be less fidgety than men, but that’s because we direct our energy inward into a seemingly endless vortex of thought.https://www.verywellmind.com/add-symptoms-in-women-20394 This is why it has only been in recent years that professionals have begun to look beyond anxiety and hormones as explanations for women like me, and started recognize and treat ADHD.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

About 4 years ago, exhausted from thinking one more organizational system would keep me from missing things, exasperated at my own failures, and struggling at work, I called the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and was referred to a local psychologist for help.

She listened to my story and asked questions. After looking at my answers on a standardized questionnaire, she pulled a copy of the DSM-5, a manual that mental health professionals use to make diagnoses, and read through a check list that seemed to be based on my life. Impulsiveness? Check. Disorganization? Check. Poor time management? Check. Problems focusing on a task? Check. Difficulty multitasking? Check. I think I had 7 of the 9 criteria that an ADHD diagnosis is based on. And it only requires 5.

The symptoms must have persisted since childhood. And they had to cause difficulty in more than one area of life. Check again. ADHD  doesn’t come and go. It is a persistent, lifelong companion. I was a bit stunned at how closely I matched the model. But I was also relieved. I wasn’t just a screw up. There was an explanation and a name for what I was experiencing. 

The psychologist referred me back to my family doctor. My employer only paid for 3 sessions with her, so naming the problem was about all I could expect. But I began seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 

This isn’t a “lived happily ever after” tale. Life doesn’t work that way. I didn’t get a pill that “fixed” everything (Maybe because I wasn’t broken?). But, with a lot of help and prayer and support from the right people, I am figuring out how to manage my brain, dare I say maximize it?

Fearfully and Wonderfully made.  Just Different. 

I do take medicine. There’s a stigma attached to taking stimulant medication and being a middle-aged woman filling those prescriptions for a controlled substance is, shall we say, interesting. Even some professionals look askance at those who choose medication as part of their regimen. It usually does little good to explain that my medication doesn’t make me high.

For those of us with ADHD, our pre-frontal lobe, the part of the brain that regulates attention, emotional control and behavior, is under stimulated. The medication helps make up the difference. Many people with ADHD consume a lot of caffeine for this reason. I sure did.  https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-brain-prefrontal-cortex-attention-emotions/

I also work with a therapist and a certified ADHD coach. I am learning about appropriate nutrition to maximize brain function (I wish I was more consistent here). In short, I am learning how to maximize the brain that God gave me. My brain functions differently than most people’s. But I don’t want to use this as an excuse for bad habits or behavior. Instead, I want to use it as a catalyst to spark change. I’m not inferior or stupid. Just different. 

It has its advantages.

There are advantages to this diagnosis. And I’m coming to believe that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. People with ADHD are creative, energetic, spontaneous, and good conversationalists. My natural curiosity and short attention span combine to make in possible for me to have a meaningful conversation with just about anyone I meet.

And then there’s hyperfocus. Remember the story at the beginning about memorizing the Sermon on the Mount? When I get interested in something, I want to know as much about it as possible, and I refuse to give up.  This is good for memorizing scripture, not so good when I decide to take apart my vacuum cleaner at midnight. The problem with hyperfocus is that I can’t readily control it. It has cost me a lot of sleep over the years.

I am thankful for ADHD. I am not defined by it, but it is part of me. And it is a part that I am learning to embrace. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God made my brain to fulfill His purpose for me.https://inspireafire.com/who-are-you-finding-our-identity/

A Journey to Understanding

It has been a difficult journey, and I wish I had known about it earlier. But I can’t fault the doctors or counselors who didn’t recognize it. They weren’t negligent. They were acting on the information they had available. And if I can trust that God created the way my mind works, I can trust that He allowed me to know this when I was best able to handle it.

What about you? Have you felt different your entire life? We are all unique, but there are some of us who stick out from the rest. Rather than bemoan my difficulties, I would rather discover mine and celebrate them. I don’t know how you struggle. But I do know that God can use you — whatever your struggles are. In fact, he can take your greatest weakness, harness it, and make it your greatest strength, the way you can best give God glory.

God can make strength from weakness

You don’t believe me? Look at Peter. I think there’s a good chance he had ADHD. He was impulsive and mercurial. He was the first to recognize Jesus as Messiah. He was the one guy who jumped out of the boat and walked on water. And the only one to draw a sword in Gethsemane. But he also tried to talk Jesus out of going to the Cross. And when push came to shove, he denied knowing his best friend. This was all before the transformative power of Holy Spirit.

At Pentecost, Peter’s impulsivity is harnessed for the glory of God. It is Peter who declares to the thousands gathered that they had killed the Messiah. But God raised Him in glory. It is Peter who looks in the face of potential tormentors and declares “We must obey God rather than men.”

Paul talks about having a thorn in the flesh. He prayed earnestly on three different occasions, but God did not remove it. Later on Paul declared that he could boast in his infirmity because it was in his human weakness that God’s divine power was highlighted.  I can say without exaggeration that I thank God for ADHD and wouldn’t choose to live my life without it. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And that my soul knows it very well!

*October is ADHD Awareness Month. I am committed to doing all I can to remove the stigma from this very common condition. If you would like to know more and understand better, here are some resources:

•  https://www.adhdawarenessmonth.org
• https://www.additudemag.com
• https://www.amenclinics.com/conditions/adhd-add/
• https://chadd.org