Where do people with disabilities fit into God's Kingdom?

A friend of mine shared this on Facebook. Since some of you don't "Facebook"---MOM---I feel pretty strongly about passinig it on so everyone reads it. 


But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” — Luke 14:13-14


From what we read and what we know from the Bible, Jesus spent the majority of His ministry, caring for the sick, the hurt, the disabled. If we are to truly be like Him, if we are to truly be His hands and His feet, to put shoe leather on our faith, we need to follow that example. Sitting quietly in our comfortable pews is no longer an option. We must stop focusing on the disability a person has, stop thinking that it’s only that group over there, because we are all disabled in one way or another. We all have something about us that we know doesn’t “measure up”. Who among us would like that part of us to be highlighted, to be emphasized, to be the focus of who we are? Or do we want to be seen for the entirety of who God made us? We all have abilities that we bring to the throne of God, but we all also have brokenness that we bring to the cross. So, why are we only seeing potential in those whose brokenness we can’t see, when what we should be doing is looking at the possibilities every person has, through Jesus’ eyes? We now have a responsibility, to refocus on the part of the word disABILITY that really matters- Ability.

We are all in need of grace-not a single one of us can get there on our own. Some of us have hidden disabilities that we can more easily hide and pretend aren’t there, but they are. So, are we really that different from those of us with more outwardly apparent disabilities, just because we can see theirs, while we quietly hide our own? Do you remember that we are all part of one body-each with a purpose and each with equal meaning? The truth and beauty of God’s mercy, is that He doesn’t disqualify people from the gift of His sacrifice, based on IQ, how someone looks or how they perform in life or in society.

Why do we forget that He doesn’t call the equipped? He equips the called and we are ALL called to His service in one way or another. So, when there are families out there that want to go to church but can’t, because there is no place for them or their children, that is not ok with me. When the divorce rate for these families as hovering at 85%, that is not ok with me. When 1 in 91 children (which is the current statistic for an Autism diagnosis) are forced to watch others do, while they have to sit on the sidelines, that is not ok with me. It shouldn’t be ok with any of us. If we are going to talk about real people, real life…this is it! This is as real as it gets and we can no longer sit here and say that this part of our body is not needed. God makes that very clear….and so should we!

The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor….But God has combined the member of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other . 1 Cor. 12:21-23a, 24b-25

By Christi Armstrong