These days I'm not usually standing up high in front of people to talk to people. The only time I'm up high I think is when I'm maybe cleaning the top of the refrigerator and telling my kids to stop fighting or something. So this is a little different for me. I was a bit nervous today and um... Mrs. Pronk kindly let me go, or invited me to visit the homes, Peace Haven homes, and I think that was the perfect thing for me. This isn't about me. It's not how good I can present this. It's about persons with needs and us understanding that better. I don't claim to understand it totally and to be, you know, an expert on this. I'm learning, and I've had a steep learning curve, but I hope what I offer you tonight is an encouragement to you. I hope that I can maybe offer you an insight that we have learned in this short journey that we've had. It's something that I think all of us really shy away from. It's something I shy away from, naturally. Brokenness. Maybe you've had it too. It's not just disability in the way we think of disabilities, but things like chronic pain. How many of us here have chronic pain or maybe a disabling disease? Maybe we have relational struggles or bitterness, mental illnesses. Tonight, I'd like to focus on one particular aspect of brokenness as it relates to our physical bodies and perhaps our cognitive capacities or behaviors. A few years ago, I never would have dreamed that I'd be standing here speaking about disability, maybe raising support to go back to Cambodia or something, but not about disability. It was really nowhere on my radar screen. Daryl and I had envisioned many years in overseas missions, and we were really dedicated to bringing the gospel to the people in Cambodia through education and church planning. And while we lived there, we did have to get used to some pretty drastic outward signs of brokenness that we just really don't see here in Western society. Things are so taken care of and organized. You have fire departments for fires and policemen for, you know, robberies and crime. And in Cambodia, it's raw. You see brokenness everywhere. If your house is on fire, only if you can pay the fire department enough to extinguish the flames will they do it. There's just brokenness everywhere. You see it with women selling their bodies for 25 cents, or children maimed and bagging on the streets, pounding on your car windows. But if you actually try to help them, they resist you. We saw it with corrupt leaders finding opportunities with wealth that was meant for poor children, putting it in their pocket. So it seemed like every part of society was very broken. And there was also a lot of soul brokenness. People were change of superstition and despair with animism and Buddhism. So, our time and effort were spent with the very outwardly broken, and we were getting used to living in a country with a lot of spiritual darkness, but we really had no idea what it would feel like, what it would be like, when that personal brokenness would fill up our home, would take up residence in our home. We had no idea how dark the darkness could be, the darkness of feeling forsaken by God, and something that seemed so terribly wrong. And we were to be broken in little pieces, all in the hand of our sovereign God, and patched together by His grace. We're still being patched together. But all of us are, aren't we, in our respective lives. Each of us have needs, different needs. And instead of ministering to the broken, we became more broken than we'd ever realized before. Our Lord carefully took a little boy, a little boy whom we had named Calvin Luke, and led us on a journey of discovery. I didn't really want to hear anything about this journey when I had Calvin. But he has shown us, little by little, patiently, that we discover his power in our weakness, in Calvin's weakness. discovering the Lord's hand and experiences more painful than we ever imagined. The beginning of the story, the whole story about Calvin, the story about you, the story about any person, no matter how able we are, or how disabled we want to say that we are, it all begins in the garden. Everybody's story does. It begins with oneness to the One who created us, perfectly in His image. And then we know about the terrible rebellion and the resulting separation from God. And that separation ushered brokenness into every area of our life. But I think we just grow very accustomed to living in what's called this body of death. It becomes a theological concept, but it doesn't really seem like our reality unless strong trouble comes. And sometimes we have no choice but to really face that really intimately and personally. Right now my six-year-old son is enjoying books about volcanoes and I just was thinking of it last week. We are looking at a cross-section of a volcano and underneath the surface, the surface looks completely normal and people are carrying on in their lives and underneath the surface is boiling, churning magma and everybody's just going on about their lives, right? But as we know, volcanoes are formed and erupt when this magma finds a pressure point and it just bursts through the surface. of course, that overflows onto the surface and people run around in desperation looking for survival. And I think that's maybe a primitive example, but in some way, a lot of us have lives like that. I think we're born and raised in comfort and the fallenness of the world just kind of becomes this, you know, something that we think about and it's this theological idea, but we really don't want to or don't have to or avoid struggling with that, with the effects. But sometimes we have no choice, do we? God brings trials into our life, and it seems like the dangerous foundation of the world that we are living in, this fallen creation, just implodes every idea that we had about what life was going to be like. But a lot of us, if that doesn't happen, we just kind of try to live our life on autopilot. We want to set up our houses. We want to get our bodies looking good. We want to have good reputations, a good career. We just want a comfortable, normal life. I think that's all I want is a comfortable, normal life. You know, adventure and excitement and living for the Lord. But just a normal life. And there are times though when the results of living in this fallen world becomes really personal. And especially when it affects ourselves or the one we love. What was it for you? Have you ever had life become like that? Really stripped down and desperate? Were the status quo no longer satisfied? Was it a diagnosis of cancer? Of Parkinson's? Was it abuse? Was it a terrible accident that took away ability or life? Or specifically tonight, for those of you who suffer with disability, or those who care for them, When we are forced to reckon with the terrific consequences of the fall, what do we do? How do we react? We usually drag God into court, don't we? Submission is far from, at least it was for me, far from what I wanted to do. I needed to question. I needed to know why. I could understand suffering, but this route, taking my son and seeing him suffer just was too painful. It was too humiliating. It was too strong of a blow. And maybe you too think that you have only to trudge through life with sorrow. You have to deal with what's been given to you. And you'll do so, but you'll grit your teeth and bear it. But it's not that way. Our God, He owns these painful experiences. He is the one who has witnessed our rebellion and our disobedience. And he watched as we left the garden and struggled in a fallen world. And what did he do? He supplied a plan, a provision, his son Jesus. And God is in the business of brokenness. It was very hard for me to really see that in the beginning. But then I read Exodus 4 verse 11. Who made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb? Or deaf? Or the seeing? Or the blind? Have not I the Lord? And so this actually gives hope. His sovereignty weaves brokenness and pain, and He can make the most desperate places, places that you just wish had never happened, things had never happened, you'd never received that diagnosis, and He makes a place for His work, for His beauty. And He uses it to draw you to Him, to draw others to Him. So when we talk about disability, the truth is that you and I and all of humanity, we are all caverns of brokenness. And sometimes it's more apparent to us when people have an outward disability or cognitive disability or behavioral disability. But these are like God, I feel like, scratching on the surface of our brokenness, of our disabilities, our deep spiritual brokenness, and just giving us a mirror, a little sight into how far, how deep each of us has been separated from our God and how we need Him. I just was interested in looking at how people perceive disability. And so I just kind of look back through the history of disability, and let me tell you, there are no warm, fuzzy feelings when you study disability and civilization. I hardly dare say a lot of the things I read or the things that I saw. Basically, I've come to the conclusion today, so far, probably the best day for my son to be alive. all the other ages back to the Greeks and Romans they value physical perfection and if your baby didn't look normal didn't behave properly whatever the problem was they said leave him to exposure that means get him out of the city and let the wild animals get him or let the cold weather take over him he's no worth to us And if somehow that child did escape that, they instead became beggars or objects of scorn. Even wise people, they didn't get what disability was about. They did not want to confront the brokenness of our humanity. Aristotle, he said we should make a law to prevent the rearing of deformed children. And I think that these mindsets, we might look at them and say, those are so outdated. But somehow in our hearts, I'm afraid that myself, a lot of us, we don't really grasp the value and the worth either of disabled persons. We may be put up with them, or we do our duty, but we don't really understand what God's picture is for disability. And this is where the church is really to have a radical, different perspective than anywhere in the world. The church has a hope that nobody else has in the world. The church has a God that they serve that is unlike any other God that any other religion professes. And He gives worth to each person. We know that each one of us is created in the image of God and gives us worth. And we just read in 1 