Show of hands: How many of you have
ever played in a casual sports league like they have for golf or bowling? Years
ago I was on a bowling team – bowling is about as close as I ever came to
sports. You see, I’m southern-raised, so pretty to me meant perfectly coiffed,
perfect make-up, perfectly dressed and sitting quietly. I never saw anything
pretty in sweating or exercising. Of
course, now I don’t see anything pretty in my upper arms.
Anyway, when I was in college I was
on a bowling league. After about a week I learned I had a handicap; a
predetermined number that the league added to my score every time I played. I
never really got to know that much about it, but someone determined the degree
of my disability in the sport … and stepped in to help out. I figured the
league (or whoever) knew how hard it was to be a perfect bowler. It didn’t
matter how bad I was – they compensated for what I needed. I gladly took the free
points every week, happy for the help.
See, a handicap is assistance in recognition
of a disability. We use the two terms inter-changeably, but the handicap is the
help, depending on the type or severity of the disability. There are lots of different types of
disabilities – mental, for which we have medications; emotional, for which counseling
and introspection can help; physical, which has a lot of assistance; and
spiritual, which I think is by far the worst – being separated from God. It
affects all of us from birth and none of us measure up. There is only one
solution for spiritual disability, and oddly, that solution also helps in the
other disabilities.
Though I didn’t know it back in
college, I was living with an emotional disability – one that I think is common
to a lot of people. It was how I felt about myself. I’d always seen myself as a
handful, not a troublemaker, but a strong personality. And if you remember, my
focus was always on being ‘pretty,’ and a strong personality didn’t fit the
definition of who I thought I should be.
So I always felt ‘less-than,’ or just not quite good enough, no matter
what. Because of this, when my grandmother would comment that I was too messy
and that no man would ever want to marry me because of it, I really took it to
heart.
I was a teenager the first time I
saw ‘Taming of the Shrew,’ and I totally identified with Katherine, the lead
character that no one wanted to marry because of her brusque personality. There
is a scene near the end of the movie where her husband, to make a point about
how he was the boss, calls the sun the moon, and she chooses to agree with him.
From that point on, she is the best wife in all the land and all his friends
wish they had married her. How romantic! I determined that I needed to marry a
strong man, one who could make me doubt whether I saw the sun or the moon in
the sky. I truly saw myself as a shrew.
Fast-forward a number of years,
away from college and bowling alleys and into motherhood and a troubled
marriage, and one day, I learned that I might have a physical disability –
Multiple Sclerosis. In reality, I’d been dealing with MS really since I was
about 17 years old. At that time there were all these tests and
surgery and everything, but no real answers. Now, at 31 with two little boys at
home, I had trouble controlling my legs, I had this weird numbness all over my
body – it was like I was covered in plastic, and I had no energy to do
anything. Again, there were lots of tests and speculation, but no real
answers. So while I looked for the
source of the problem a couple of times, I couldn’t find the solution. Instead,
I just got stubborn and told myself to ignore my weird body. Besides, my
husband seemed pretty certain that my problems were because I was spoiled and
lazy. I just wasn’t tough enough. I told myself I was in control as long as
there wasn’t a diagnosis. In reality, of course, I just didn’t know for sure
what was wrong.
Through all of this time, I had a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had realized my spiritual disability
and asked Jesus into my heart when I was 11 years old, and I always knew He
loved me and wanted to have a relationship with me. I still remember the relief
I felt the moment I acknowledged that I wasn’t perfect and needed Jesus in my
life. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties, though, that I really started
getting more personal with Him. I had married the first guy I ever dated
(remember – Gran had told me no one would be interested so I thought I’d better
keep the one who was,) a guy with a very strong personality who seemed up to
the challenge of being my husband. However, we were not on the same page,
spiritually. In fact, it seemed that the fervor with which I ran to Christ was matched only by my
husband’s fervor at running from Him.
We weren’t playing by the same set of rules, and the rules I was trying to live
by left me vulnerable to some manipulation that was not part of God’s plan for
marriage. There was quite a dichotomy in my life – the things I learned at
Bible Study and from my Christian friends, and the way things were in my home.
No matter what I did, I just wasn’t good enough to please my husband the way I
thought I Christian wife should, even when I did my best to believe that the
sun was the moon. Ladies, it got to where I wasn’t sure of anything, not my
health, not my sanity, not my own worth as a person, not if my husband loved
me. I eagerly sought professional counseling and it helped me to identify the
things that I controlled, and the things I didn’t. It also helped me see that I
was probably wrong about my self-image. Outside of my home and away from my
husband, Jesus was there, and His message was always the same … I was precious
in His sight. Finally, I had to leave my marriage.
Ladies, if I had married more the
way God had planned, it might not have come this to point, but in order to
survive mentally and emotionally I chose to remove myself from the negative
influence. But once I was away from it,
I was better able to accept that if I am precious in His sight, I must be OK. Over time, I started identifying some of
the good things that make me who I am. I have to tell you, it was a little odd
at first, but slowly I learned to accept myself, the good and the bad, with grace. To a great extent, my emotional disability
was healed when I really embraced the
idea that God made me and loves me, just as I am.
