The Works of God

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Earlier today a judge declared that I could still be Paul’s father.

Well, not exactly. He granted our petition for guardianship, which means Dianne and I have the legal authority and responsibility to make decisions for him as he transitions into adulthood.  In other words, we get to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along, only now we have to submit a report once a year that we’re still taking care of him.

I learned a few things along the way:

1. Ramsey County takes this really seriously.  I’m glad for that as taking away someone’s civil rights should be taken seriously.
2. Having multiple severe disabilities made this process really easy.  Everyone who was notified immediately agreed that Paul should be a ward, and that his parents should be his guardians.
3. Parents out ahead of us in this complicated life are really, really helpful. I knew that already, but was reminded again that even after 17+ years, there is so much I don’t know.  Dianne talked to some moms, and Mary Horning recommended the attorney we used which made everything easier.

All in all, the process went without any complications.

Yet there were parts that just felt weird. We had strangers come to my home, one on behalf of the court and an attorney assigned to represent Paul, to ask Paul questions and determine if he was in an appropriate living situation.  They were both very pleasant men who had quite a bit of experience with these things; neither one was in the least disturbed by Paul’s behaviors or his lack of response to their questions.  But knowing they could independently make the process of our having the legal right and responsibility to take care of our son, as we have done since he was born, more difficult based on their assessments from just a single meeting was unnerving.

And after I was sworn in by the clerk and the two attorneys asked me their questions, I realized the judge’s decision is still based on trust.

If we needed to, we could have gotten dozens, maybe hundreds, of people to speak to our care for our son and our character.  We have more doctors than I can name who can document all the ‘stuff’ we’ve done over the years.  The school systems has 17 years worth of IFSP and IEP meetings in their files.

But that doesn’t mean we’ll do in the future what we’ve done in the past.  Greg Lucas wrote a very helpful post as he reflected on a mother who killed her adult disabled son and then herself.  This mom had also been entrusted with her son’s care, and the hopelessness of her situation eventually overwhelmed her.

No, the trust must go deeper than a reliance our own strength or affections, because those can fail.  Thankfully, God never fails. He gave us our Paul with every intention of making His name great in every way – through Paul’s life and gifts, and through the daily help he provides to us as his parents.  If the Lord grants Paul life, eventually we’ll need to hand off his care to somebody else; I expect God will be teaching us even deeper lessons about trusting in him and his wisdom when we confront that issue.

I was impressed at how the Ramsey County Judge had full control of his courtroom.  People stand when he enters the room. Lawyers who were much older than he is addressed him as ‘Your Honor.’  When he asked for something, the attorneys supplied it without question.

But at the end of the day, this judge goes home.

We have a greater judge to ultimately trust in who never stops pursuing justice, who knows everything, and who will help us as we continue to care of our very vulnerable, almost adult son:

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There are scores of women who have children of all ages who cannot speak an intelligible word because of their cognitive disabilities.  Or their children, like my son, have some language, but those children can never make a spontaneous call of deep affections for their mother.

There will be no handwritten cards, telephone calls or gifts from those children to their mothers today.

Yet, most of those children have mothers who pour their lives into them, sometimes for decades beyond what they anticipated when that little life first starting growing in their bodies.

For all of you moms in that circumstance, know that this proverb is still for you, just not yet!

Her children rise up and call her blessed.  Proverbs 31:28

Why do I believe this?

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.  Revelation 21:1-7

Those mothers who cling to Jesus for daily strength and as their future hope have a glorious eternity waiting for them.

Someday, I believe my son will tell me things almost too wonderful for me to comprehend about what he experienced in this present age.  And I expect one of the things he will talk about is his tender, eternal regard for the woman who cared for him without a thought about what she would receive from him in return.  On that day, he will rise and call his mother blessed!

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• They mean well.  They don’t generally get it (otherwise they wouldn’t say it), but they really want to say something helpful.  And they certainly don’t want to make things harder on us.
• They are usually REALLY happy not to have to deal with what you have been given.  From that viewpoint, they do understand something of your situation; you probably wouldn’t have chosen to deal with it, either.
• They are exposing their understanding of who God is, and are opening a door for you to explain who God really is.  God wants us to be entirely dependent on him (see Psalm 40 for how good this is!), because that is the kindest thing possible.  We will not learn dependence on God if we can ‘handle’ it ourselves.
• God understands what he has given us ‘to handle’ and knows exactly how it will bring him glory and will work out for our good.
• I know that if I respond in anger (or worse, with violence), that I have just extended the amount of time I need to deal with this statement.  And, yes, I have wanted to punch people in the nose who have said this to me.  Just not lately, because God continues to teach me his character and how good he really is to me in light of my sin.

