Things I don't understand

There are some things that draw hurricanes from our ladybug.  Reading, games with rules, numbers, and memory exercises bring torrents of yelling, crying, and recrimination.  Coward like, I have withdrawn from the fight, leaving Briz to battle over the evening reading, and such.  


One by one, I have given up on many family activities I once thought essential.  I couldn't stand the storms.  In this manner I simplified scripture study till it simply contained stories I would tell while holding a picture.  Briz had enough of this and one night announced, "No More for our teenager!  From now on we will read out of the actual scriptures like normal people."  I subconsciously cringed as I waited for the certain screams during our "spiritual exercise".  Ladybug read one verse, then 2, then 5.  "Can I keep going?"  


"Sure"  We answered in shock.

Words tumbled from her mouth, words like generation, covenant, atonement, or commandment.  Though she can't remember the names of her classmates, questions about Cain, Able, translated beings and other long ago discussed topics sprouted from this little one.  How can this be when normally words like the and of can be a source of unimaginable frustration?    Two months later, she still chafes while waiting her turn to read the scriptures.  True, her reading reverts to normal when reading the Treehouse Series, or Ramona And Bezus.... But there is one book ... one magical book of scripture that seems to be comprehensible.  

Saturday, our ward had an indexing marathon...Briz signed us up as a family team.  Me, him, and Ladybug.  I was a bit humiliated.  I wasn't up for much and Ladybug?  She can't read print.  How could she decipher hundred year old script complete with curlicues and blotches?  Briz and Bug went to register and spent an hour indexing.  A beaming bug walked into my office where I added my few hundred records to our tally.  How did you do?  I asked.  "Great!"  she replied with excitement.  "I did 3!"


Sure enough, when family tallies came in, one family did over 2,000 records.  Another over 3,000.  A total of 67 people indexed 26,710 records in 12 hours.  Ladybug was one of the 67.  She added 3.  For a few moments, I felt ashamed of our little team.  We added so little... Others so much.  

3 Records, yet untold amounts of mental confusion went into those 3.   Visions of the widow's mite crossed my mind.  Today, after church, I was called to the computer.  Then again, and again.  Hour after hour, Ladybug sat curled up in front of the computer deciphering previously unable to access facts such as 1 means January and Dec is short for December.  

Truly humbled, I came whenever I was called and witnessed the miracle that was 30 more records and hours of what should have been screaming frustration.   "May I stay up late and do more?"  she asked.  

I don't understand.  Some things I have witnessed are just impossible. Does faith come because we see miracles or before? 



I have attended many conferences and lectures on Learning disabilities and Autism.  Current western medicine offers no hope of changing brain patterns, claiming that after formation in-utero, very little can be done.  "Why can't you just accept she'll never be normal!"  The school psychologist once yelled at me in one of our fun little conferences.  

I get that.  I understand that learning disabilities are disturbances of the brain and therefore a function of the body.  But there are things that I don't understand that I know to be real.  Other forces are at work in our humanness, ways of bypassing the brain blood barriers and neuropathways.  

If the brain is damaged is the soul of the person?  

Are there other non physical ways of communicating information to our brains?  


My experience says no to the first and yes to the second.  

That gives hope to all of us that are damaged in one way or another.