WORD: “For by Him all things were created… all things have been created through Him and for Him.” (Colossians 1:16, NASB) THOUGHT: This verse clearly states that everything exists and finds [Read More]

WORD: “The Lord said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.'” (Genesis 2:18a, NLT) THOUGHT: Too frequently disability results in isolation or separation from ‘the group’. Loneliness is a [Read More]

WORD: “Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear Your God. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:14, NIV) THOUGHT: We need to be [Read More]

WORD: “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth: I will shatter the door of bronze and cut through their iron bars.” (Isaiah 45:2, NASB) THOUGHT: “Making a way” [Read More]

WORD: “Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” (Hebrews 12:12, NIV) THOUGHT: There are [Read More]

In my endeavors to learn and be enriched, I cannot discount the experience I gain from being in relationship with others. I can acquire knowledge, capacity, and skills from academic study and reading and yet it has been when I have engaged in community and established friendships with people with exceptional needs that I have gained the most.

I have seen that shape before

And now I find it troubles me.

Those hands held in just that way.

But I can't place the memory.

The world closes when the word disability creeps into one’s life because other people in the outside world do not see the abilities before the disabilities. I am a very capable person, but since I have lost my vision I am no longer viewed in this way.

I know, as a parent of two children with autism, that it is much easier to just stay home. The fact that this family attends church regularly is already a "win."

Jesus names his present and future vulnerability to pain in this verse and empowers his friends to claim their own limitations, and to use them as the basis for trust. I know how Jesus feels, in terms of having a broken body. I have spastic cerebral palsy: this neurological condition means that my muscles are always tense, or spastic, and that I experience palsy, or continuous tremors in all my limbs.