Life is about what happens in your heart

Life is not about your limbs working, your eyes seeing, ears hearing, or your brain thinking. Life is about what happens in your heart.

If there is anything I have learned from my experiences with my disability, it’s the lines above. It’s the best way to sum up everything, at least for me. Sure, my life would not be what it is if not for my abilities. But what I have gained personally from using those abilities in my experiences is what has made my life meaningful.

As I read the book, Unexpected Guests at God’s Banquet, which is about the inclusion of people with disabilities in churches, the challenge of the church is clear to me. In interacting with people with disabilities the church must purposely turn from what the outside world views as important - physical and mental ability – and to the spirit, or heart of the person. It’s a call to return to what the church is supposed to be about.

Let’s be honest. When people look at people with disabilities, they have to recognize their frailties as human beings. It’s a reality check, that although we are made in God’s image, fearfully and wonderfully made, we are not gods ourselves. We are not immortal. Our bodies can and do fail us.

Reactions are mixed when people come into contact with people with disabilities for the first time. Out of fear, some avoid people with disabilities with the belief the disability is transferable. The view that disability comes from Sin sounds outdated, but it is still out there. Others automatically assume the person with the disability is enduring great suffering as a disabled, incomplete person. From this perspective some believe people with disabilities are either super heroes who achieve despite themselves, or are in need for others to do everything for them in order to ease their suffering. The worst reaction people have to people with disabilities is just ignoring them. People will stare, realize this, and then act as if they saw no one at all. Not being granted the acknowledgement of existence, as if not human, is by far the worst.

Again, life is what happens in the heart.

It is true, people with disabilities can suffer, but not always in ways people think. The media, and movies have played the idea up the idea we suffer because of our disability. The truth is not quite that simple. True, for people with disabilities doing ordinary things is harder. Reading may be more difficult. Buildings may not be accessible. Communication may be nearly impossible. Yet, as much as accommodations make life easier, its not their limitations that they really suffer from. It’s the fear they see in a strangers eyes. Being ignored as they pass someone in the hall. Hiding their disability to friends or even family members for fear of being ignored as an outcast. Our condition is not what we suffer from as so much as to how others treat us. In my own personal experiences with my disabilities, and my interaction with other people with disabilities, what eases this type of suffering are the people that support, love, and share with them. The ones who want you to experience their lives with them.

The fact is the suffering of a person with a disability is more a matter of human interaction rather than a condition. If a person only encounters pity, fear, and is ignored, it is not surprising that they would feel as if they have no life at all because their heart would experience despair, sadness, and loneliness. Such treatment would cause the person’s identity to become their disability. When a person is loved, encouraged, accepted, they can work through their challenges, accept failures, make mistakes and feel like a whole person. A disability is a trait, and nothing more. They simply feel alive with their heart filled with joy, hope, and love. Life is what happens in the heart.

My vision is that the church ought to be the place where people with disabilities find such acceptance. Follow Jesus’s example to seek them out, and love them for what they are: part of God’s Creation. People, regardless of a disability or not, feel more alive because their heart is happy, full of joy and love. If the church wants to have people with disabilities as part of its church, it must first open its heart to them. It then must work to become a source of acceptance, and love for all. And once all its members’ hearts are filled with joy, the church itself will feel alive.

If the church ever is able to do that, then maybe it will begin to influence society rather than let society influence it.