I am different, sometimes crazy, I am more volatile than most, I am a little louder at some points and much quieter than anyone at other times, I feel things strongly, I don’t idle well, I dance and sing VERY loudly.
Sometimes people would tell my parents, it was because of these letters:
OCD-I do crazy things for no apparent reason, and become VERY frustrated when the things I deem important are out of whack.
ADHD- I never, I mean NEVER sit still, I am always moving, tapping, squirming, fidgeting.
ADD- In the middle of talking to you, I will every now and again, zone out and my eyes will drift to the corner of the room, and my mind will temporally change channels.
ODD- I will fight about things I don’t even care about and sometimes I will talk back and if I feel strongly, I will NEVER give up my opinion.
and oddly enough, Synesthesia- I hear colors, see music and was very surprised than not everyone did this.
This sounds like a lot of letters that mean one thing: I’m a boy.
But I now know, it is just the way God made me.
From a very young age, my family, and especially my mom, knew that this boy (me) was different. I was the third child of four, the youngest boy, and the son of popular christian writers. I had a lot to live up to and people were always watching me and had opinions about how “I should be handled.”
So…I was a fighter, but also a lover.
While most kids would eventually learn to sit still, I simply could not. It is actually a skill that to this day I have not mastered, even as I write this my legs are swaying back and forth beneath my desk and my head is bobbing to the music in my head. As a boy I seemed to always push the limits, I found more pleasure in climbing rocks and rolling in grass then walking on sidewalks. I couldn’t (and still can’t) do much math, but, I could keep a perfect beat to any song. If you asked me to spell (please don’t) “Chrysanthemum” I would instead, draw you a picture of it, complete with story line about how it got there and the hero that had to rescue it from dying!
I was passionate, creative, but I soon became painfully aware that I wasn’t normal. As I grew a little older I remember being yelled at by multiple teachers, in church or a coop class for “Talking to much” and “Resisting to learn.”. I can even now so viscerally feel the deep frustration at my lack of ability to understand schoolwork that seemed so easy to everyone else. I can still feel the sting of hearing one more “SHHHH Nathan, settle down.”
I began trying diligently to fit into a box, just to avoid more frustration and criticism. What I didn’t understand at the time is that God had purposefully made me out of the box. He had made me to be creative and fun, to love people and to perform. He had actually created me to tap my fingers and sing loudly. He had made me to know Him in a completely different way-but just the way He wanted. Another famous out of the box guy once said.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalm: 139-14
What? I’m was fearfully and wonderfully made? It was when I realized this truth that I started the journey to understanding I was exactly how God made me! That it was not just a mistake that had to be changed, and molded to fit the standard child. I wasn’t just some accident, but rather, I was designed this way!
The thing is, we are all going to feel different, like we don’t fit into the boxes of our friends, family, church, schools, pop culture, or the boxes others try to put us in. But that’s because, to be honest, God hasn’t called us to live in any parameters that anyone else has designed. But rather, He wants us to love and embrace the beautiful design He wanted us to fulfill.
My family, my Mom and my Dad figured this out little by little, and ever since, have supported me and cultivated and encouraged me in the areas where I delight and excel. They also helped me, lovingly and patiently, with the ones where I struggle, so that I could be the man God had in mind. It was a mysterious process and journey that we walked together by faith, because I know my parents believed I was God’s gift.
So I implore you, if you have a Me, a Nathan, keep reminding yourself and your Nathan, that God has made him just the way He intended, with a specific plan in mind. Remind him that all of the “loud” is not to be quieted, but rather, it is to be used to shout the things God has for us to say.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesian 2:10
The story below is a picture of how God longs to meet with the out of the box, crazy, loud, boisterous me, and when I was 19, He spoke to me clearly and I finally realized what He wanted me to do.
I was faced with a decision when I was 19. Let me explain. I had moved out and was living in the Big City (New York) on my own. I remember it was a cold and rainy night, my family had left to go back to Colorado. There I was, little old (well actually very, very young) me. I had no idea what I was doing and I was all alone. But there, on my first night out on my own, as I was sitting on my Ikea bed in my small apartment bedroom in Harlem (Yes… I know the family wasn’t thrilled, but I was poor), I heard a voice. It was God, He said “Chase me!” and suddenly He ran out the door and into the pouring rain. I yelled after him that I was cold and alone and was kinda tired, but He just kept running.
So there I was, faced with a bigger decision than I could ever imagine, the choice was clear: Chase after God, or do what I felt like. Well I chased God, I chased him right into the pouring rain-where I danced and sang with the Creator of the universe. I chased him through the next year of ups and downs, friends and heart-break, hurts and joys. I chased him right out to Hollywood, California, where today I’m finally able to look back at all the chasing of God and say with complete honesty… It has made all the difference.
I wrote a book about all that God taught me.These are a collection of thoughts and the glimpses of God’s wisdom I had to chase down, and all compiled into my very first book. I would love for you to become a Wisdom Chaser too. Click to get your very own copy and you will read the story of how God has worked in amazing ways, and how He has taught me the wisdom of living for Him. Thank you so much.
I would love for you to buy and read more of my first book called Wisdom Chasers and give it to a young man, who you hope will become a wisdom chaser. And, maybe, it will be an encouragement to you, to hold fast to Him, to chase Him wherever He leads, and to find all you were hoping for in life in the chasing of Him.
