We All Need Mobility Aids: Reconciling with Our Disabled Savior

“Then the Lord said to him, Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them deaf or mute, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak." -Exodus 4:11-12 Stop me if you've heard this one before, I didn't want to go on the Men's Retreat, though I'm so glad I did. This year's retreat seemed to be tailor-made for me. A retreat on Hope with a central focus on letting go and allowing God to do his work. This hope, however, was not your average understanding of that virtue. It was a hope built on our brokenness and the need for healing of that brokenness. All and all it was a worthwhile theme and a meaningful focus point for what I thought would be a deeply introspective personal retreat. And of course it was, though not in the way I expected.

The retreat allowed me to reconcile something that I have been thinking and praying about for the past year. Namely, I've come to realize that there is a tremendous difference between healing and curing. My disability is a large part of my everyday lived experience. It is an experience that most able-bodied people seem to look at with an air of pity and misunderstanding. Though, I can assure you there's nothing wrong with my body. It is the body that God gave me, and He knows it. My disability doesn't need to be cured, I don't need the ability to walk. I, on the other hand, do need to be healed. We all need to be healed. We all need to understand who God truly made us to be, not who we think the world wants us to be.

“But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts said, why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven or to say stand up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins-he then said to the paralytic-stand up and take your bed and go to your home." -Matthew 9:2-6 As Catholics we often think of The Cross of Christ as an instrument of suffering and sacrifice, which it is, though The Men’s Retreat helped me realize that it is also something much more. It is a key to understanding my disability and its relationship to my faith, as well as to Jesus, the God man who came to Earth to set us free from our sins. It may surprise you to realize that Jesus essentially disabled himself in order to come to Earth and redeem us. Dare I say, disability is Jesus's preferred state for humanity. We need to become disabled so that we can realize our need for Him. To put it in modern disability terms, Jesus is the best mobility aid we could possibly ask for. He also transforms anything he comes in contact with into a mobility aid as well. More precisely, the cross is transformed from an instrument of suffering into an avenue of hope. The cross is our accessibility key to a better life. It is the automatic door allowing us entry into eternity, showing us that disability does not equate to lack of worth. Let's place this metaphor firmly into the work of redemption. It's fascinating to note that as Jesus rises from the dead the wounds of crucifixion, reminders of his disabled state, are still present and accounted for. All our hope lies in the redemptive truth of The Resurrection, there is no sorrow in it, only life. So then, I wish to reflect on the glorious dignity of our disabled Savior. Disability is a fully redeemed, or in my case redeemable way of life. One full of purpose and drive, not suffering. Jesus does not  ask those with disabilities or chronic illnesses to just survive and await the eternity of Heaven. Far from it, He asked us to live to the fullest extent of our abilities. To live, and use him as our guide and aid in this wondrous journey of life. So, I am ready to go where He leads. I have my mobility device, do you have yours?

"As he walked along he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him.." - John 9: 1-5

-Jed, Lighthouse member