Disabilities

As many of you know, Maxime and I are the proud parents of a special needs child. Many people who meet Anthony have no idea that he has cerebral palsy. He walks now and has a decent center of balance. But that’s not how the journey began. As a baby he crawled the first eighteen months, undiagnosed. Afterwards, he could only walk with a walker for a long time and was then only able to take his first, independent steps at age four, often only two or three at a time, before he would fall.

I was at Starbucks today talking with Ken, a Christian brother of mine I met by happenstance over coffee one morning about a year ago. The subject of our discussion was how difficult it can be sometimes to walk in the faith, to serve, to be part of a church community, and to not only be grounded in scripture, but to actually live it. “Why all the struggles and backsliding?” we wondered. Then, with a shrug, Ken observed, “Probably because we’re born sinners, it’s an innate thing within us, that we spend our whole lives trying to live with.”

“Like a disability,” I replied.

In the walk of faith, we’re all born disabled. At first the disability goes undiagnosed. Then we realize that something’s “not quite right” with us and, if I’m to be honest, this is the most terrifying part. We’re prone to all the many variations of sin (bitterness, gossip, lust, anger, envy, selfishness, addiction, etc.) which keep us from standing up straight or walking with confidence. So we bump our way through life and fall down a lot. And it hurts. So we construct ourselves a walker or two, built out of the advice of others and countless self-help books. For a while this works. But life is still moving by, so fast and – at some point – we know:  we have to let go and take a step of faith. It’s the only way. One step, two, maybe a third. Fall down. Get up. Do it again. How?

By the grace of God, and by submitting our will to that grace. Because only then can we fully realize that it doesn’t matter how we walk: fully, unevenly, with a limp or otherwise. God loves us all the more just for the trying of it. Because being disabled? It isn't something you overcome, as much as it’s something that you learn to work through and live with. And live all the more because of it.