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Archive for the ‘commentary’ Category

Andrew-ing – Guest Post from Chris Nelson

Posted in commentary on February 11, 2011| 7 Comments »

I’m grateful to welcome back Chris Nelson to this blog, a member at Bethlehem and a man I respect and love deeply. JPK

Andrew, 9, is the oldest of our three boys. Every cell in his body has an extra long arm of the 18th chromosome attached to the end of his 11th chromosome. He has autism. He has a seizure disorder. He is severely mentally retarded. He is easily irritable and often physically aggressive. My reactions to his often challenging behaviors daily expose my sin, which, not always immediately but at least eventually, leads me to fresh brokenness and repentance and brings me back to the Cross. That is a gift. Andrew is who he is by God’s good design and for God’s glory and for my sanctification.

One of the means of grace God has given us to help him regulate and be able to better function in social settings is a device called ConnectorRx, where one of us is physically connected to Andrew. The device looks a little like something one might use to go rock climbing (or, as someone who doesn’t rock climb, at least what I imagine such gear might look like!).

One Sunday a friend referred to my being connected to my son as “Andrew-ing.” Seemingly gifted with the ability to see the spiritual side of everything, he also remarked that seeing us connected made him think about God’s love for us in calling us to Himself and keeping us connected to Himself. I hadn’t ever thought of that – to me it was simply a device that helped us help Andrew get from A to B with some amount of self control, which helped us leave the house without an anxiety-induced stomachache. But my friend’s comment made me to ponder the spiritual lessons of that simple connector:

  • God is good and He is for us, and He will give us what we need when He knows we need it.
  • No matter how much we may kick and scream and wallow in the sinful desire to go our own way, God loved us first and will not let us go – He knows what is best for His children.
  • God gives us more than we can handle that we might become broken over our sin, and humble ourselves and look to Him rather than ourselves that we might increasingly know at the heart-level what it is to be sorrowful (over sin) but always rejoicing (in and through Jesus).
  • God is merciful to give us means of grace that encourage and help us through challenges – and even more to enable situations, circumstances and even consequences that remind us that our ultimate hope is not means of grace, but the Source of grace.

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Proving Jesus is always right: Matthew 5:29 from the perspective of having no eyes

Posted in commentary, Scripture on February 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

My Paul has no eyes.  Jesus said it would be better for us to be like Paul, having no eyes, than to sin:

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. Matthew 5:29

The following is a true story.

On Thursday a box of 10 Hostess Ho Hos made it into the van.  Three children and one adult each had one, leaving six.  The rest were being saved for ‘movie night’ on Friday.

One child simply could not stop thinking about those Ho Hos.

While the rest of the family was distracted with dinner guests Thursday evening, that child ate four more Ho Hos.  This same child also ate the last two for breakfast the next morning.

So, this child disobeyed mom, stole something that wasn’t his, considered his own desires ahead of his siblings, did not practice self-control, and allowed his eyes and his thoughts to constantly come back to what was tempting him.  These are typical, childish sins, of course.  But they were sins.

Paul has never been tempted to steal Ho Hos, or anything else for that matter.  He is completely free from that kind of sin.

And which child do we feel sorry for?

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God’s gentle rebukes lead to worship

Posted in commentary on February 2, 2011| 2 Comments »

Mid-afternoon Tuesday at the Conference for Pastors I checked on some donation numbers and was discouraged at the lack of progress on a campaign we are running. I definitely had a grumbling heart.

As I looked at those numbers and considered next steps, I’m told someone wants to see me.

I’m introduced to a wonderful, God-centered man.  He’s going through deep waters in his children and grandchildren – disability, terminal illness, hardship upon hardship.  But he also had a sweet confidence that God is, in fact, sovereign and good.  He was praising God for all the good he was seeing in the midst of so much difficulty.  He was the very example of ‘as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.’

He had heard through some friends of mine that I had experienced some similar things and wanted to meet me.

Two things came to mind after we talked and prayed together:

  1. How foolish I was to grumble, which is nothing more than disbelief.  God knows what we need financially; he will help us and will provide what we need.
  2. In the very second I was grumbling, he was bringing me a brother who would point me back to the source of all comfort and grace.

