Recently, my eight-year-old son left Sunday school frowning. It seems a couple of his classmates had been making fun of me. (I have moderate cerebral palsy, a birth condition that causes my erratic gait.) That afternoon, I sat down with him over clear plastic cups, each filled with two scoops of Reese's ice cream, and asked if he was embarrassed. No, he was angry. I took a deep breath. At me? At God? No, at them.
"What did you say to them?" I asked. "'If you do it again,'" he repeated, "'I'll tell your dads!'"
The innate cruelty of children needs no documentation. And their loud questions, stares, and snickering are almost to be expected when they see me wobble across a room. Little materialists, they cannot grasp how God might be working in and through me. My son, however, probably taught his two fellow Sunday schoolers something of the fierce but unseen love of a boy for his father.
Would I be happier without this physical disability? That's like asking a kid if he would like to ride a bike, play Little League baseball, or be on the swim team—all activities that I was denied while growing up in an otherwise active family. The answer is obvious. But there's a deeper question that our happiness-pursuing society too often overlooks: Would I be better off?
It used to be that children with handicaps were hidden away or left to die; in some parts of the world, they still are. Perfection was the ideal. Then, as we became more enlightened, we accepted them, as Joni Eareckson Tada says, as normal parts of an abnormal, fallen world. With this awareness came wheelchair ramps, reserved, extra-wide parking spaces, and federal laws designed to "level the playing field." However, having a disabled child still entailed sacrifice, most ...
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Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today and author of Missions in the Third Millennium and All That Jesus Asks. His column, "Foolish Things," ran from 2006 to 2007.
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You have reached the end of this Article Preview
As the national pro-life movement celebrated, activists opposing abortion in blue states watched years of setbacks happen in a few days. Still, they are finding different ways of winning.
Locals are increasingly running African mission hospitals. The next challenge: keeping foreign donors.
A surprising encounter with my dad, Jesus, and Jerry Seinfeld opened a door to long-awaited healing.
While continuing to lead Progressive Baptist, the 41-year-old pastor was named the successor to James Meeks at Salem Baptist Church, one of the city’s biggest congregations.