Corinthians at the beginning, I love that, how God's wisdom is not our wisdom. We want our kids to be strong and the most intelligent and popular and I don't know, astute, scholarly, whatever we want for our children. And sometimes that doesn't happen. We actually named Calvin after John Calvin. And I felt a lot of bitterness in my heart at first, thinking, we named this kid Calvin. And I wanted him to be a strong figure in the faith and to raise him up. And it almost seemed like a mockery. Here's this boy named Calvin after his namesake, and he will never even be able to read one word of what John Calvin has written. But what we are starting to understand is that God's ways are higher than our ways. And what we think is always good is not always the way that the Lord thinks is good. But we don't have to despair. He takes the weak things of the world. Our society says, cast them out or separate them from us. We don't want them with us. And Jesus says, no, these are the ones that I use. I can show the works of God, the glory of God in these. After, you know, actually the terrible treatment of persons with disabilities continued, they would load people up in shifts and go from port to port displaying cargo, charging admission, making money. And then our society started thinking, well, you know, actually it's a medical problem. Disability is a medical problem. We need to fix this. And again, we're foolish and don't really realize that we are all in a pit of brokenness. So we started poking and prodding and conducting terrifying experiments and procedures on people that were considered less human. And we began to lock persons with disabilities away. We didn't now use them as a public oddity or entertainment, but they were dangerous. They needed to be fixed, kept isolated from the general public. And I think this thought somewhat continues today. Persons with disabilities still are viewed as expendable, not necessary for society, just something to be taken care of, but not an integral part of who we are. A burden on the food chain even, some have said, a threat to a thriving community. And I wonder, too, in history, it shows thinking usually goes full circle. So, like I said, now is the best time, I think, for Kelvin to be alive, but already in Europe. I read an article recently about a family. They have a mentally handicapped adult child, and as they walk the streets with her in Europe, they will have people come up to them and chastise them for the cruelty of allowing their daughter to live. and saying it's actually inhumane of you to not have euthanized her. So it is more important than ever, even though conditions are good now in Canada and America, to as a church really understand what our value is, what we derive our worth from. Is it our abilities? Is it how we look? Is it how we express ourselves? What is our worth and what is our purpose? And I think the reason I've gone over this so deeply is because we will never actually treat persons with disabilities properly until we actually understand ourselves. Without understanding ourselves and our brokenness, I don't think we will ever actually have the true heart to reach out to our neighbor, maybe out of guilt, or maybe out of responsibility, but seeing them as the Lord sees them. And I'm not just saying, I understand this, and I've never recoiled from brokenness. I have. I remember very vividly in my mind after I had received the terrible news that something was wrong with our son, and I was absolutely shocked, and we had no idea what to expect. At the same time, I was sitting here in Bangkok. We hadn't been in any civilized country for two years, and there's, you know, malls and fast food places, I tried to not seem like a distraught mother and decided to bring Noah, I had just him with me at the time, to bring him out to the mall and go to McDonald's. So we had just sat down at our table and I was pregnant, craving French fries. It was great. We were going to have just a nice lunch together. And as I started to take my food, I just started hearing somebody like speaking a little bit too loud. And I looked over and there was a Thai teenage boy sitting with, I think it was his sister, and he had headphones on and very nicely dressed, but something about the behavior was different. And the way he was communicating and acting was drawing a lot of attention to himself. And his sister kept trying to quiet him. And all of a sudden, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I pushed my food away. And I just felt sick. And I thought, that's fine. That's great that she's taking care of him. And I'm glad there's people that can do that. But that's not me. I don't know how to deal with that kind of thing. I have no idea. I don't want that in my family. I can't deal with that. And as I look back, I now think, oh, if only my son had those abilities. But at that time, it was me recoiling from brokenness, me recoiling from anything that didn't seem normal. So I'm not coming at you condescendingly if you do feel that natural, it seems like it's built in us, this awkwardness or not sure how to respond to brokenness. I think it is with each one of us. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever looked at someone with a disability and just felt kind of shocked or perhaps repulsed with a massive deformity? What is it that makes us so shocked? What is it? I've searched my own heart for this. And the only thing I can suggest is that it is a mirror that I don't want to look into. Because when I see something wrong with a picture, I realize there's something very wrong with me. Do I really believe what the Bible says I am? That I'm not just disabled, but I'm dead? Dead in my sins? Unable to live without divine intervention? That I'm sown in corruption? Born in bondage? Every way? Mentally? Emotionally? Physically? Cognitively? I think we are far more incapacitated from what we were originally made for than we have any idea about. Sometimes I find it interesting, somebody forwards me a link about a savant who has this phenomenal talent with piano playing. They can play any song, you shout out to them in any key, in any genre. It's so cool to watch. And it just occurred to me, I wonder if that's just a glimmer of our actual creation. You see people with phenomenal abilities with numbers and memorization. Actually, a lot of autistic children have this phenomenal ability in certain areas of knowledge. And it just makes me wonder, what were our minds before the fall? What were our capacities? What does oneness with God mean? And I start to look at myself and realize I am really limited in my understanding. I am really limited in my abilities. And then to think that Jesus Christ looked at us, at us who are often so proud of ourselves and so full of ourselves. And he sees our brokenness far more than we see our brokenness. And to think, it just blows my mind to think that he left a perfect heaven and he came to dwell with us who are disabled beyond our imaginations, broken beyond our imaginations. And what does he do? He starts with his grace, breathing life into us, teaching us, forming us, molding us. So we are just a fragment of what we were when we were created. And that's why it says the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. This is not what we were made for. This is not the way we were supposed to be. So when we see a person with outward disabilities or noticeable disabilities, just take a pause and remember what the word actually says about all of us. And I found that thinking that way and actually realizing that gives me a whole different perspective as I mingle increasingly more so with this world that terrified me at first, just realizing that these Persons with outward disabilities actually are fellow needy sinners and in need of the grace of God. And they've also been gifted with so many gifts. I think we just tend to miss out on the gifts that persons with disabilities have by categorizing them and putting them in a quarter. And actually, they have something to offer us. It's not just us giving to them. They have so much to give to one another and to us. Recently, in one of Kelvin's therapy classes, there was a teenage girl who has cerebral palsy and she loves Kelvin. So every time after Kelvin's therapy, we go to the teenage room and he gets passed around and oohed and aahed. And they'll be like, OK, you can hold Calvin if you do five more pull-ups. And these teenage boys are trying to do their pull-ups. And it's really endearing. It really touched me when one day this one boy named John was laying on the floor and he said, good job, little buddy, to Calvin. They laid Calvin on his chest. Good job, buddy. You keep working, buddy. And Calvin smiles. And then there's another teenage girl that I just mentioned. And she had the privilege of working with Calvin for one session. And she just beamed. And she told the therapist, she said, people like me can't have babies. And that's why I want to be with him. And I think we do persons with disabilities a great disfavor when we don't consider their emotional needs. We don't consider that they feel their losses, just like we feel our losses. And many persons with disabilities just want to have a normal life, like one of the mothers had just said. Jesus is our model of how to respond. He didn't react the way I did. He did scores of healing, right? But when you look at how he approached people, it was like he never considered them that they were less used to him if they were whole. Actually, it seems like they're more used to him when they're disabled because it gives a chance for people to stop and look and see the glory and the power of God. He ministered to them. He engaged with them. He didn't just put up with them. He had a purpose and a vision for them. And again, that just challenges my suppositions that I've always had, you know, be kind and do the responsible thing and care for the weak. But that's part of the story. But the other part is help them develop and understand the purpose that they have in God's plan and the vision that does not rely on them being physically whole. A quick glance at the Beatitudes makes it clear that being fully human, being perfectly human, is not about physique or intelligence or abilities. It's about meekness, sorrow, and longing for God. Being fully human implies our understanding about ourselves as ones who are not God, but formed by God, cared for by God, and in need of God. A major aspect of recognizing our own