I was overwhelmed with gratitude after talking with this brother and deeply, deeply blessed.  I don’t deserve such mercy or grace.  I deserved discipline, but God chose instead to point me back to him.  I am very grateful that God extended it so kindly!

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More from Brian Skotko on genetic testing

Posted in commentary, News on January 26, 2011| 6 Comments »

From “Race, Gender, and Genetic Technologies: A New Reproductive Dystopia?” by Dorothy Roberts in Signs: The Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2009, v. 34, no. 4, p. 792:

Brian Skotko’s survey of 985 mothers who received postnatal (after birth) diagnoses of Down syndrome for their children similarly discovered that many of the mothers were chastised by health care professionals for not undergoing prenatal testing (emphasis mine):

“Right after [my child] was born, the doctor flat out told my husband that this could have been prevented or discontinued at an earlier stage of the pregnancy,” wrote one mother who had a child with DS in 2000. A mother who had a child in 1993 recalled, “I had a resident in the recovery room when I learned that my daughter had DS. When I started to cry, I overheard him say, ‘What did she expect? She refused prenatal testing.’” . . . Another mother reported, from her experience in 1997, “The attending neonatologist, rather than extending some form of compassion, lambasted us for our ignorance in not doing prior testing and for bringing this burden to society—noting the economical, educational, and social hardships he would bring.” Regarding a postnatal visit, a mother who had a child in 1992 wrote, “[My doctor] stressed ‘next time’ the need for amniocentesis so that I could ‘choose to terminate.’” (2005, 70–71)

As a result of such pressure, many pregnant women now view genetic testing as a requirement of responsible mothering (Harmon 2007).

Again we must be clear: there is nothing wrong with receiving genetic testing for the purpose of serving the needs of the child.  What is assumed above, however, is that when an ‘anomaly’ is discovered, the child will be aborted.

Let us individually work to change those assumptions, for the sake of the child, the parents, and the medical community that includes too many members who have lost their way.

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How Long, Oh Lord?

Posted in commentary on January 21, 2011| 2 Comments »

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 14:12

January 22 marks the 38th ‘anniversary’ of the decision to legalize abortion in the United States.

This website highlights abortion services available for ‘fetal anomaly.’  They include:

For the past 14 years we have terminated pregnancies for fetal abnormalities such as 1) Central Nervous System that include: holoprosencephaly, encephalocele, encephalomyelocele, hydrocephalus, Spina Bifida, holorachischisis, Dandy Walker, anencephaly, holoanencephaly, absence of corpus callosum; 2) Cardiac abnormalities that include: Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, Hypolastic left and right ventricle, holoacardius, tetraloy of Fallot, Eisenmenger’s complex, transposition of great vessels; 3) Chromosomal abnormalities that includes a) Common: trisomy 13, 18, 21, b) less common: trisomy 16, short arm and long arm deletions; 4) Skeletal abnormalities: Polydactyly, Achondroplasia, Osteogenesis imperfecta, lethal dwarfism, 5) Kidney abnormalities: Adult and Infantile Polycystic Kidney diseases, Potter’s Syndrome; 6) GI abnormalities: gastroschisis, omphalocele.

Some of the above are lethal to the child; he or she will die shortly after birth.  Others, like Trisomy 21 (otherwise known as Down syndrome), include a lifetime of living with disability.  And a lifetime with family and communities who both suffer and benefit from the life God has given.

Still others, like omphalocele, are not always disabling: “Complete recovery is expected after surgery for an omphalocele. However, omphaloceles often occur with other birth defects. How well a child does depends on which other conditions the child also has (Google Health).”

And they are all on a list, grouped impassionately together like groceries.

Disability does that in this culture – individual human beings created for God’s glory cease to be recognized as people, and the sum value of their lives is entirely defined by their disability.  So, we eliminate a disability, not a person.  But every one of those listed ‘procedures’ was done on a child, cruelly in the name of ‘compassion’ to prevent suffering in the child or the mother.

Disability is hard; I certainly understand that.  But we should not wrap what is happening to our unborn children with disabilities in the pretty language of compassion, either for them or for their mothers.  Once again, the strong are making permanent decisions about the interests of the weak.  And the weak are being destroyed.

