Jesus Your Love has No Bounds II: ASD and Compassion in Christ (my thoughts)

Thanks to writing academic journal articles, my titles can get lengthy. I mean, some titles take up two whole lines of text when cited in APA format... anyway, grad school musings aside, I was thinking about the ability to have compassion versus the ability to express compassion, especially for people on the autism spectrum or have autistic-like traits.

Why do I bring this up? Recently, it's been pointed out that I do possess some autistic-like traits. Whether they are enough to warrant a diagnosis on the spectrum, or they are remnants of deprivation and trauma in my early-development is yet to be seen. At any rate, I've been thinking about this a lot since a roommate is dealing with a serious illness in her family, and I am helping a single-mother headed family in my church with babysitting. In both these cases, I do feel compassion for both parties. I want to help and be useful to them. However, I know that I may not always show compassion the way others do, or I may not show it in as elaborate ways as I think others show. For example, I might be able to cry along with a friend in some cases, in other cases, I might clam up if I can't think of anything to say. In other cases, I might over-analyze a situation thinking that I'm being helpful when I may just have needed to listen. I may listen, but I might not make eye-contact or seem as attentive as others.

There is this article written by author A.J. Mahari who is a mental health professional and advocate for people with ASD that addresses her observations that people, especially women on the autism spectrum do in fact feel empathy and have noticed improvement in their ways of expressing it. I agree with her that the impairment in compassion can be more in the expression of compassion and love than in the feeling. However, I think that if someone is truly much more impaired in the basic theory-of-mind functions of: Others have emotions, Emotions in others are a consequence of their circumstances, than maybe their sense of compassion may be diminished. I think about what Temple Grandin has described in her writing in wanting to be loved, but unable to express it. She writes about having an aunt that would hug her in a way that would overwhelm her in a sensory way, but yet she longed for her aunt to express love to her in a way that she could handle. Especially after the use of her squeeze machine, she began improving in her ability to express emotions and compassion to both people and animals. Being a master's graduate, I will probably have to hit the academic journals just to see what they say (expect part III of Jesus' Love has no bounds).

Apart from Mahari and Grandin's writings, I think of the line in Phil Whickham's song "Jesus Your Love has no bounds." I was reminded of that tonight as I prayed for the single-parent family. Did I know exactly what they needed? No. But I knew that God did. I know that He gives love and compassion beyond what I can do. Therefore, the most loving thing I could do is pray. And when the mom came home, I was able to chat with her to the best of my ability. She cried just having someone there, and it struck me that I was able to give to her. I am not suddenly devoid of being able to share love and concern just because I'm realizing that I might not always do it the typical way. This is 2 Corinthians 4:7. I am a broken jar in which God has filled with compassion and love beyond what I can hold. He tips me over, and it pours over and out - through the cracks also - but the promise is that God and not this little broken jar will be seen.