Disability is a heart issue

I come from a country where someone sitting on a wheelchair is necessarily perceived as lower than the one standing. Literally, figuarately, socio-economically, whatever. He has no name, no significance, no identity save in that rusty wheelchair. He has already been written off as a loser, unfit for anything good. Some poor soul has to push his wheelchair and his life forward. Therefore ( and therefore ), someone walking by looks down upon him with pity. Almost instantly all of the beholder’s communicative devices begin to shrink and sink low. Eyes droop, smiles dip, heads hang low almost in shame for someone else’s estate.

I know that feeling. I used to do exactly the same. Until God took away a crib and placed a wheelchair into my arms.

Mothering a child with third degree spina bifida opened my eyes to the reality, my earlier assumptions being merely mirages. Some acquaintances around me hear my story and cheer me, “Boy, isn’t he the lucky one for having lovely parents like you?” Mirage. There are some others who hear it and are aghast, “You are not serious, are you? Will this not jeopardize your life?” Mirage. Did I ever tell you that a well known neurosurgeon who specialised in Hydrocephalus surgeries thumbed through my reports and suggested that I go back to a obstetrician instead of an orphanage? Mirage, mirage.

Truth is, my son is a gift handpicked by God for someone as unworthy as myself. This is the reality. The wheelchair is mine, my son stands very tall. Lest you think I portray a false sense of modesty, hear me out.

We often see the outward appearance and conclude that the inside must be hollow. The truth is quite the opposite. Real treasure always lies on the inside, not the outside. Have you ever wondered why rubies and diamonds are found under dark quarries and not above the blue skies? Or why honey is found inside a crevice, or pearls under the deep sea? Because if they were in obvious places, they would no longer be called a treasure. The same is true of people. Great people have to be unearthed. You won’t find them showing off. The most beautiful souls are not obsessed with dabbing powder on their faces. They are busy polishing their hearts.

Getting to know Abhi is like mining the deep for hidden treasures. There is much sparkling glory in him that has been fashioned in the dark places of life that only time and trial will reveal. His disability is physical, true, but more often than not, it is in the eye of the beholder. Truth be told, I often forget that he does have a disability! We do life as normally as everyone else. I must say, sometimes he does life better than many others.

Tuesday mornings, Abhi wheels around his scooter doing room service for our friends who come over for staff meetings. He politely takes their request, then scoots back with glasses of water and snacks. First sundays of every month, our church meets for luncheon at one of the member’s homes. The house is packed with twenty-some guests, and while all the food is gone, people are still hungry for some chatter. So, while they sit around, Abhi goes and picks up all the empty cups and plates with a cheer that alas! I do not always portray. People who see him on the outside give up on him, not so those who know him on the inside.

When I am tired, he kisses and massages my feet. When I am lonely, he comforts me with a warm hug. He always has a kind word, in and out of season. When I get angry with him for something, he speaks tenderly to me. Who taught this child the art of gentle persuasion? Or is it God whispering my wind to silence through a breeze so mellow as this?

He is ever thinking and praying for the ones who are have-nots. He barely owns his own. His friends come once and disappear for a while, but the next time they return, he gladly welcomes them instead of shutting them out. What child is this?

In the last few years of meeting my son, I have met some wonderful souls who are Abhi’s cheerleaders. A mother who first saw his condition and saw hope. A loving paediatrician who sees him as her own son and treats him with a tear tricking down her face. Grandparents who dote on him and pour their lives into him. A church family that has arms as wide for him as her doors are for hurting strangers. Friends who will knock on our doors to come and play with Abhi since he cannot always go and play with them. As his mother, I have the greater blessing of all those who count him more normal than his appearance warrants him.

Yet, I have also witnessed disability in the hearts of some who doubted him. Doctors whose hands hold promise of life yet who prophesy death. Relatives who were aghast at the new addition to their community. Cops who don’t permit the disabled through accessible paths unless they would climb steps and get scanned. Talking about steps, we climbed 3 floors of staircases up the court that declared our adoption decree.

Who is more disabled? My son who could not walk or the men who would not walk? Who is more disabled? An orphan child with arms wide open or the family that folds their arms in return? A child with blindness who walks by himself with his cane on a busy road or the guy who drives down the same, texting?A disabled boy who loves to serve or a fully-abled man slouching on his couch with no desire to work?

For God is fully able to carry him where he cannot go, but a sick heart who can help? It is the sick heart that is more disabled and in need of deeper, costlier treatment than a broken body. And there is One whose bleeding heart can heal even the sickest of hearts, because this heart no longer bleeds but beats with life-giving energy. This heart does not “call out” judgement on the regressive or ignorant but pities them. This heart does not troll the offender but gives him, even him hope. This heart pierced my self-sufficiency and higher estate by handing me a wheelchair and putting me to my place.

It is this very heart – the heart of Christ – that animates the treasure that is my beloved son, who lives in a disabled body.