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The Great Physician never stops providing for our good

Posted in commentary, News on January 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

One of the curiosities in life is that when people admit a weakness, we tend to trust them more.  That’s one of the reasons we’re pretty happy with Paul’s primary care physician; she will, at times, admit we need to make a course correction.  She doesn’t let her ego get in the way of evidence.

She admitted recently that one of her colleagues, “a very good doctor,” appeared to be stuck and seeing another specialist was reasonable.

That doesn’t mean the specialist takes it well.

One of our complaints has been that one of Paul’s specialists seems pretty passive, as though he’s given up trying to diagnose and treat Paul’s ‘spells.’  So we’re pursuing a new course.

Dianne called this specialist to let him know our new course of action, to which he replied, what can they do that he couldn’t?  That seemed like a silly question, since he hadn’t done anything for several weeks.  And, being pushed, he admitted he thought these spells were something that couldn’t be treated successfully.

That was news to us.  He had never even inferred that before.  But it also seemed like a good reason we should get another opinion, since this doctor had decided it couldn’t be treated.  He didn’t agree.

Then he pulled out his trump card: you do realize your son is severely disabled?

That was, we’re assuming, supposed to make these mysterious spells seem not so bad.

Dianne did two things over the next several days that were quite helpful.  First, she didn’t tell me all that he said immediately.  We’re 15 years into this, so statements like that from the doctor mostly make me tired and discouraged.  But there’s still a reservoir of pride and anger (righteous and not) that wants to have justice in this present age.  That could have gotten ugly since I have been known to write letters to people’s superiors, and I know what buttons to push.

The second thing Dianne did was not to engage him at all, but to reassert our new course of action and end the conversation.  That was the better course.

In reflecting on it, God brought these verses of Benediction to mind:

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21

Our God is one of peace (I need to lay aside my anger and my pride), who brings people back from the dead (something a little more complicated than diagnosing a young man’s physical issues!) – and he equips us with ‘everything good’ to do his will.  Paul’s spells are no mystery to him, and even as we pursue Paul’s good, God will help us do what is most pleasing to him.

And here’s the anchor: through Jesus Christ!  What a promise!  Another reason to trust promises and not my perceptions.

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God has no boundaries to his saving work

Posted in commentary on January 17, 2011| 1 Comment »

At The Elisha Foundation retreat last week there were a lot of people involved in making it happen, people at various stages in their understanding of God’s sovereignty and goodness over all things.  One of the men knew the day his son with disabilities was born that he would be in ministry to other families experiencing disability.  Two of the other men involved walked away from God and the church entirely.

So, it would just make sense that the man who was called into this ministry would lead the sessions, right?

The man who has walked with God consistently, Justin Reimer, was the one running around doing administrative work to provide this experience for the families.  And the two men who spent seasons away from God and the church were the ones leading sessions in the word.

How weird is that?

Of course, Americans love the redemption stories of the “good” man who lost everything, but through hard work and a little luck gained it all back.

This isn’t that story.

Greg Lucas, who led the teaching time, and I, who led the parent session, both walked away from God and the church for a season.  At our lowest moments, if I understood Greg’s story correctly, neither of us was looking for God, seeking his favor, or even wanting him to be active in our lives.  There certainly wasn’t anything good about us.

BUT GOD (Ephesians 2:4-7) breathed life into our dead hearts and gave us Jesus as our righteousness when there was nothing righteous about us.

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.  Jesus Paid It All by Elvina Hall

I met a young man this week in deep pain over very hard circumstances in his life; he’s struggling.  I thought about Greg’s story and my story – and we talked about a God who does miracles, like the one I’ve experienced in my life.

I once thought disability was a curse, and it was the reason I left the church.  Instead, God used it to break my pride-filled heart and call me close to him.  It is all his doing.

Never give up in prayer for someone like I was. God is never constrained in his work, even by the greatest of sin.

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Encouragement from God through other people

Posted in commentary on January 16, 2011| 1 Comment »

At The Elisha Foundation retreat last week, the children with disabilities ranged in age from teenagers to 16 months.

