1.  For Bethlehem, that we would recognize all people have gifts and we would welcome all.

2.  That God would bring more helpers for our disability ministry – from sign language interpreters to classroom 1-1 aides to the host of other needs

3.  That God would end abortion, if not through laws, than through changed hearts, and that he would let us be agents of change for his glory.

That very night a young man introduced himself and said he would be volunteering soon – that was encouraging!  And a young man no less (Please don’t misunderstand – I love all the ladies who serve families like ours.  It’s just nice to welcome another man!).

And we need to keep praying.  We can, in one sense, measure our progress on number 2 and 3 – more volunteers, fewer abortions.  Hearts that are truly welcoming also have outward evidences, but that can be harder to see.

In all three cases, it is God who does it!

I will thank you forever, because you have done it. Psalm 52:9 ESV

A little boy we know is having exploratory surgery today.  He lives with a persistent condition that is as yet undiagnosed.

His parents are wonderful; I’ve known the mom since she was a girl.  The boy’s grandparents are pillars of faith, grace, mercy and hospitality.  What God did through them for us cannot be measured.

All of them grieve over the pain this little boy lives with.

And the thing they wanted on Monday night was prayer.  And we wanted to pray with them.

It really is amazing what God does through praying with other people.  The one constant in every prayer was a cry for help, recognizing weakness in ourselves and clinging to promises.

Tears flowed.  The sorrow is real.

After we finished praying, we talked and laughed and simply enjoyed each other.  What a gift authentic friendship is.

And that friendship is fueled by going hard after God through suffering.

Yes, it is good to experience 2 Corinthians 6:10 with other people and live with gratitude to God for all things:  as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.

Here is a portion of their email, which I am using with Jan’s permission.  Please read it – especially linger over the last paragraph – and marvel at God’s sustaining power in the midst of extraordinary pain:

This diagnosis was difficult to hear.  Even though it is just a label, there is much sorrow in it.  It is difficult to see Michael with his disabilities in ways that other people see him.  I am much more aware of his disabilities when I am out of my home.  I tend to respond to how others respond to Michael and have a heightened awareness of his weaknesses.  That is one of the reasons leaving the home with him is so difficult.  There has to be a great deal of courage to do so.

Typically, when I look at Michael, I really don’t see a person with disabilities.  With great affection,  I see  ”Michael–the Fox”–as a person. He can’t do what others can, but he does have a charm about him that is unique to him.  He can be mischievous as many of you have witnessed when he unexpectedly knocks a cup or plate out of your hand; he experiences pure pleasure when eating chocolate pudding or an ice cream sandwich as exemplified by his “mmmm” with each bite; he displays his affection as he rests his head on my shoulder or taps his foot on my thigh; and he belly-laughs when Mark “wrestles” him on the mat.  He seems to recognize my greeting every morning of “this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  I am beginning to think that achievement is over-rated!

Every day for us continues to be a walk of faith in our Lord–one that looks to Him for what we need–for the strength, for the courage, for the hope, and for the grace to go forward, one step at a time, one day at a time, and frequently, one minute at a time.  The unrelenting nature of Michael’s situation is daunting, but God promises to work this out for our good–to those of us who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)  We know that God’s Word is always, always, always, true.  He never will contradict Himself.  It is not in His nature to do so.   He can be trusted even though we do not understand all that He does.  We rest in that promise.

We welcome any prayers said on our behalf.

Jan L

Please join me in praying for this dear family.

Lord willing, on November 8, 2012 Desiring God will be hosting a one-day conference on the Bible and disability.

Please be in prayer about all the preparations that must be made.

More than anything, we want this to make much of God – that he is both sovereign AND good over disability, that there is lasting joy in treasuring Jesus above good but tempoary things like health or physical ability, and that we can trust him who made us and who has numbered our days.

More details will be coming over the next several months.

The topic is on missions – this is a massively important conference!

There are hundreds of millions of people around the world who are disabled – when we add in their families and caretakers, the numbers of people impacted by disability easily exceeds a billion people.

Every culture, every ethnicity, every economic strata, every geo-political entity experiences disability.

They need to know about Jesus and the real God of the Bible.  And they need to know that the health, wealth and prosperity ‘gospel’ is a lie – disability is no sign of disfavor from God nor are they ‘lacking’ faith if God calls them to live with it their entire lives.

As Pastor John has said:

There are only three kinds of Christians when it comes to world missions: zealous goers, zealous senders, and disobedient. May God deliver us from disobedience!

Please pray that God would help everyone at this conference to see him more clearly and understand their role in missions, for his glory and for our good.