My physical weirdness continued
through all of this, but I did my best to ignore it. If my right hand didn’t
work right, I did as much as I could with my left hand. None of the problems my
body posed lasted very long, so I learned not to get too upset about whatever
was going on. Eventually though, there was an incident that sent me to the
doctor. It was a bout of Optic Neuritis, where I went partially blind in one
eye. Sure enough, it is a common affliction that results in a MS
diagnosis. While many people are quite
stressed at being told they had MS, I was relieved. By the time I got the
diagnosis, I had been conversely wondering and ignoring what was wrong for 25
years. I had a lot of questions for the doctor, and learned that many things I
had lived with for a long time, like why I didn’t seem to be able to do as much
as other people could in a day, were all the result of having MS. It wasn’t
because I was lazy or melodramatic. It wasn’t something I could control.
After about a year I joined a group
of people who also had the disease. It is helpful to be with people who
understand some of the struggles that living with MS brings. I’ve learned a lot
from people about managing the disease, and even how it impacts different
people. We are very supportive and encouraging of each other, but there is also
a level of acceptance that you can only get in the company of people who
understand where you’re coming from. I also speak about my life with MS,
including doing stand-up comedy about it! Laughter is good medicine.
About two years after my diagnosis,
you know what I got? A handicapped sticker! There were no questions asked on
the part of my doctor; he didn’t wonder if I was disabled enough, or if I deserved
it – I just had to ask him for it.
It’s the same type of assistance I got when I was on that league – somebody
gave me a handicap - acknowledging that I have a disability.
So how does my physical disability
impact my life? It has closed some doors, to be sure. I have a limited amount
of energy – I could never work a 50 or 60 hour week, and in fact there are
times when I can do very little at all. And it is frustrating. I had dreams of
being a high-powered, well-respected corporate big-wig. I also love to
entertain in my home, but I’ve had to accept that I don’t have the energy to do
very much of that, certainly not at night. But it has also been good, in a way.
Do you remember the children’s song ‘Jesus loves Me?’ I have a real
understanding of the line ‘they are weak but He is strong,’ because there have
been many times when I’ve not had the strength to do what had to be done, but
I’ve done it. And like we all budget our money, I budget my energy. I make very
conscious decisions, every day, about what I spend my energy on. And too,
knowing my own limitations has made me more tolerant of others (which, frankly,
I needed.)
I wish I could stand here and say
that my physical problems and my low self-esteem were the only things I brought
to God to handle – but that’s not the case. I’ve made some bad choices and some
huge mistakes, most of them after I had accepted Jesus as my Savior. I have
also had tremendous losses and emotional pain that I endure only with His
assistance.
As I mentioned earlier, I had to
come to realize that I had some real spiritual
disabilities that I alone was completely incapable of rectifying if I
wanted to spend eternity with God in Heaven. God provided a handicap in the
form of His own Son, Jesus Christ, to accommodate my disability.
Ladies, we are all living with
disabilities of one form or another. Looking back on it, I’ve lived and am
living with most of them. Separation from God is the greatest disability of
all, and it is the only one that can be completely erased.
Spiritual disability keeps people
from having true peace, from living a full life, and ultimately, from spending
eternity with God. Some people spend a long time looking to identify the
problem – knowing that something isn’t right in their life. Others can just get
frustrated and decide to ignore it, but we know that isn’t the answer,
either. The Bible says “all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God.” To me, that means that God knows that it’s
impossible for us to bowl a perfect game – to measure up, and He’s provided us
a handicap, so that we might be permitted to have eternal life even though we
don’t deserve it. But Jesus isn’t like a bowling handicap, ladies.
Theoretically, I could practice and
improve my bowling score. However, I can never earn or practice my way into Heaven. That is something only Christ
can give, and He holds it out as a gift to every one of us, regardless of
whatever we’ve done or haven’t done.
It’s mind boggling, isn’t it?
Do you have a spiritual disability?
Maybe you just thought it was just the way it is and didn’t know there was help
available.
Perhaps you’ve known for awhile
that there’s something just not right, and maybe you’ve looked for the answer once
or twice.
Maybe you’ve just decided to try to
ignore it, because you’re sick of looking for a solution. I’m here to tell you
that there is a way to get some powerful assistance.
The first step is to recognize that
we are born sinners and we will never measure up on our own. Because God loved us and wanted to spend
eternity with us, he sent His son Jesus to make a way for us. Jesus was born of a virgin. God is His father. He lived a perfect,
sinless life and died on Calvary to pay the price for our sin. He rose again on
the third day so that we who put our trust in Him as payment for our sin might
have eternal life. If you recognize that
you will never measure up without Jesus, I encourage you to put your trust in
what He did and invite him into your life.
Jesus stands at the door of your heart, and knocks. He leaves the choice to you, you can answer the door, or not, but His greatest desire is to be welcomed into your heart. If after reading this, you have questions, or have prayed to let Him in, please email me at susans4Him@yahoo.com. I'd be happy to answer your questions and pray with you, anytime.