Whether you are a Nathan or have one, be encouraged.http://www.WisdomChasers.com
Off to climb on rocks, roll in grass, sing loudly and chase God.
-Nathan J Clarkson
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Wow – what a great article. I sure do wish that more doctors would understand that what is often today deemed “behavior problems” is more often just a super amount of creativity bottled up in one small human body. And I wish there was more training for parents on how to cultivate that and hone it in a direction that would bring beauty and color to society in a positive framework. So often parents are given drugs and sent home with their hyperactive kid to “tone him down” when what they really need to do is give him good structure and an environment to create, grow, and flourish. I grieve for the creativity in hyperactive children (boys in particular…as they seem to be most targeted with these kinds of letters) – because I fear they are being stifled by a society that has such stringent boundaries on what we should look, act, smell, and be like. God is a super-creative God who creates each individual perfectly and uniquely. May we learn to celebrate that – not drug that!
A Little R & R´s last [type] ..Summer Indoor Activities – Mommy Teaches Linky Open
Thank you so much for your kind words! You are so right!
OUr society’s necessity to force any child to sit and pay attention…for amounts of time that an adult can’t do so…is truly perplexing to me. Our need to name something or someone…to give a title….perplexes me, also. Children squirm, move…and explore…that’s how they were created. Some have more of a desire to do so than others…..sitting and being quiet for long periods of time….goes against the grain of any children…some are more quiet then others….but, why do we think that should be the norm? simply because it’s easier to control? GREAT article!
Rebecca´s last [type] ..Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon The Queen Mother
Thanks so much! I still can’t stop moving! and that’s just how God made me!
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
I’d like to add that sometimes those “letters” are real disorders and can really help a parent understand their child better. My son has autism and without that label, he wouldn’t get the help he needs in school and I would have way less of an understand of him.
That being said, autism doesn’t define my son. My son is Moose (not his real name!) same as he was the day before he was diagnosed, same as the day he was diagnosed, and same as he is today. It’s a lovely thing to love my son for who he is, not what he has, or even how he acts.
And I have another that doesn’t sit still, but I just chalk it up to Squirt being Squirt and making life come way more alive for me.
Randi´s last [type] ..Have a Happy Birthday Without Emptying the Wallet
You are so right! Those after learning that I had those letters, it helped me better understand my self actually and learn what I thought my weaknesses actually had the ability to be strengths!
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
This brought tears to my eyes. I have 2 boys who don’t fit into the “normal” boxes for different reasons. They are amazing boys. <3
I’m so glad in connected with you, normal is overrated! You’re awesome!
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
Thank you for this article. I’ve noticed in the church setting of childrens church, girls seem to always be the “favorite” of leadership. Being a mother of 2 boys and 2 girls, I don’t want one favored over the other and find myself in these setting picking up the slack with the boys. I think its frustrating that boys are given encouragement to be boys!
Michelle
Michelle G´s last [type] ..Why I closed my facebook account
So true! Thanks so much for your words!
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
I love your post! As a special education teacher I am well aware of the box those letters can put kids into. By the time many of them reach me in high school, they have resigned themselves to the limitations and don’t see all of the amazing things that they ARE. That God made them perfectly the way they are. (Of course, in public school I can’t say it quite that way) Congrats to you for Chsing God and trusting in Him!
HeatherB´s last [type] ..Long Day and my BIG Boy!
That’s so awesome! The world need more people listening to God the way you do. You are having such an amazing impact on their souls!.
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
I have a “Nathan”…. and was a Nathan (atleast in girl form) growing up with several of those same letters describing me. As I write this comment, my legs are bouncing around too Nathan!
It is so hard to be a parent to a “Nathan” but everytime I read your posts, they encourage me that the letters that describe him do NOT define him. I don’t know what it is that God has planned for my son but I know that I know that I know that it is something really big. His big heart and compassion for the hurting and lost tells me that God has something really magical in store for him one day. So for now, I sit back and encourage him, love on him, teach him that those letters don’t define him and his future, and help him to grow into the young man that God wants him to be.
God has SUCH big plans for him, and it is so amazing he has a mother that can already see and encourage that!
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
Nathan, thank you for this article, it blessed me and gives me hope for my son who is 19 and very much like you, and is running from God right now, but I trust in the One who created him fearfully and wonderfully, to speak to him to chase after Him!
God will never stop chasing him, I will pray for him today! Thank you for your kind words.
Nathan Clarkson´s last [type] ..The world needs Heros
Praying for your son Audra.
I have 3 boys all different but all very much “out of the box” for different reasons. Autism, ADHD, OCD …… So thankful for these words that inspire me to continue to search for the path God has for them. I know that they are special and equipped to serve Him uniquely. Thank you for reminding me to love their uniqueness and love them as God does.
I am so touched by your post. It’s really great to read it. I feel so emotional about this. Thanks for sharing it.
Born27´s last [type] ..Conference call manners
OMG! This just about took my breath away! Reading this was like reading a letter from my own son (when he’s older). I have a Nathan (his real name) who is very much like this. This gave me so much encouragement and to relax and accept my boy for who GOD made him to be. He doesn’t fit the mold of a ‘standard child’, and I’m so glad that he doesn’t. “SHHHH Nathan, settle down.” is something that I am going to be saying a lot less of.