I got an email today that spoke of a man who is mentally challenged and how he will always see the world through the eyes of a child. I’ve read this particular email before, but it got me thinking about how the disabled, mentally or physically, see the world differently.
I told you in my last post that I went to a Christian camp, for disabled adults, at the end of June. This was my fifth year attending. I have learned so much from the people I have met at these camps.
I haven't always been in this wheelchair. I've married and had children, but many of these people have been disabled from birth and have not been able to marry or have children. One man, a good friend of mine, was a healthy, normal teenager, until some boys beat him up bad enough that there was permanent brain damage. This man is a great example to me. He has every reason to be bitter, angry, and disappointed with God and with life, but I see such determination, acceptance, and joy in him. He is such an encouragement to me, at camp and daily through the Internet.
These disabled adults have taught me many things. They have taught me to be thankful for what I have and not to dwell on what I have lost. They have taught me to not feel so self-conscious about my disability and the strange things I have to use and wear (support hose, special ankle wraps, wheelchair, catheter bottle, etc.). They have shown me acceptance, love and understanding. When I am at camp, I never feel ignored or different. They understand.
Many of the adults at camp have Cerebral Palsy. They have problems speaking and sometimes I don’t get what they are saying the first time or even the second, but they never get angry with me, they just calmly say it again until I understand. They have taught me patience and how to slow down.
I need to tell you about George. He is one of my special camp friends. I have known George since my days of working at the residence at Inspiration Ministries (then Christian League for the Handicapped) 30 years ago. George has Cerebral Palsy. He is very hard to understand, which means you really have to take the time to listen to him. He pushes himself around in his wheelchair using his feet. His movements are spastic and hard to control. And, I have never met a man so full of God’s love and so willing to share what he has with others.
George informed this year that he is 73. Imagine 73 years trapped in that body. 73 years of thoughts and feelings and insights that can’t be expressed, but George is an amazing, joyful, patient man. He gives what he can and never bemoans not being able to do more. For years, he pushed a lady around the residence. Yes, him, in his wheelchair, pushing a lady friend, in her wheelchair, because it was hard for her to do it herself.
George can no longer live at the residence. He has to be tube fed now and they can’t do that, so he had to go to a nursing home. He still comes to the residence and camp though, and he is still the amazing, joyful, patient man I have known all these years.
When George asked me to guess his age, I said 62. He got this sweet, amazed look in his eyes and laughing said, “Thank you!” (In that groaning way he has of talking). He found humor in my guessing so young. When he did that he reminded me that inside that body, that looks broken and disabled, lives a wonderful, caring, brilliant, and funny man. I can’t wait to see George in heaven, healthy and whole.
I can’t wait to see all my camp friends in heaven. We’ll laugh and dance and rejoice before the throne of God. We will praise the One who died to make us whole. Until then, we will live whole, spiritually, even as we live the present in broken bodies.
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