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Archive for the ‘commentary’ Category

But God can and he does – Dave Furman on God’s help in his disabilities

Posted in commentary, Quotes on October 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

God in His grace and wisdom saw it fitting to take away my arm strength and ability. If God means this disability for my good then I can trust him even though it hurts. My arms physically hurt and it hurts me when I can’t dance around with my daughters or playfully wrestle with my son. At times I am tempted to discouragement about the long-term impact that my disability has on my children. This is all the more reason that I must trust that God did not design my disability to harm me or my children.

My disability instead highlights God’s superior ability. God is our Provider and Father. I may not be able to physically tend to my children’s needs or defend them against physical threats. But God can and he does.

Dave Furman, The Struggles and Hopes of a Disabled Dad, posted October 26, 2012.

Please, do yourself a favor and read the entire article.  And then be amazed at what God has done.

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Encouraged by those who use their time, money and intelligence to help people rather than prevent them from being born

Posted in commentary on October 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We’ve seen a lot of news this past year about companies developing ways to identify genetic anomalies in the womb, mostly for the reason of preventing those little ones from being born.

So it is encouraging to see people thinking of ways to improve the lives of those who live with disabilities!  For example:

  1. Smart Gloves Turn Sign Language Gestures into Vocalized Speech: The title says it all! Some Ukrainian students developed a glove that pairs with a smartphone to enable those who know sign language to communicate with those of us who don’t.
  2. Adaptive Snowboard Reinvented: Raising the Bar: A group of guys decided they wanted their friend, who became paralyzed after a snowboard accident, to experience snowboarding again. They created a whole new way to do it.  Everyone wins!  (Caution: there is some mild bad language in the video attached to the article).
  3. New Breed of Robotics Aims to Help People Walk Again: “Patients learn to walk in the robotic suits surprisingly quickly, said Eythor Bender, chief executive of Ekso Bionics, who previously worked at Ossur, a company that made artificial limbs. ‘People who come in haven’t walked for years and years,’ he said in an interview. ‘They are walking on their own in two days.'”
  4. Danes develop eye-control software for phones, tablets: Thank you to @matttone for sending this one to me.  A Danish company believes they’ve found a way to have people control their devices simply through their eyes.  As Matt pointed out, this could have great benefits for many people with disabilities, even though the company threw that in as an afterthought!

From what I can tell from these articles, none of the above were started from a Christian perspective.  Now that these smart people have shown what perseverance, creativity and ingenuity can accomplish, let’s ask God to help our churches be just as creative and excited about serving and being served by their members with disabilities!

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Two reasons to stand up for the littlest people

Posted in commentary, Scripture on October 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

1) You can save a little life.

I heard this story last week.  Because of a pregnant couple’s circumstances, the father of the child was considering abortion.  Their life story is complicated, like most stories of this type are.  Another couple (the ones telling me the story) stepped in and helped them see the simple reality of a baby and a family.  A baby was born a few months ago.  Nobody is regretting that ‘decision.’  On the contrary, joy would be an appropriate descriptor!  I thought them courageous; they thought it was a happy responsibility to love the baby and the mom and the dad this way.

2) You can prepare a couple to stand firm.

A young couple we know learned recently they are having a child.  They live outside the United States, in a place where abortion is even more common than it is here.

Women who refuse to do certain tests, or who hold the position that they will not abort even if the baby has a problem, often receive harsh criticism and pressure from doctors and nurses.

These young people don’t fear the results of the tests or the pressure from medical professionals because they know who their God is.  As the Lord wills and only as the Lord wills, their baby will join us in a few months.

Yes, laws need to change.  Yes, medical professionals should be oriented toward serving the most vulnerable rather than destroying them.

But right now any one of us could be called to save a little life, either by saying true things about God and children to a pregnant couple, or by preparing the next generation to stand firm.  Let’s do it.

He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

Psalm 78:5-8

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Repost: Jesus is Fully Satisfying

Posted in commentary on October 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We’ve been out of town a few days for work and to visit family.  This was first posted on August 6, 2011:

Dianne and I have been enjoying Nancy Guthrie’s Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow.  At the end of each chapter she imagines Jesus talking to us, using scripture as the basis for the narrative she creates.

I particularly appreciated this picture of sweet dependence on Jesus:

When you pray, pray like this: “Give us today the food we need for today.” And then come to me asking again tomorrow. You see, I want you to learn to depend on me on a daily basis. While the world celebrates independence, I bless dependence. . .

You will never find me lacking when you come to me. As you learn to depend on me more and more, and as you discover over and over again that I can be enough for you, you will begin to rest in my provision for you. You’ll have less fear about whether or not I will show up tomorrow with what you need. You’ll discover how blessed it is to hunger and thirst for me, and find me fully satisfying.

Adapted from Matthew 6:11; 2 Corinthians 1:9; Exodus 16:4; John 6:32-35; Matthew 4:4; 5:6; 6:32-33.

Nancy Guthrie, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow, p. 121.

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Repost: Treat All My Kids the Same Differently

Posted in commentary, Helpful things on October 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I spent a great couple of days with my middle son, Daniel, last weekend.  From the outside, he’s a typically-developing young man intellectually and physically.  But since he’s MY young man, I think he’s pretty special.  I enjoyed my time with him a great deal. 
 
And it reminded me of how important and helpful it is that other people recognize that I have several children, not just my oldest with disabilities.  Since I’ve gone over that before, and I’m on the road for a few days, I thought I’d repost something from 2009. A few things have changed since then – like the number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

For those of us who have been given the gift of more than one child, and one of those children has a disability, we know it is hard for friends and family to know how to talk to us about our children.

After all, we’re a moving target: are we having a season of good, stable days with our kids?  Are we in the midst of some difficult situation?  Are we consumed with the issues surrounding the child with the disability?  Are our non-disabled children doing something significant and interesting?  Is that all happening at the same time?

