• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Blessed are the Misfits

Blessed are the Misfits 2020-06-24

Alexej

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Alexej submitted a new resource:

Blessed are the Misfits - includes his experience in church as an introverted Aspie

I was attracted to this book by the first chapter where the author describes his experience in a church setting as an introverted Aspie. His experience of (not) speaking in tongues echoed mine.

However he does not dwell on being an Aspie in church though the book, it is more that this is one type of not fitting in, and he goes on to talk of many other groups who don't fit in to the "norm" of so many churches.

Read more about this resource...
 

Attachments

  • Blessed+are+the+Misfits.pdf
    1.9 MB · Views: 328
Last edited:
That's a very familiar experience. I have been a regular church-goer for 35 years. And for that long, I've heard people regularly talking about feeling a "burning in the bosom", or feeling "promptings" or "impressions" by the Holy Ghost to do something. I don't feel those things and for a long time I thought something was wrong with me because of it.

At the same time, I have had very rare, but very precious, occasions where I felt like the Holy Ghost spoke to me - not in feelings but in direct words, fully-formed, articulate, and concise sentences. Almost always, it has taught me something valuable that I didn't know before. Again, these are sacred experiences to me, but I still wondered why I couldn't feel what everyone else felt.

When I was diagnosed as autistic, I learned that the lines of communication between my conscious mind and my emotions are muted - not as clear as in NDs. And it clicked. Of course God wouldn't speak to me through a medium that He knows I wouldn't hear or wouldn't understand - no more than He would expect me to read the bible in Swahili. For people who are well connected to their emotions, God may speak to them through emotions. When He wants to speak to me, He uses words.

So emotions may be the most common, and the one everyone talks about, but I believe God is capable of speaking to each one of us in a way that we will clearly understand.
 
For people who are well connected to their emotions, God may speak to them through emotions. When He wants to speak to me, He uses words.

After I realized that, I learned two other things:

1) I wasn't judged by God for my emotional shortcomings. I wasn't required to measure up to a bar that said, "You must be at least this emotional to have a spiritual experience." It is very validating to know that God is willing to work within the constraints that He gave me.

2) Decades before I started to understand why my mind and my emotions work (or don't work) the way they do, God understood me and knew how to reach me. That makes the spiritual experiences I have had even more precious to me.
 
I've been in the church my whole life (Baptist), my branch of the church isn't charismatic... I met a guy recently who asked me if I've been "baptized with the Holy Spirit"

I'm possibly the most unemotional person, or Christian, you'll ever meet, just part of who I am
 
..I'm possibly the most unemotional person, or Christian, you'll ever meet, just part of who I am
and that is OK with God, even though some of the folllowers find it different and therefore strange.

Its the your not like us therefore you are wrong dynamic.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom