The Beginning

Matthew 25:40  The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you also did for me'.

Where did it all begin?

When I was a little girl I believe God began to prepare my heart for the life I would live.

I had a neighbor when I was growing up, Ms. Dot, who had twins with cerebral palsy. Boys, George and Clayton. They were uncannily similar to Emily and Abby. They couldn't walk or talk. They drooled. They smiled when I talked to them. They seemed to understand what I said to them. I watched Ms. Dot feed and change them. I noticed their thin legs and closed hands.  I saw how hard she worked. 

It was then and there I knew I did not want that life.

I used to pray 'Dear God, ANYTHING but that. Give me anything you want....but please, do not give me that.' I wondered if any of the other children in our neighborhood prayed that prayer. Did it even occur to them that their children could have disabilities?  I doubt it.  I think that was the beginning. That moment when my spirit recognized the life I would lead; the moment God opened my eyes and my heart to a different life. When he gently called a little girl to grow up and raise special little girls.

I remember sitting in my yard playing with the grass watching the Boy Scouts build a ramp for Ms. Dot so she could get the boys in and out of the house. It was a long ramp with a gentle incline. I'm sure a blessing to her. It was all well and good until they painted it this awful green color. I thought it stuck our like a sore thumb. I hated it. It screamed "there's something really wrong here". It was a huge **disability** sign to me. It bothered me; I wanted it to blend in. I wanted it to be closer to "normal".

These attitudes and ideas I carried into my adult life helped to shape how I viewed my own experiences and who I thought God was. Growing up a child of divorced parents, the idea of what I perceived as normal was something I held on to very tightly. A two parent home and an ordered life. Family, kids, structure. I thought that was what everyone had. If they didn't have it, I was sure they wanted it.

This impossible normal I coveted in a little girls heart became a huge obstacle in accepting Emily and Abby's disability. It was the surrender of the dreams I had of family and children to God's plan for my life that truly became the journey. I had to let God heal that little girl I was before He could use the woman I became. I had to lay it all down. Everything I thought had to become everything He thought. My perspective had to become His. My dreams became His plan.

So that is how I walked in to this world of disabilities. With the absolute knowledge that I didn't want to be here. I don't think anyone really wants to. It has been an extremely painful, devastating, joyful, enlightening, beautiful journey that I can say with absolute honesty I would walk again.

Don't get me wrong, if I could fix this, I would. I hear people with children with disabilities say that they wouldn't change it if they could. I would. It doesn't make sense to me to stay broken if you don't have to. That's why I love knowing Jesus. His whole life and death came to tell us that we didn't have to stay broken. He came that we would all have life and life abundantly. Not perfectly, but I see Him abundantly when I look at my girls.

I will, without a doubt, walk where the God who sees the beginning from the end leads me. I will wrap my arms around this completely not normal life because He asks me to. I will do this because those little girls have wrapped their sweet crooked fingers around my neck and opened their little mouths to kiss my face. Those slobbery kisses that I once thought I would hate restore my soul. I am so grateful for the opportunity to know this experience, to be changed by it.

I hope you will be too.

What are your thoughts on disabilities? How do you view people with differences? They can be hard to understand, loud, invade personal space, you may wonder if they understand you. It's okay to take a minute to be honest here, even if you don't leave a comment. Think about how your heart would respond to children like mine, if they were suddenly yours.  If you have a child with a disability, how did what you believed shape how you saw your child?

Most of you will not face this particular situation, so are there places in your hearts that need to be healed? What area of your life is in need of surrender, so that His plan for your life can be lived fully?