Pastor Kempton Turner, a father with a disabled child, will again be the keynote speaker at a special breakfast event for fathers at Grace Church in Eden Prairie.  It will be held on Saturday, October 17 at 9:00 a.m.

Kempton has a powerful personal testimony of God's sovereign goodness in giving him his child with significant disabilities.  And it is good for men to get together to encourage and build each other up!  The breakfast is also first-rate.

To register for this free event, contact Chuck Peterson at 952-361-9789 or by e-mail at chukkarn@infinityathome.net. Deadline is October 8, 2009

If you are still not convinced, please consider listening to an earlier presentation he made to fathers that can be found here.  After hearing him, you will want to attend!

For the past year several of us at Bethlehem Baptist Church have sought to express our joy in and dependency on a God who intentionally created some to live with disability.  That blog was hosted here as the BBC Disability Ministry blog.

This past week we introduced The Works of God as the new site for Bethlehem's disability ministry blog. 

We did so to improve accessibility for you.  All are welcome to read and to comment.  Please do so! 

We try to post almost daily, but I recommend using RSS or subscribing to have it sent to you via email.  That way, the content will come to you as it is posted.  Abraham Piper provided a very helpful tutorial on RSS here.  The buttons for email subscription and RSS can be found on the home page for The Works of God.

 We'll be posting identical content to both sites for a couple of more weeks.

We hope you find the new site useful.  More importantly, we seek to bring glory to our sovereign, good, righteous, merciful God.

 The author's own views are a composite of both characters' positions. (p. 67)

My antenna immediately go up on statements like that.  I worked on a college campus for nine years and learned that many faculty of the highest credentials live with fear of looking foolish before their colleagues.  Thus, some will argue over the smallest matter of definition or school of thought, becoming very skilled at cleverness and subtlety, and will never fully reveal what they believe about something.  

So, what am I to believe about this 'composite' of two positions? 

Self-deception appears to be the main problem, particularly if he believes he is being objective in creating an argument.  His dialogue quickly shows us where stands on a core moral issue that is central to the 'argument.' However, both of his characters agree on that moral issue.  Agreement means there is no substantive argument actually taking place.  

And if he knows what he is doing, that his dialogue really is just a nuanced conversation in support of a controversial (and I would add, horrendous) moral positioning and not an argument at all, than his above statement about a 'composite' is dishonest.

I am not arguing that he can't create his dialogue between two different sides of an argument.  Using such literary devices serves a useful purpose and can be very helpful.  I have also been watching different authors engage each other, such as Pastor John's The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright.  Pastor John clearly disagrees with N.T. Wright, but attempts to present Bishop Wright's arguments fairly.  Some have argued he didn't understand Wright completely - but at least we know what he believes and why he has engaged Bishop Wright.  I would suggest that this type of engagement is a much higher statement of respect for Bishop Wright than trying to play both sides to appear smart.

This notion - of living in nuance and subtlety, being able to illuminate on a subject without revealing where one stands, playing on the edges of two sides of an argument - is a powerful incentive to place intellectual engagement above righteousness and what God has to say about a subject.  And it leads to sin.  

After all, we are not called to be clever, but to place our trust in Jesus and be called by the world as foolish.

And when the subject is as serious as abortion and pre-natal screening, which is the point of the 'argument', disabled babies are placed in the cross-hairs for termination, no matter how one side argues against pre-natal screening.  It is, after all, just another morally acceptable choice; the two sides have already agreed on that.

Please, don't play games like this.  That choice is not morally acceptable. Reveal what you believe, no matter the cost, especially when real babies are being aborted because of disability.  The arguments should be just as stark and final as the termination of a pregnancy.

Tyler Kinney, a friend and colleague at Desiring God, writes and posts the weekly verse at FighterVerses.com.  

As he was posting this week's verses, Psalm 139:13-14, he remembered that I had made a connection between Psalm 139:13-14, Exodus 4:11 and John 9:2-3.  So, he brought it together under that great title above, Fearfully and Wonderfully Disabled.  And then he linked it all to my talk on disability and the Bible at the Children Desiring God conference earlier this year.

