Holy War
by Ben Patterson
April 1, 1999
Cast yourself into his arms not to be caressed but to wrestle with him. He loves that holy war. He may … lift you from your feet. But it will be to lift you from earth, and set you in the heavenly places which are theirs who fight the good fight and lay hold of God as their eternal life.
—P.T. Forsyth
in The Soul of Prayer
Why is it, when we talk to God, we call it prayer, but when God talks to us, we call it schizophrenia?" That quip by Lily Tomlin has taken on many layers of meaning for me since 1986, the year we learned that my seven-year-old son Joel had Tourette's Syndrome.
We noticed it first when he started playing soccer. At practice and during games, if the action was elsewhere on the field, he would stand at his position and look directly at the sun. It was painful to his eyes, and we had warned him repeatedly that it could damage them permanently, but he couldn't seem to stop.
Then came other things he didn't seem to be able to control: blinking of the eyes, facial and body tics, contortions, jerks, ritual movements, random vocalizations, barking sounds, repeated clearing of the throat; and for awhile the barely suppressed urge to touch the burner on the stove when it was hot.
What have I done to my son?
Having no name for what we were witnessing, we were scared. And as I watched Joel struggle, I struggled with guilt. I wondered: Was it something I had done to him?
Of all our kids, Joel was the one I had most often lost my temper with. Like his dad, he could be maddeningly bullheaded and combative. He was articulate beyond his years, and his words were often piercing and inflammatory. Words have great power in our household. I had frequently reacted to his words with words of my own. Over and over, in minute ...
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