Disabilities

From J.E. Tada's Diamonds in the Dust
God can exchange the tragic meaning behind accidents or injuries for something new and positive. The cross is a good example. When God uses His glory the most ordinary things---such as a staff, or a cross, or a wheelchair---He gives each one unique and special meaning.

We all have disabilities. Mine, obviously, is struggling with a still raging and uncontrolled autoimmune disease, the depression and fear related to that, as well as the fear "monster" that has plagued me as long as I can remember. You know your own disabilities---or even sins, as fear is mine. Sometimes these disabilities are strong enough to cause enough havoc in our lives that others cannot help but know and notice, but many times we manage to stuff them down deep enough inside that others do not know. We put up this front of a perfect life, a life that nothing ever has anything wrong with it.
 I do not think that is how we are supposed to live in this terrible, broken world. We are a body in Christ...and a body that functions properly takes care of all its various organs. The heart feeds the entire body with blood...but that blood is beyond useless if the lungs do not provide it with oxygen...and the blood is poisonous without the liver and kidneys cleaning it constantly....and the blood is also useless without the nutrients provided from the digestive tract...and all of these things still rely on each other to get that precious blood supply. Is it any wonder that Jesus said that He is the bread, He is drink, He is blood---that He provides everything we ever need? We cannot live without Him foremost above all things, but there is another point to the fact we are the body.

Adults, as I have learned, do not feel that they must always keep struggles a secret, but there is still often a wide circle of secrecy about most things.
That is a deep shame, I believe, as the more open I am about my struggles with anxiety, depression (while these had abated before more recently) and now a chronic illness, which has given past monsters a big opening, provides others with an opening. A chance to share their own battle stories, what God has done for them, how He has provided comfort or even a full out salvation from some trial. The more we share our battles with, say, "infections" of sins and struggles of whatever magnitude, the more we share how God is with us, or show others the love of God, the more the Blood circulates; the more the wonderful Glory of God lights the world and shines for us. 

Oh, my friends...one of the best things that happen for me are getting the chance to speak to people about struggles and how God is with them. Nothing lightens my soul as hearing the great and glorious ways in which God has held people. He does indeed use our disabilities with great glory (especially when we ask Him to, as then we are inviting Him into our lives).

I read this passage last night from a devotional because I was feeling so depressed and sick; honestly I could not hold my Bible or even prop it up because of my hands, but this book was light. 

Abundant Life, Nancy Gurthie 
"When you ask Me to bless your plans, I wonder if you really know what you are asking for. To be blessed is to experience and know more of Me. To ask me to bless your life and your efforts is to invite Me into the center of them. That is the essence of blessing, the joy of it....To be blessed is to be deeply content in Me...."

When we are in trials we ask God to bless us---and while I do not doubt that God provides many, many blessings, I know too that it is wonderful and makes things bearable to have God there, right in the midst of our disabilities. By our sharing our disabilities with others, we spread how loving our God is in the face of our hard times. We did, after all, pick this life for ourselves in many ways...it is however, so very amazing, wonderful and overwhelming that our King and Father is willing to rock us in His arms constantly. May we all be blessed beyond our greatest dreams---having our God right in the midst of everything we do and face.