Hungry for God: why does God allow disabilities? How can God use someone with a disability? God and the Disabled

I remember the first time my young daughter saw a person with a disability.

The little girl was about her age, and instead of running and playing like the other five-year-olds, she moved awkwardly with the aid of clumsy metal crutches. Instead of being straight and strong, her tiny legs were twisted and frail. “I feel sorry for her,” my daughter whispered, her sad eyes meeting mine in a sympathetic glance.

“Her body may look different on the outside,” I told her, “but she’s just like you on the inside. I bet she’d make a great friend.” Emboldened, my daughter sidled over to the newcomer, and within minutes the girls were chattering happily.

Over the years God has blessed us with many friends with disabilities. They challenge, inspire, and teach me. They humble me, too. Here are

Four Ways God Uses People with Disabilities:

1. God uses them to model his love.
David is a mentally challenged patient of mine. When he walks through the door, everyone in the office knows it. In a booming voice, he tells the receptionist, “You’re lookin’ good!” He cheerfully asks the assistant, “How you doin’ today?” He consistently affirms my boss, saying, “You’re my favorite dentist.” And with embarrassing frankness, he often tells me, “I love you.” He bestows equally fervent love on the mailman, the cashier at the grocery store, and the woman sitting beside him in the doctor’s office. David reminds me that God loves everyone, and if I am to have the mind of Christ, I should too.

2. God uses them to teach us. Kyle is a college-aged young man who is learning disabled. Every class he takes is challenging. An assignment his classmates complete in an hour takes Kyle three. He spends long afternoons in the tutoring lab and many evenings at home studying while his friends are out socializing. Kyle shames me with his determination and perseverance. I think of him often when I’m tempted to whine about something challenging or complain when a task takes longer than I expect.

3. God uses them to accomplish his purposes in our lives. During the last year of my grandmother’s life, she suffered from dementia. This cruel condition gradually robbed her of the ability to think, remember, and function. My daughters and I would drive two hours round trip to visit her every Monday.

Some days she’d be awake, and we’d talk to her, trying to string together a conversation around her disconnected responses. Other times we’d spoon her favorite pudding or ice cream into her mouth, taking pleasure in watching her eat. Some days we’d arrive only to find her asleep or unresponsive. Often, it took everything in me to load my daughters into the car and make that drive, not knowing what awaited us.

Many people viewed my grandmother’s existence as purposeless. They felt she was no longer a contributing member of society. I knew better. God was using her life to impact mine. Those Monday visits built my character. The chance to help care for my granny taught me that we don’t serve people in order to gain something in return; we serve them because it’s the right thing to do. My daughters, who will one day care for me, learned how family members care for each other.

4. God uses them to glorify himself.
I met Jamie at a writer’s conference last year. Blind since birth, Jamie feels the call of God to be a writer. A vibrant Christian, she writes about the lessons God is teaching her on her blog, Encouraging Women.

My disabled friends remind me of the biblical account in John 3. When the disciples came upon a blind man in the temple, they asked the Lord, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?”

“Neither,” Jesus said, “this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3).

Jamie and my other “disabled” friends are living testimonies of what God can do with lives fully surrendered to him. As I watch God use them to model his love, teach us, accomplish his purposes in our lives, and bring himself glory, I marvel at how he places “his treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Cor. 4:7).

May we all be fortunate enough to be similarly “disabled.”

What have you learned from someone with a disability? Leave a comment below and join the conversation. If you're reading by email, click here to comment.

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