Most families are moving targets, of course.  But having a disabled family member seems to ramp up the complications, and those complications are often unusual.  So it makes it a little, or a lot, more difficult to know how to talk with us about our children.

Which leads to two common mistakes people make:

  1. Not talking to us at all, or avoiding any talk about any of our children.
  2. Concentrating all talk to either the child with the disability, or the children without disabilities.

My parents, as we celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this weekend, reminded me of their remarkable ability to treat all their grandchildren and great-children uniquely with the same affections.

These 13 (16 if you count spouses, and my parents love their three granddaughters-in-law as well) individuals are so very different, from age (29 years to 3 weeks), education (pursuing a Ph.D. to not-yet-kindergarten), physical abilities (quite fit police officer to completely helpless babies), or even musical abilities (composer to no musical abilities at all).

But they most certainly talk about and with all those children!

My parents love them all in ways that show they know them as individuals, appreciate their particular giftings, delight in their accomplishments, are confident they can get through hard times, and never, in any circumstance, stop loving them.  They are wonderful examples.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Now, certainly, grandparents have a particular interest in knowing and encouraging their legacy.  And we have also been blessed by people who take a particular interest in a child of mine; I’ll post about that later.

But it is a good lesson for anyone who wants to be helpful: demonstrate an interest in all my children.

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Three weeks from today – please pray!

Posted in commentary, Prayer Requests, Special Events on October 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf . . . (Romans 15:30 ESV)

In three weeks we will gather to celebrate God’s Good Design in Disability at Bethlehem’s North Campus.  It is a weighty and ultimately beautiful subject. But it requires us to constantly fight against the tide of culture and, I must admit, my own sinful desires for an easy life.

I’m praying that God will change peoples’ lives through this conference – that their heart eyes (Ephesians 1:18) will be opened, maybe for the first time, to who Jesus is.  And for those who already know God this way, to be encouraged and emboldened in their faith.  Would you pray with me about that?

Would you also pray for our speakers?  They carry a joyous and heavy responsibility to help us see God and his word more clearly on this subject of disability and suffering.

  • John Piper
  • Nancy Guthrie
  • Mark Talbot
  • Greg Lucas
  • And special guests: Krista Horning and Pastor Kempton Turner

Please also pray for our events staff and volunteers.  I am so encouraged by their faithfulness in attending to details for our sake, and there are hundreds of details they are attending to these days!

Please pray, and then let us see what God might be pleased to do!

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“If I can keep one family, one person, from having to live with the guilt and almost making the mistake I almost made. . .”

Posted in commentary on October 15, 2012| 3 Comments »

ESPN has created a series of videos called E:60 – The Best Stories in Sports.  I think ESPN’s creating this story makes it even more amazing!

This is an incredible testimony from a man who admits he wanted his wife to abort their daughter with Down syndrome.  He was afraid it would reflect on him and interfere with his perfect life.

His wife wouldn’t abort. That same man would then say of his daughter, “I realized she’s like every other kid – she’s my kid.”

This is worth the 14 minutes:

Please, get this in front of men.

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This made me smile

Posted in commentary on October 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I was walking with my daughter to the youth room at church and almost ran into this:20121010-185842.jpg

I don’t believe a pamphlet can change a person’s attitude about disability. That requires some serious heart work.

But the presence of those pamphlets said something to me, and hopefully others experiencing disability:

You are welcome here. Please, come on in and join us.

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Like the paralyzed man was carried to Jesus, Jesus carries us!

Posted in commentary, Quotes on October 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Dianne was reading Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology and shared another insight about how the paralyzed man in Luke 5 points us to Jesus as God (paragraph formatting and emphases in bold are mine; all others are by the author):

God keeps all created things existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them.

Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ is “upholding the universe by his word of power.” The Greek word translated “upholding” is phero, “carry, bear.” This is commonly used in the New Testament for carrying something from one place to another, such as bringing a paralyzed man on a bed to Jesus (Luke 5:18). . .

It does not mean simply “sustain,” but has the sense of active, purposeful control over the thing being carried from one place to another. In Hebrews 1:3, the use of the present participle indicates that Jesus is “continually carrying all things” in the universe by the word of power.

Christ is actively involved in the work of providence.

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 316.

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Why disability ministry is a constant testimony to ‘as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing’

Posted in commentary, Scripture on October 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Earlier this week I was talking to Brenda Fischer, our very fine and godly coordinator for the disability ministry at Bethlehem. She spends a lot of time with hurting people.

She shared about a hard situation on one of Bethlehem’s campuses, and the seeming lack of any good solution for the people involved.  Real people, with despairing hearts, and no answers evident with the resources available.  She longs for them to find peace and comfort in their lives, and for Bethlehem to be a conduit of God’s grace and mercy.

In those moments we pray desperate prayers, like this from 2 Chronicles 20:12 – We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.

And she also shared that she spent time last Sunday with a little guy with disabilities that manifest in some really difficult behaviors.  At one point he lost control.  This got the interest of the other children but it didn’t phase the adult volunteers at all.

Brenda shared that she was seeing this all over Bethlehem: volunteers demonstrating through their own reactions that all the children are welcome even when a child’s disabilities bring on disruptive behaviors.  Not perfectly, of course – we are a church full of finite, sinful human beings after all!  But such a difference from when she started as coordinator nearly five years ago and many people had no experience or training in disability.  God IS helping us!

We have yet to experience a season of ‘coasting’ with this ministry.  The pain and the suffering in families continues and even seems to grow. But the victories God grants also are accumulating.

God in his kindness uses our disability ministry to help us really feel and understand what Paul meant:

as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (2 Corinthians 6:10 ESV)

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