Author Rhonda McKnight and An Inconvenient Perfection

Today's guest is Author Rhonda McKnight who shares her experience with her special son. Here's Rhonda:

"Parents want their children to be perfect. That’s why women obtain prenatal care, eat right, and take advantage of those special parking spaces. I was no different. When my little one arrived, I waited with baited breath until our pediatrician announced, “He’s perfect.” And life was good, until about age two. I noticed conversational speech wasn’t what it should be. There were sensory issues and other, little things. I took my concerns to his doctor and then it began, our entrance into a world that was not so perfect, one where there was a diagnosis of "persuasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified. PDD-NOS"

PDD-NOS, I cannot describe the weight of those letters. I vacillated between being super-mommy for my son and feeling sorry for myself. I cried every night for weeks until God whispered, “It’s okay. He’s still perfect. He’s just different.” I heard God, but I determined “different” was not okay. Different is inconvenient in a homogeneous society.

In my novel, An Inconvenient Friend, Angelina Preston, is challenged to mentor Samaria Jacobs, a woman who is unsaved, inappropriately dressed and, dare I say, un-churched. The other women in the ministry don’t want Samaria there. Her makeup and short skirts are unwelcome. “Same” is comfortable, so like Angelina, I struggled with where that left me when God had decided to introduce the word different in my life and was “God-like” silent when I ask why?

I began an in-depth study of PPD-NOS. After which, I resolved that some learning disabilities are the result of illness that I surely wish could be cured, but PPD-NOS is not a sickness that I could lay hands on. He will learn with therapy. And accommodations have to be made for things he does differently, as was the case with Angelina and Samaria’s relationship. Angelina had to dig deeper into the Bible to reach the young woman who she thought was looking for God.

Angelina was poised for the task in front of her. Not so with me. At the onset, it was overwhelming, but I now see my life has always been filled with differences. I was the one in high school who had friends of various races. I supervised a twenty person team of non-citizens from fifteen different countries. I completed my graduate work in the area of diversity. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about differences, accepting and embracing them; that to expect and want everyone to be the same was narrowed minded to the point of ignorance. Had this attitude and my studies been preparation for parenting a special needs child? Had it been the reason I incorporated that thread into my novel? God answered, “Yes.”

So while I may not know the answer to the “why” of our new reality, I do know the “how”. My life is not exactly as I imagined it would be, but I’ve accepted that the “difference” is okay and I’m the right mother for the job. Will it be the same for the characters in my novel or will the “differences” be too inconvenient?"

Novelist Rhonda McKnight is the author of two novels, An Inconvenient Friend (August 2010), Secrets and Lies.( December 2009) and a contributor to an independently published project titled, A Woman’s Revenge (June 2010). She is the owner of www.urbanchristianfictiontoday.com, a popular Internet site that highlights African-American Christian fiction and Legacy Editing, a free-lance service for fiction writers.

Originally from a small, coastal town in New Jersey, she’s called Atlanta, Georgia home for twelve years. She has two sons, one entering college and the other beginning preschool. Her website is www.rhondamcknight.net