Cutting on the Lines
When I was in kindergarten we had a sticker system—maybe you had something similar. The quick summary of this sticker system was that when a student would do something bad, like stealing someone’s blocks during playtime, or talking out of turn during our spelling lesson, or whatever else kindergarteners do to be disobedient or rambunctious we would get a sticker taken away. And, to my kindergartner mind getting a sticker taken away was the worst possible punishment you could possibly receive. When you got a sticker taken away you had to stay inside for an extra minute a recess, a punishment that multiplied the time with each additional sticker you lost.
One day for one of our assignments the teacher asked us to cut on straight lines to make a picture, probably a picture of a turkey for Thanksgiving or one of those cheesy 90’s coloring book drawings about sharing or being kind. Now, because of my disability fine motor skills like cutting on straight lines was really hard if not impossible. I am twenty-four years old and I still can’t cut on straight lines.
So, as you might of guessed, when my teacher came up to my desk and realized my little turkey cutout looked like it just had a nasty run in with a lawnmower she was not pleased. She took a sticker away and gave me another cutout and I tried my best to get it right, focusing hard and scrunching my face trying my best to follow the thick black lines that enveloped the turkey. But, again, the poor little turkey came away completely mangled and soon my teacher approached my desk. Again, she took another sticker away and informed me that instead of going outside and playing tag or some other game with my friends during recess I had to stay inside and practice my cutting.
Now, I tell this story not so that you can feel sorry for me but I think this story speaks volumes about our perception of folks with disabilities. In many ways, we expect them to cut inside the lines and live a cookie-cutter life. For years I grew up thinking that God had simply made a mistake with me. I thought that something went wrong in the blueprint, that He forgot to carry the one, and that mistake caused my whole life to come off the rails simply because I did not fit into this cookie-cutter mold. Can I tell you something about that kind of life? The cookie-cutter lifestyle is boring and I think when we set those sorts of expectations for ourselves or for others we end up far short of God’s design for our lives.
