Martha Had ADHD—and So Do I: Finding Peace in a Distracted Writing Life

by Ane Mulligan @AneMulligan

Poor Martha. In Luke 10:38-42 Jesus admonished her to be more like Mary and find a balance between her service and spiritual focus. Yet everything distracted her. The more I read about Martha, the more I'm convinced she was ADHD. 

Think about it. The Master and all his disciples and entourage descend on her home. Yikes! She's expected to feed them all with no advance warning? She runs to the pantry, quickly grabbing what she needed to fill all those bellies.

On her way back to the kitchen she notices the laundry room door is open and her guests can see all the towels sitting on the dryer door. She sets her meal ingredients on the washer, pushes the wet laundry into said dryer and starts it. Picking up the food items, she then closes the laundry room door and hurries back to prepare the meal.

Whew! And in the meantime, her sister, Mary, is sitting spellbound at Jesus' feet. How can she ignore all the chaos around them? Better, how can Martha not?

Like I said, "Poor Martha." And poor me! I'm ADHD like her and have been all my life. 

I struggle with getting time with God. I start to pray, get two sentences out, and my mind zips after a squirrel. Can anyone out there relate? Oh, I can pray out loud in my Bible study and not get off track. But in my prayer closet? My voice trails off when the first squirrel crosses my mind.

Finally, after decades of crying out to God to change me, I had a revelation. He made me for crying out loud. Of course he knows what I'm like. He was just waiting for me to figure it out. 

Finding the balance.

Prayer doesn't have to mean long periods of uninterrupted time. This works for some people, and I envy them. But I'm not made that way. I can't change my ADHD. At the age of 78, I doubt it will happen.

However, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and plenty of friends' blog posts, I've learned to pray short prayers throughout my day. Almost like constant prayer, only I'm moving about while praying. 

I'm not saying I've got it all figured out or down pat. I forget a lot. Ha. I forget a lot of things a lot. But the beginning of wisdom is asking God to help you. Seek and you will find. Ask and it will be given to you. 

It may not be in the way you expected, but Father always answers. Now, when I see a prayer request on Facebook or in email, I pray immediately. I pray for ongoing requests throughout the day as God gives me recall. I learned those don't have to be long drawn out prayers. God knows the need, I merely add my voice in prayer to others. 

The prayers of the saints empower the angels of God to move. Dan 10:12, Rev 8:3-5 and James 5:17 tells us Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Yet his prayer was powerful. 

The prayer of an ADHD saint can be as powerful as anyone's—it's just different. Not as long maybe. Not as beautiful maybe. But it's straight to the point and God receives it.

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Martha Had ADHD—and So Do I: Finding Peace in a Distracted Writing Life from @AneMulligan on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Ane Mulligan lives life from a director’s chair, both in theatre and at her desk creating novels. Entranced with story by age three, at five she saw PETER PAN onstage and was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. One day, her passions collided, and an award-winning, bestselling novelist emerged. She believes chocolate and coffee are two of the four major food groups and lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Instagram,Pinterest, The Write Conversation, and Blue Ridge Conference Blog.