humanity means that we recognize that we are vulnerable. We are needy. We are dependent. We are limited. These words don't really resonate with our idea of perfection. The world's been telling us for thousands of years what perfection is, and it's hard for us to give up that idea. The truth is, though, that we need persons with disabilities. Paul says to take care of those, the weaker ones are indispensable. He doesn't say do your duties to the weak. He says they are indispensable. God has a gift for us in those who are more outwardly broken perhaps than we. Maybe you just don't know how to interact. Maybe you see that and maybe you want to go over to the Peace Haven homes or to wherever you'd like to engage, but you just don't really know how. I can't tell you how many times I felt that, where I would like to go up to somebody, but I really have no idea what to say. The good news is that Christ can equip us. Just as we are controlled by Christ's love if we are a believer, we are equipped with Christ's power to love others. We don't need to show our supernatural loving abilities. We don't need to show how good we are. No, it's nothing about us. We need to be the vessels to show Christ's love and to show Christ's care. Perhaps He has a good gift for you. in the very person that you're reluctant or shy to interact with? Will you show Jesus to persons who can't read the word of God or to someone whose mind can't cognitively grasp difficult concepts? Will you see his imprint on them? We are all made in the image of God. Will you search for their incredible worth? Maybe you don't see it at first. Often Kelvin is laying in his chair, and to probably a person passing by, I think he would probably be quickly dismissed. He doesn't look like he's engaging, his head is off to the side, he's often drooling. But it's only dwelling with him, being close with him, that we actually see beauty beyond compare. A beautiful child made in the image of God, giving love, receiving love, responding, maybe in ways that aren't as obvious as normal communication, but it's there. The way that the church interacts with the disabled should model Jesus Christ to the world. A reminder to care for the weak to the churches should be asking like a fish to swim. And I'm a slow fish. I'm not. I was just blown away by visiting Peace Haven today and seeing everything that is in motion already, it's wonderful. And I think it's something that we need to, churches where we are, need to start thinking about as well. I love the section in Corinthians that he read earlier about showing God's thinking is just so different than ours. And until we're willing to sacrifice our wisdom and say, I feel like this, but this is what the Word of God says. And so that's what I'm going to ask the Lord to help me to understand and to see. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. So when I think of praying for my son to be born healthy and well and disappointed beyond belief to be weak and ill and probably not live many years, that encourages me. He can take the most broken thing, the most weak thing, and he can use that in perhaps more ways than if Calvin were strong and whole. I just want to move a little bit to parents of persons with disabilities. I'm very new on this journey and I've spoken to some of you already today who are much further advanced, but it's true that we each learn different things. Our children's needs are so individual, so unique, but yet there are common themes that we can all relate to. When Calvin was first born, we started down into a darkness of pain, like so dark that it made my stomach nauseous. The overwhelming grief, not just for my loss, but seeing his losses, just felt like it was sucking the life and the joy out of me. I would literally wake up every single morning and wish I could go back to dreaming. I'd wake up and I'd wonder why I felt this horrible pit in my stomach. And then I'd turn my head and I'd see my little boy laying next to me and I'd look away. I prayed for the Lord to take him quickly. It was too hard. His care was too difficult. We had no sleep. His pain and his suffering was tormenting us. I didn't want to take one step forward into the future. I told a friend, I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of Mount Everest and I don't have the desire to take one step up the mountain. And she looked at me and she said, then he'll go up with you. And I'm so glad that God didn't answer that prayer to take Calvin and that we've had him longer. I never will understand why God allows so much sorrow or why it has to hurt so painfully. But I do know that He has kept Kelvin, and he has given more joy in this little boy than we could ever have imagined. He didn't let me lose Kelvin and get on with life. He's let me get to the bottom, never before having realized the everlasting arm so much, never before realizing the value of a child no matter of their ability. Never have we seen the transparency, the brokenness of our own souls. And never have the non-essentials of life been stripped away so clearly. I wanted to walk away. I wanted to close the chapter. But the joy that we would have missed. We prayed for the Lord to just give a little joy. There just seemed to be no joy in those