With the busyness and To Do lists we curate and cultivate, life can seem an awful lot like a race with little room to pause, explore, or experience the moments of our days. And if every day is little more than a mad dash, our hearts can become a little more frayed and perhaps a little bit hardened, hardened to the wonder, the beauty, and the sacredness of the moments we are given. There is a reason we are advised to guard our hearts above all else (Proverbs 4:23); it truly influences, and even drives, our attitudes, beliefs, and actions.
One of the reasons I love my teenagers is the way they till the soil of my heart every day. If you are not a gardener or a farmer, tilling the soil breaks up the hardened earth and softens it, preparing it for planting. Not only does it ready the ground for the seeds, it also helps control weed growth and promotes strong root growth. More than simply breaking up the dirt, tilling actually turns the soil upside down, thus ridding the area of grass or weeds that can interfere with the seed germination.
Like the hardened ground of a garden plot after a long winter, our hearts can become hardened and not quite healthy for new growth. Enter my teenagers. They are like the garden rake and shovel that carefully remove areas where my heart may have become rigid and unyielding to anything new. Neurodivergence can be like that sometimes with black and white thinking mixed with a bit of inflexibility. But watching my teenagers take on the world inspires me and helps me nurture my own heart alongside theirs. They bring some of the pressure, turning over patches where the roots of who I am cannot grow deep enough to sustain passions or pursuits or even my faith at times.
As neurodivergent people, tackling new things is not always easy; as much as we may want to try something or as much as we may consider planning a get together, our follow through may falter. But my girls have such an enthusiasm and even a boldness, and they will strike out sometimes tentatively, but always courageously. I have watched them embrace the unknowns of teen hangout, of an autistic art club, of music bingo events, and cosplay at Dragon Con. And I have marveled at their ability to be themselves so authentically, more so than some neurotypical folks in their 20s and 30s who are still not sure who they are or want to be, including me when I was their age and into my late 20s).
At times, they have wondered if they are too autistic for a place or an event and always I have assured them there is no such thing because they are who they are. And that is what I love about them—who they are and what they bring to the world. Honestly, it’s refreshing. It’s also inspiring. In fact, it is their way of tilling the soil of my heart and helping me stay a bit more rooted to who I am, the life I’m living, and the work that matters to me.
When our lives are filled with the busyness of appointments and unschooling and daily chores and To Dos, their presence and their pursuits are the means that remind me to pause more often and check in with myself and my heart. They remind me to guard my heart so it can guide me, as well as them, along life’s ancient paths, paths filled with sacred promises to experience, miracles to behold, and wonders to witness. It is in those pauses when the roots of who I am take a firmer hold, my heart seeds with the desires God placed in me, and I am able to reflect my true self to the world and also to these two remarkable young women.