During the time of COVID-19, many of us are experiencing solitude or the loss of communal, in-person worship in new ways. For some, this might bring on existential questions and struggles with doubt. I hope that these spiritual practices will help others in the ways that they have helped me.

While in some ways the COVID-19 pandemic is unifying the community around the globe, in others it is legitimating archaic values and hierarchies.

During this season of forced and mutual deprivation, when our consolations are taken from us one by one and we are continually and graphically reminded of the mortality of our species, I turn to the men I support for wisdom and guidance.

These men, despite their depths of hard-won wisdom and delightful companionship, are well-accustomed to strangers keeping their distance in public places. The conditions we ironically bemoan on social media are barely distinguishable from how they have spent most of the days of their lives. They are old pros at quarantine, and they are teaching me.

In Romans 8, Saint Paul tells us that the whole creation groans in labour pains, waiting for the redemption of the body. We too groan in yearning. We long for an end to the suffering, the tedium, the frustration at incomplete solutions…

The Covid 19 pandemic and related precautions have made me realize that the reason my faith excites me is because of opportunities to witness the redemptive power of Christ, or the ways in which God transforms negative events into blessings.

In my time of fear and isolation I found great comfort in the stories told by, and the communities formed by disabled people. Now that we are all traversing the land usually reserved for people with disabilities my hope is that these voices can be a comfort and a light to guide the way for the general public.

Disability Theology acknowledges that vulnerability is complex. Some are vulnerable because the world is broken. But everyone is in some way vulnerable, and this is not a bad thing.

Thanks to the example of Joni Eareckson Tada I knew that God could do great things through people with disabilities, but for the first 20 years of my life I wanted little to do with disability. Despite my need for a power wheelchair, limited fine motor skills and significant visual impairment, I wanted to lead a "normal" life as far away from disability as possible.

In Bekoji, Ethiopia, a place that housed tools of war is becoming a place that will offer supports which will nourish and grow the community. This is all because its members now rightly believe that their children with disabilities are image-bearers of God. That's a light I can live in.