As a pastor and public speaker, I know the importance of story-telling as one of the most powerful forms of art. The ability to weave words together to create a tapestry of images that inspire the mind and stir the soul is artistic. I believe that in many ways my autism has given me this precious gift, which is why I want to share it with the world and with the church.
Our faith is a faith of story-telling. The Bible is a collection of stories about a community, and their collective pursuit toward God. Each week in worship we share these stories. We share insights and information about the people of the Bible and we often share stories about people with disabilities found in the biblical text. The challenge that I have often run into with sharing stories of the disabled from the biblical text is that we often teach the disabled as object lessons, and not subjects of God’s affection.
The story of our society and the values that it holds dear are shaped by non-disabled people. This is also true in the church. Everything from our worship services, to our songs, to our sermons are shaped predominantly by those who do not share the experiences of the disability community. For many in the Church, especially the pastors and ministry leaders, disability is a foreign concept. People with disabilities struggle to enter a community that has not considered their perspectives and experiences. Leaders who have never been personally impacted by a physical, developmental, or intellectual disability, don’t normally have the disabled on their radar. For many, disability is a strange new world, and as Benjamin Conner says, “It is our inability to handle strangeness and difference that leads us to allow impairments to become more disabling.”
So how does the church enter the world of the disabled? How can the church lead the charge of real change? By embracing the stories of disabled people and their experience with God, because their perspective can provide a profound understanding of God.
“Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip.” Genesis 32:30-31 NLT
Following a brief battle with God, and a subsequent injury rendering him disabled, Jacob becomes the subject of a very important lesson about listening to the stories of the disabled. Jacob had been face to face with God and he was able through his experience with God, disability, and faith, to describe God in such a way that didn’t exist prior to his disability.
I am now approaching six years since being diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Six years of learning. Six years of growing. Six years of changing. Six years of wrestling with God, my faith, and my disability. While my faith in God is still central to my life as a husband, father, and pastor, I have come to realize that my understanding of God is ever expanding, and sharing my experience with the God who uses disabled people for His glory has helped contribute to the body of Christ in ways that are transforming.
This is why hearing the stories of faith from the disability community are important. Their experiences with God add depth, width, and a wealth of wisdom about faith and theology that comes from a place of seeing God and naming that experience from a different perspective.
Here are a few ways to listen and learn about faith from the disability community.
Sacredness
The practice of faith when living with a disability can profoundly impact a sense of sacred. Sacred is anything that is set apart for special consideration or special use. When you live a life of faith with a disability, sacred may look different. Routines, rituals, and rites of passage take on a different and sometimes deeper meaning when your life is impacted by a disability.
Struggles
Faith is a journey of wrestling with God and wrestling through the struggles of life. For persons with disabilities, this often takes on a new meaning. The Bible is filled with stories of people who struggled and stumbled through the faith walk, but there is something that can be learned from persons impacted with disability. Jacob wrestled with God, sustained a disability, but it was his unique struggle that gave him a unique experience. People with disabilities experience a God who cares for them in ways that others may not. Listen to their stories of seeing God’s hand at work in their life.
Strengths
Faith with a disability has a way of highlighting God’s strength in ways that may otherwise go unnoticed. The Apostle Paul is a great example of someone how learned how to experience God’s grace in a profound way because of his unnamed disability. Not only did he learn to have a new perspective about God’s strength, he also had a new perspective of his own strength. “That is why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:10 NLT.
Suggestions
Learn to seek out the suggestions of how to live a life of faith from persons with disabilities. Daily, they live with an utter dependence of God that is often awe-inspiring and equally as convicting. Their stories are not stories of faith that simply need our attention; theirs are stories of faith that can help us all make some much needed adjustments in ourselves.
Lamar Hardwick is the pastor of Tri-Cities Church in Atlanta. For more information visit his website at www.autismpastor.com.