days. And the days overflow with joy now. We didn't want to open our eyes to his goodness because we didn't want that kind of goodness. I wanted it on my terms. But he gave it quietly to us. Good days when Calvin was alert and responsive. But it is still hard when there are days when he is very unreachable to us. And we've recently also received reports about his brain activity that he will most likely continue to regress and his functions will probably be lost. We may lose his smiles. We may lose his alertness, but my hope is the reason we do not despair is because the Lord says, the deeper the despair, the deeper the brokenness, the more of a well for his grace. And this is not the final chapter in this book. It's hard when his breathing is labored. It's hard when he doesn't respond to his sister's giggles. And we long, we long for Him. We long to know Him more. We long for the eternal day when disability will be stripped off of His humanity. And we will see Him in all of His intended creation. And the good thing too for us as parents is that God is not remote from us in our grief. Yes, these things are in His providence. But He enters into our grief. He carries us. He listens to our every cry. I sometimes get so tired of my children complaining, even when they're legitimately sick. I just want to give them Tylenol so they'll stop complaining and just... we need some peace in the house. But the Lord never shushes us. He tells us to come to Him. He tells us that He will carry our burden. He assures us that He will be there, comforting us always. He's patient. He takes us along gently when we're angry, when we're full of grief. And he gently shows us the beauty that he has in his plan. I found this great quote. It says, God takes our dreams, too often limited to security, pleasure, or assurance of comfort. I think that was me. And he will shatter them until we have nothing left but God alone. And through the pain of shattered lower dreams, we wake up to the realization that we need God more than the blessings in life. And that begins the revolution in our lives. Just three more points quickly for parents. I think it's tempting for us sometimes when things are bad. It's great to hear this wonderful, you know, encouraging talk, but then you face tomorrow, and you face the frustration of whatever tomorrow brings. And it's very tempting to believe that we are God-forsaken. Maybe we say with lamentations, He's brought me into darkness, not into light. Surely against me He has turned. And you know what we can do with that? That discouragement, that feeling of God-forsakenness? We take that. We take those feelings. We take the smashed powder of our dreams. And we have nowhere else to go but back to Him, because He invites us to go back to Him. In Lamentations, it says, Turn again to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens. Offer these disappointments to the Lord. Give them over to your Redeemer, your Creator. They are too heavy for you. He's the one who made your child. He made him from the dust. And ask him to take these remains and to make something beautiful. Remind him of his promises that he makes beauty from ashes. He can take these places of tragedy and turn them into places of grace. He does, right? He does. I'm sure so many of you have already seen that. So many ways that you have been blessed in your families because of disability, even though you never wanted it at first. He takes the crowns of thorns for himself and he crowns us with tender mercy and loving kindness. The darkness pervades, but expectation in him can overpower the fear of the dark descent. If your child is facing regression like we're facing, if your child is facing frustrating challenges, physical problems, he is there. He's with us in our sorrows. And while we feel like we are wasting away and we can't go on another day, he says he's renewing us day by day. There is no place too black, too far gone for him to work his beauty. And this is not our home, is it? We may have disappointments. Maybe it doesn't encourage you that beauty is somehow going to be made out of ashes. We do want to make this place so right for us, so comfortable, and we get so frustrated when it collapses. But Jesus uses that pain to remind us there is more, there is so much more. He rips out the 10 stakes of our hearts that are just planted deep in the earth and it hurts. But He carries us, weeping all the while the brokenness within us that we don't even see and without, weeping that we are so slow to understand, so slow to trust, so slow to love Him if we don't get what we want. I thought I'd learned this before, but little did I know that every tug, every disappointment, every challenge from the earth demands a new surrender to heaven. It demands an affirmative, Thy will be done, Father. These daily and hourly surrenders are never learned once and for all, but they are daily breath and survival and strength for each one of us. The tearing of hopes and dreams in life can be bitter, but the poverty of this place, the poverty of each one of our weaknesses, whether it's a physical disability or it's a brokenness within, it should wake us up to a strong longing for the ardent glory of Jesus and eternal life with him. Thank you.