A Compassionate Voice for the Parents of Children with Hidden Disabilities
Melanie Boudreau
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Rewire My Brain!

10/24/2015

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What are you facing that you are not wired for? I wasn't wired for raising children with disabilities. But LOVE and tapping into the resources of my all sustaining God rewired me for that.
When I was two I used to toddle around our home looking for the dregs of creamed coffee and settled sugar to slurp with glee left in the bottom of china cups on saucers adorning table tops within my reach.  But one morning, my father had doused his filterless Camel cigarette butt in the liquid goodness, and the remains lurked undetectable under the surface. As a 54 year old woman, I remember the "swig-gag-overwhelm of betrayal" moment I downed the contents of that cup. Innocence lost.

​From that incident forward, even the smell of coffee nauseated me. Starbucks? Cream based Frappicino please. 
Fast forward. Last year I traveled to Myanmar to share the love of Christ with precious people. This is not a context in which I could question the temperature of the water used in the dishwasher for sanitation. I had to shut off my brain in regards to issues of American standard cleanliness and culturally comfortable cuisine. In that context, I was served some of the best coffee in the world. Creamed. Smooth. And somehow, in my desire to express God's love through shutting off the part of my brain that noticed my noodles were served with bare hands and the mug before me contained coffee, God rewired my brain. 

I now love coffee. Once again. Like God made me as a two-year-old. 
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​We tend to accept the way we are as gospel truth, claiming it's just the way we are wired, whether born that way or got that way through life experiences.  "I'm afraid of heights" or "I don't multi-task" or "I'm not a very patient person". The truth is, our Creator reserves the right to re-wire our brains. After all, He made us. 

Recently I did a ropes course, an obstacle course suspended high above the ground, and discovered I wasn't afraid. Heights terrify me. Or at least they used to.

I was amazed.

So amazed that when I visited the Royal Gorge last week, I offered my guest to join me in a bungee sling out over the canyon. Now that's a REAL test of my new found "no fear" I mused. I was not awash in nauseating adrenaline. It was actually FUN, and even more fun with world traveling Pastor Wendi screaming by my side creating a life memory for both of us. 


What are you facing that you are not wired for? I wasn't wired for raising children with disabilities. But LOVE and tapping into the resources of my all sustaining God rewired me for that.

 And now, with this heights thing, I think God is just showing off.

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    About Melanie

    Two of our three children have Tourette's Syndrome as well as a few other co-morbidities, inherited neuropsychiatric disorders. I'm still happily married, love life and want to share encouragement bringing hope, humor and insight into the process of raising children who are different. 

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