Two Things Can Be True: Disability, Healing, and a Vulnerable God
Photo by Rollz International on Unsplash
This post should have been done months ago. I was all set to write about creating inclusive interpretations of healing narratives. My main message, you ask? Disability is a social construct, meaning it’s an identity that we create through negative attitudes and systemic barriers to inclusion. It doesn’t need to be “healed,” because much of the negative effects of disability can be ameliorated through concerted efforts to create welcoming spaces, physical or otherwise.
But then all hell broke loose.
I was diagnosed with another hernia and proceeded to be hospitalized three times in two months. My intestine was pushing through my abdominal wall and stopping food from digesting properly, requiring emergency treatment. Meanwhile, my friend’s toddler was diagnosed with a rare, neurodegenerative disease that will eventually kill her.
I believe that we can end a lot of disability stigma by being intentional about the stories we tell and the language we use.
Over the last several months, all the work I had done to come to terms with my body evaporated. I could no longer say that my disability was difficult primarily because of social prejudice, as I was living with a daily reminder that my health could take a turn at any time. Moreover, it felt like a slap in my friend’s face to argue that we need to rethink healing narratives because disability isn’t a bad thing. It quite literally is ruining their lives.
In the midst of my existential crisis, I searched for some sort of way to reconcile two truths. On the one hand, I experienced a lot of suffering as a child thinking that I was in a wheelchair because I wasn’t “faithful” enough. I had spent my early years convinced that Jesus was bound to return any time. The fact that I couldn’t walk or play like other kids didn’t matter because all I had to do was bide my time until He came back. It didn’t hit me until I was seven that I couldn’t take the stories literally, and that I would feel the grief and pain of social exclusion for the foreseeable future.
I spent many years feeling frustrated that a God who was good would let people suffer in an unjust world. It wasn’t until I was in college that I began learning about liberation theology and rethinking the narratives. I resonated with an interpretation that Jesus used touch to bring outsiders into community, and the physical healing was more directed at the disbelieving crowd. This did wonders for my self-esteem; deep down, I still truly believe that the most painful parts of my disabled experience are because the world was not built with me in mind. On the other hand, there are undeniably times when my body fails me. No amount of support or flexibility can change that. And while most disabilities can still be managed with a full life, some are so insidious you can’t help but pray for a miracle.
As you can imagine, no magical epiphany came. Frustrated, I ranted to my therapist about feeling like a fraud for having espoused disability acceptance when here I was hating my life. After listening patiently, she remarked, “Have you considered that two things can be true at once?”
What one person finds comforting might be hurtful to another; sometimes the best response is silence.
I wrestled with that question for many months. I tend to be a bit of a black-and white thinker, preferring to categorize things into neat little boxes. But as much as I was desperate to find the answer, something that would make everything around me make sense, it was arrogant and dangerous to pretend I had one.
So here’s my truth: I believe that we can end a lot of disability stigma by being intentional about the stories we tell and the language we use. That starts with the way we talk about the Bible. I was recently in church when the Gospel text was the paralyzed man. As we were listening to the part where his friends were lowering him through the roof, my dad whispered, “This is a story about accessibility. That man’s friends dug through a roof just so he could see Jesus!” With that one comment, he shifted my attention from the dreaded “Your faith has made you well” to the power of friendship. What other re-imaginings are we missing? How can we open our language to encompass the many ways people come together and worship?
When people attempt to tell me well-meaning things like, “In Heaven, you will be healed,” it implies that I’m somehow broken. It assumes that my disability is so awful that I can’t possibly have a good life. But more importantly, why shift our thinking to heaven when there is so much work we can do in this life to promote inclusion and break down barriers? If we work to create a more accessible world, less people would feel like they need to be healed.
I don’t mean to imply that praying for healing is wrong. I know several people with chronic pain that look forward to a time they don’t hurt. What I’m suggesting is that working toward pain management that maximizes quality of life is not synonymous with eradicating disability entirely. We need to remember to leave space for everyone’s personal journey, especially grief. What one person finds comforting might be hurtful to another; sometimes the best response is silence.
A colleague of mine asked me why I stay in the faith when it can be so painful for me. As much as I wish I could cite a deeply personal relationship with God or a deep-seated sense of peace, that wouldn’t be an honest answer. At the crux of my tenuous, mustard-seed sense of faith is a line from the movie Selma. In the film, Dr. King visits a father whose son was murdered in a protest. He says to the grieving man: “There are no words to soothe you…but I can tell you one thing for certain. God was the first to cry.” Whether or not this was a real quote, it encapsulates what I imagine God’s core characteristic to be: vulnerability. I personally don’t want a God that’s some sort of chess master planning out every move of our lives. I don’t need to be part of a divine plan. I need a God who understands the injustices of the world and feels my grief. I need a God who never leaves me, even in my darkest hour.