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I know this video is an advertisement.  But the pictures of babies are amazing!

We must let people know right now that when they ‘see’ something they didn’t expect in their baby, like a disability, that their child is still wonderful and created for a good purpose.  They are no less beautiful just because they don’t look like the babies in these pictures.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well. (Psalm 139:14, ESV)

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Social media accomplished what seemed unlikely at best – it forced national media attention on the trial of a man who practiced late-term abortions in horribly barbaric ways.

Please be advised that there are very disturbing, graphic images in this video along with detailed descriptions of what happened to babies – living babies – at this abortion clinic.

Thank you to Seachange Filmmakers and Storytellers for pursuing this story.

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The Human Life Alliance has created a neat resource to help children (and adults) understand that an unborn child with Down syndrome belongs in a family.  Dianne was given a copy of the comic-book style resource, which you can see for yourself by clicking here.

I especially appreciated that the children took initiative to learn about Down syndrome, and then found a way to help their parents understand what parenting a child with Down syndrome would be like through the experience of another parent.  Yes, let us call children to be proactively involved in saving unborn life!

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Sometimes the darkness is overwhelming:

• The Chinese health ministry reported that more than 336 million children have been eliminated through abortion since 1971.  Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition put that number into its gruesome context.

• The horrific practices of a West Philadelphia late-term abortion doctor are being exposed at his trial for murder of seven babies, born alive, that he killed.

• Late-term abortions still make Americans uneasy, but so does having a child with a disability. More companies are developing early tests to identify genetic anomalies. ‘Screening’ for Down syndrome and other genetic anomalies is growing rapidly.

And then there is the bizarre story of Baby S, a little girl with multiple disabilities and multiple parents – and the light broke through.

The headline, Surrogate Offered $10,000 to Abort Baby, introduced a story that is almost unbelievable and is hard to summarize:

An unmarried woman with children accepted money to carry a baby for a couple who could not safely have another child themselves.  When that child was discovered to have disabilities, the couple wanted to abort, and the surrogate almost agreed.  When she refused, the surrogate was bullied by the couple’s attorney and by a surrogacy agency to change her mind.  The laws in Connecticut gave the surrogate no legal standing with the baby she was carrying.  If she did give birth, the couple said they would turn the child over to the state; state law allowed them to do so.  And then it turned out that the wife of the couple wasn’t even the genetic mother.

So, where is the light in all this?

That little girl was adopted into a loving home with a mother and father who care deeply about her.  And that should lead us to worship.

Consider all the things against this little girl even being allowed to live, let alone being in a family:

• The woman carrying her did it for the money and had no intention of raising the child.

• The couple paying for the pregnancy did not want a child with a disability and offered $10,000 if she aborted.

• The surrogate mother had signed a contract saying she would abort if they discovered a severe fetal abnormality.

• The surrogate was not told the whole truth about parenting a child with disabilities.

• The laws in Connecticut give genetic parents the rights over the baby, not the woman carrying the baby.

But God wanted that little girl to live and have a family.

So God put on the surrogate’s heart that abortion is wrong.  Then he gave her an attorney, at no cost, who told her she could not be forced to abort.  And when the couple threatened to take the child at birth and make her a ward of the state, her attorney found a state that defined parenthood differently – the person giving birth was the legal mother – and she moved to that state.  The genetic father agreed to give up his parental rights.  Then God introduced the surrogate to some caring people who could advise her about adoption and parenting a child with disabilities, and that couple ended up adopting this little girl.

That should lead us to worship.  This demonstration of God’s authority and intentionality is a gift in a dark and evil world.

And it points to something powerful that the darkness cannot overcome or stop even as we weep over the killing of 336 million Chinese babies and more than 50 million American babies:

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:22-24, ESV)

As Pastor John helpfully summarized:

In other words, the final argument for the righteousness of God in a world with so much evil and destruction is that this evil serves the revelation of God’s glory. That is, God’s just judgment of it and God’s gracious rescue from it display more fully the glory of God than if there had been no evil.

Someday, the killing season on all babies will end. Someday, the riches of his glory will be fully known as we see him face to face. And Baby S will be recognized by all, including those who continue to say her life has no worth and the surrogate should have aborted her, that she is a creation of a great, powerful, and purposeful God.

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