A Rant About Faith and Emily

I have a confession.

I’m not always an upbeat, optimistic and life-affirming person. There are days when it takes every ounce of energy I have just to get myself out of bed in the morning, get ready for work and to handle the fundamentals of my daily life. Living as a paraplegic, double amputee with spina bifida is hard. It’s exhausting. Sometimes, it’s completely and utterly frustrating. There are days, an increasing number as I get older, when my body betrays my mind and my ability to do doesn’t match up with my desire to do.

There are days when I truly feel disabled.

I’ve been having more of these days than usual, mostly a result of changes in my work schedule and the recent death of one of my primary physical supports. I still keep a schedule that boggles the mind of many of my friends with work, ministry, writing, film criticism and child rights activism all having major roles in my daily life.

However, lately I’ve been struggling and, for the first time in a long time, when I look in the mirror these days I see someone who is “disabled.”

I was sitting in a recent church function feeling particularly disabled. I was hurting physically, my hygiene was poor and my energy was depleted. Truthfully, I didn’t want to be there. However, when it comes to the children in our church I always make a greater effort than usual to be supportive because, well, we have awesome children and youth. I was sitting there tired, a little embarrassed and not feeling well.

Then, she looked at me. She smiled. She giggled actually. LOUDLY.

“She” was one-year-old Emily.

The church program continued, but for the better part of the next 30-45 minutes Emily’s attention seldom strayed from me. I would look away and look back. She’d be looking directly at me. Even before the program was over, Emily wandered over to me in that way that a one-year-old can wander and stood next to my wheelchair. She curiously looked all around the wheelchair, then looked back at me and smiled again. This continued for several minutes, minutes during which I began to realize that suddenly I felt less disabled, less dirty and less pain.

As I get older, I find myself once in awhile having to deal with those creeping doubts. There are days when the pain is so severe and the daily challenges so intense that I find myself just wanting to crawl into a hole and hibernate until it’s all over. I question God, sometimes fervently and not in the kindest of language. “How can I possibly minister when there are days I can barely get dressed?,” I’ll find myself pleading.

Proving once again to have both a sense of humor and infinite wisdom, God this day placed into my period of darkness and doubt the innocence of a small child. With only a smile and a gentle presence, young Emily became one of God’s wisest and most loving teachers. She became a reminder that serving God and living a faithful life isn’t about being able to walk or talk or care for oneself. Serving God and living a faithful life is about being able to surrender and love and, with arms open wide, love someone who is dirty, broken, poor or simply different. Emily became my reminder that my ministry isn’t dependent upon having a body that functions normally or on my ability to be completely independent. My ministry, I believe, is about being strong through vulnerability and about showing just how much joy can radiate through this body that so often feels broken and disheveled.

In the book of Luke, Jesus admonishes those who would turn away the children and, taking it even further, says “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Emily, by simply showing up and smiling and loving unconditionally, reminds brings this Scripture vividly to life and also reminds me that just as I enter the kingdom like a child I must also serve in ministry with that same honesty, openness, vulnerability and surrender. If Emily, a young child still completely dependent upon her parents for virtually every aspect of daily life, can be such a shining example of God’s love then how can I possibly doubt my ministry? How can I possibly turn my back on any child of God?

There are days I hurt, I struggle and I can barely function. Can I really still be the minister that God wants me to be? Thanks to the innocent smiles of one-year-old Emily, I finally remembered that God says “Yes!”