The Works of God

Do you have authors that just the thought of their next book gets you excited?  Then you’ll know how I felt when I learned that Crossway was publishing something by Michael Beates!

We’re about two months away from the public release of his book, Disability and the Gospel: How God Uses Our Brokenness to Display His Grace.

He has lived this life of disability longer than I have, starting when his oldest daughter, Jessica, was born with a chromosomal anomaly.  Everything I have seen by him has resonated spiritual depth, emotional maturity and deep affections for his family.

I found a short article he wrote in LIFT, a newsletter of the LIFT Disability Network in Florida, where he compares the experiences of Job, Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his wife, Mary, and concludes how each experienced Jesus. Emphasis in bold is mine:

Through the similarities and the differences — Job, Jesus’ Mary, and my Mary — the three share a common conviction: they know their Redeemer lives! Job looked forward, hoping in faith to look on his Redeemer. Mary of Nazareth beheld the face of her Redeemer throughout His earthly life. My Mary looks back through the eyes of Scripture to the story, and forward like Job to the prospect of being finally and fully in the presence of the Redeemer. And we are confident because of God’s covenant promises that with us around the throne will be Jessica — whole and finally, perfectly able to praise her Redeemer.