This blog was written by a articulate and very wise student that I've met in my work as a campus pastor.
It deals with the question of having faith as a person with disabilties. It's an honest look inside the soul of someone, like many Christians with disabilties, who has to live and adapt in this world as a child of God.
But beyond that, it's a story that all of us, disabled or not, can reflect on and learn from.
Earlier this afternoon, while taking a break from studying, I found an item in my purse that I ended up thinking about after reading a few things from On The Level, and something told me to go and look for this little pocket reminder, and after only a moment or two of looking, I found it in a small pouch where I keep things I feel are important for me to carry because of the meaning they have, and this little pocket reminder was one of those items.
This small rectangular piece of metal was given to me as a graduation gift from my former pastor who I’m still in contact with, and he told me the reason for giving this particular message to me, which I will divulge in a moment. He explained that I prayed almost every evening after choir practice, and he wanted me to continue to do so, even though there were so many times when I couldn’t be there because of me going away for nine months, and dealing with evening classes during the times when they would practice.
This small pocket reminder has the word, “Pray”, written on the front of it, and engraved on the back is 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5 Verse 17, which says, “Pray without ceasing.”
It meant a lot to me when he told me what was written on it, but now that I look at it again, it has a deeper meaning for me, and as a disabled person, I’ve been told to pray for and forgive those who are ignorant and who don’t see me for me, but see me as a blind person who’s in college and who should be praised above everyone else because of doing so much in order to try and pass my classes and do the work involved with it, when it’s really just one simple word, which is adaptation.
Every professor has a different way of handling things, and I always have to end up adapting to his or her style of learning, and that’s when I have to end up praying for and forgiving those around me who are ignorant about the potential people like me have since not a lot of people who are in my shoes go to college. That’s correct, because only about 25% of blind people actually end up going to college and getting jobs because they want to push for it, and want to live a life on their own instead of having to allow people to hold their hands every day in order to go through life day by day, but I have a feeling that this statistic is slowly changing, and it’s people like me who want to see that change take place, and that’s but one out of several reasons of why I want those who look upon me to realize that I don’t want to be defined by my disability, but the world can’t be changed all at once, and this is where the word, “Pray”, comes into play. For those who’ve been looked at by just their disabilities and nothing more, this is something that’s easier said than done, and it goes for me as well, but I sometimes wonder if prayer is our only solution to the problem, along with forgiving them through God’s help and guidance, because it’s by his grace that he forgives us for every wrong we’ve done in our lives.
There are times when I feel like I’ve failed him, and other times when I feel as though I’m completely fallen and can’t get up because of what people want to put on my back, when being blind, having a boyfriend, and being in college is enough for one person to handle and worry about. A close friend of mine told me to only worry about those three things, and to allow God to let everything else fall into place, and the one prayer he told me to say before anything else is, “God, who am I before you?”
He told me I’d get an answer from God, and it may not be something I’d like or want to hear, but I know if I listen for his word and his response, I’ll know what I need to do in order to better myself in his eyes, and as a Christian. So, with the words on this pocket reminder in mind, I leave with this hope that all of us, including those who are ignorant of us to keep praying, and through God, forgiving those who turn away from us since they don’t seem to notice who we truly are as people, and just see the disability.
- Sarah Stanford
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