And also about God’s word.  I love how the Bible is full of God’s pointing us to his glory through disability!  It was easy to share that part of the story with them.  I hoped to encourage them that people like us, in the pews, can love the word and what it teaches us about our God.

I almost began to cry, somewhere in the middle of my time with them, at the goodness of God in providing these men, most of them young men in their 20′s, who are earnestly seeking God – with head and heart – for the purpose of proclaiming his glory.

These men are preparing to stand in the gap for me and for you – against a culture that prizes comfort and hates those with disabilities, against theologians and ‘teachers’ who seek to strip the word of its meaning and undermine God’s sovereignty, against even the evil in my own heart.

They are preparing themselves to tell the truth about God.  It is God’s sovereignty over all things, including disease and disability, that provides the ultimate hope and access to joy.

It was a privilege to be in their presence and imagine what God might be preparing them to do, for his glory and for our good.  Please pray for Bethlehem College and Seminary students.  The future of the church will be in their hands, and I look forward to watching what God has in store to make his name great through them.

Most are working with individual children as one-to-one aides.  The disabilities range from severe physical disabilities to emotional/behavioral disorders with pretty extreme behaviors associated with them.  Not every child with a disability needs an aide, of course.  The total population of children with disabilities is growing.

It is an exciting time of year, full of hope and excitement about the new year.  It is also full of anxieties and problems and opportunities to disappoint.

The answer – God!  No matter the size or scope of any ministry, from serving a single child with disabilities to coordinating hundreds of volunteers (there are some ministries that large!), we all need God’s help.  Let’s pray for each other and see what God might be pleased to do, for his glory and for our good.

At least beyond my comprehension – I can’t begin to understand a number that large.

But God does.  He has perfect knowledge of more than 6.9 billion people.  And he knows every one of us more intimately than we even know ourselves.

I had four thoughts immediately after reading Pastor John’s post:

1. I am very grateful that Pastor John described the destruction of babies with disabilities as ‘monstrous.’  May it be that the killing of female babies truly awakens the entire world to the exceeding evil that is abortion.
2. God is sovereign over all things, and the blood of Jesus can cover even the destruction of 163,000,000 little girls.
3. Individually, we cannot begin to put a dent into a number like that.  But we can tell our stories, and maybe God would be pleased to use my story or your story to save one baby, and then another and another.  We don’t need to tell it the same way, but as God leads us to do so.  For example, a couple of weeks ago Justin Taylor pointed to “a letter to a mother thinking about terminating a baby with a genetic disorder.”
4. I don’t pray nearly enough.

If you would, please also pray for me about a new opportunity to bring attention to disability, the Bible, and the church.

You may have noticed on the Desiring God blog that a new series, The Works of God, is posted on Tuesdays.  I have felt a growing burden to bring more focus and planning around this opportunity, and will be meeting with the web content manager on Monday to discuss some thoughts I have going forward.  Ironically to me, but of course under God’s planning, I had written just last Friday to the web content manager, asking for help in thinking through such ‘hot’ issues as abortion, infanticide and euthanasia for this series.  I’m grateful for your prayers as more than anything I want people to see Jesus as of greater worth than anything – and the very foundation of joy in the midst of every circumstance.

My struggles, discouragement and disappointment related to disability happen in the relative anonymity of the pews.

Our pastors living with disability in themselves or a family member are in the spotlight all the time, with the added responsibility of helping and leading their people through this issue.  I know God will supply every need, and that particular need just feels so heavy today.

Let us persist in prayer for them and their families and their churches.

And an email now and then letting them know of your prayers and affection might be helpful, too!

And she is the first to say that the only reason it happens is because God gives her strength and God gives her volunteers.

Today marks the end of Sunday School for the year, and it seems appropriate to make a special thank you to all the volunteers who have served families like mine this past year.

In her most recent article in Bethlehem’s Family Discipleship newsletter, Forgetting the Label to the Glory of God, Brenda notes that we had 46 one-on-one aides this past year!  That is an extraordinary provision from God!  I only know a few of those volunteers, but the ones I have met all say the same thing:  I’m the one experiencing the blessing.

No, we still aren’t able to serve everyone; the need for more volunteers continues and I expect will increase.  But I can remember when we didn’t have ANY volunteers.

So, let us raise a prayer of thanksgiving for what God is already doing here and in many churches who are rising in their understanding of the God-granted dignity and value of people with disabilities.  And let us not stop asking for even more – more families, more people with disabilities, more volunteers, more connections, more wisdom, more capacities.  And most of all, more of God and the joy that comes from treasuring him above all things!