The parents of the baby girl with Down syndrome were a huge encouragement to me – in a good church with people who loved them, had obvious affections for God and each other, and were seeking to parent their little girl in the strength God provides.

And they said they found encouragement in our story.

Just to recap, I lead my family AWAY from the church a few months after my son was born, said horrible things about God and had no desire to be with the people of God.

BUT GOD (Ephesians 2:4-7) had a different plan, for his glory and for my good.

I am still amazed at the kindness of God in calling me out of darkness – there wasn’t one speck of anything good in me.  And that story of God’s mercy is what people find encouraging.

And I find God’s sustaining strength in these young families to be a powerful testimony back to me!

In the end, it is always God’s story.  And I’m so grateful God has been placing more and more people in my life who love that story!

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“This is His way” – Dagnachew Wakene

Posted in commentary, News on January 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

I’ll admit that as I watched this video for the first time I was concerned the entire emphasis was on programs and access and not on hearts.

But at the 6:50 point, Dagnachew Wakene talks about his disability and gives us a glimpse of his theology – and I liked what I heard.  I’m hoping to learn more about this man who doesn’t just acknowledge this is God’s way, but that it was God’s feast.

Anybody with more experience or insight into the organizations represented here, please let us know what you know!

Thank you to Scott Purser, a long-time friend, who has introduced me to Community Health Evangelism in Africa.

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Some wisdom and warning from 90 years ago

Posted in commentary, Quotes on January 4, 2011| 1 Comment »

When my sister introduced me to G.K. Chesterton more than 20 years ago, I had little idea how much he would influence how I read and think.

Recently I came across a piece he did on eugenics, which to his horror was rising in popularity at the turn of the 20th century, and even into the 1970’s had public proponents.  Like those who advocate for abortion, and seem to particularly advocate for it when a pre-born child is shown to have disabilities, much of that movement was based on ‘the good of society’ and the economic and psychological benefits to families.

Chesterton would have none of it, and pointed out the duplicity of asserting the ‘feeble-minded’ (those we would say today live with cognitive disabilities) bring harm to society or families when the real problem lay with those who violently force their will on others:

Even if I were a Eugenist, then I should not personally elect to waste my time locking up the feeble-minded. The people I should lock up would be the strong-minded.  I have known hardly any cases of mere mental weakness making a family a failure; I have known eight or nine cases of violent and exaggerated force of character making a family a hell.  If the strong-minded could be segregated it would quite certainly be better for their family and friends.  And if there is really anything to heredity, it would be better for posterity too. For the kind of egoist I mean is a madman in a much more plausible sense then the mere harmless ‘deficient’; and to hand on the horrors of anarchic and insatiable temperament is a much graver responsibility than to leave a mere inheritance of childishness. . .

Why do not the promoters of the Feeble-Minded Bill call at the many grand houses in town or country where such (strong-minded) nightmares notoriously are? Why do they not knock at the door and take the bad squire away?  Why do they not ring the bell and remove the dipsomaniac prize-fighter? I do not know; and there is only one reason I can think of, which must remain a matter of speculation.  When I was at school, the kind of boy who liked teasing half-wits was not the sort that stood up to bullies.

G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils, Cassell and Company, 1922, pp. 51-52.

That’s a straight shot directly into the evil that is the tyranny of the powerful over the powerless when we are not guided by higher, transcendent, universal principles.  Chesterton saw it clearly: the powerful were defining what was acceptable (and the ‘feeble-minded’ were not acceptable) and pronouncing judgment over those who could not defend themselves.

But, one might argue, we have become much more enlightened than 80 years ago.  We have laws and strict rules about bullying and teasing.  We have whole school programs dedicated to peace and conflict resolution.  We have rules and regulations to protect those with disabilities.  We have curb cuts and elevators and dedicated parking spaces. Our public face is very much different, so we must be different.

Unless one looks at the war against our most defenseless children in the womb.  We applaud the young man with Down syndrome who lives in a community, participates in Special Olympics and maybe holds a job – and eliminate more than 9 out of 10 children like him when Down syndrome is discovered in the womb.

What would Chesterton say about our public applause and our private, socially sanctioned, extraordinarily effective modern eugenics campaign?  What name can we give it but murderous hypocrisy?

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