I'm going to use that title for something.  After I ask him, of course.

But his favorite part of the day is the enormous bus that will pull up directly in front of the house to transport him to his school, and then back again.  He loves the bus.  So it's pretty easy to get him going in the morning - a reminder that the bus is coming is usually enough to have him pop up from his bed.

He's been getting on that bus since he was three years old.  And every year I worry about the bus driver and the bus aides.  I won't let him on the bus with a sole adult, even with credentials and a clean track record - my son is just too vulnerable.   

So, every year I am confronted with my responsibilities to him as his dad, and the command to not be anxious:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7

I must do both: carry out my fatherly responsibilities of protection; and not be anxious about anything. This is not a balancing act.  

So, in a couple of hours, I'll put him back on that bus.  And pray like crazy. 

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Graduate Theological Education and the Human Experience of Disability represents scripture poorly.  It is one of the most disappointing books on theology and the Bible I have yet to read.

But there is one example of quoting scripture that is particularly problematic.  On page 9, in an article written by the late Harold Wilke, he has begun a discussion of the passage in Leviticus 21 which outlines 12 diseases or disabling conditions that would prevent one of Aaron’s descendants from becoming the high priest.

It is a difficult passage.  But when rightly understood as pointing to the perfect High Priest, Jesus, the difficulty melts away in the extraordinary goodness and beauty of God.  I may write on this as I did 2 Kings 5 at some point in the future.

Unfortunately, in a pivotal sentence in Leviticus 21:22, the proofreader completely blew it!  Here is what is in the book, quoting from the Goodspeed and Smith Translation:

He may at his God’s food, some of the most sacred as well as the sacred. . .

It should read:

He may eat his God’s food, some of the most sacred as well as the sacred. . .

In other words, God himself is guaranteeing that those descendants of Aaron who have disabling conditions may eat of God’s food, even the most sacred.  Several thousand years before the ADA was passed, God is making a legal statement about his creation with disabilities and specifically protecting their economic interests.  But you won’t see that in Wilke’s article because the proofreader missed an awkward sentence and didn’t double-check the scriptures for accuracy.

In God’s providence, I wonder if God wants that awkward sentence to be placed in Wilke’s article in that book.  Might at least some scholars (this is a book for graduate students) read the awkward sentence above and realize a mistake was made?  And in looking up the actual wording, become exposed to the power and wonder of a sovereign God?

I pray that is the case.  But overall, I hope nobody is reading that book.

Dianne and I both thought it was dumb.  Believe me when I say how happy I was that my wife and I agreed about that one!

So, we were left in an awkward place - what do you say when parents of other disabled kids are the ones forwarding it to you?  And how do you respond to this 'wonderful' poem when people without disabled children also forwarded it to us?

Unlike what was happening to me at church with people persistently quoting John 9, this was merely irritating.  I would smile and nod and change the subject.  Or not reply to the email.  It just didn't do anything for me.

But even here, God was displaying his mercy.  Our Paul was uniquely made, and so were we.  Some people found that poem helpful, even life changing.  We did not, but we could respect that others did.  The people who knew us and loved us specifically usually did not send us things like this.  The ones who did not know us sent it with the intention to be helpful.

Most of all, it pointed to how Jesus knows us absolutely.  Pastor John helpfully explained that knowledge in his recent sermon, Healed for the Sake of Holiness from John 5:

When you know Jesus, this is the kind of person you know. A person who knows you perfectly—knows everything about you, inside and out, and all you have ever felt or thought or done. “You discern my thoughts from afar. . . . Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether” (Psalms 139:2-4). The more you know about Jesus, the more precious this truth becomes.

This same Jesus used a poem by Martha Snell Nicholson to bring great comfort to my wife.  I found that poem beautiful as well, but not transforming like she did.  Jesus used my anger at people quoting John 9 to reveal much more about himself than I would have otherwise.  He really does know what's going to work and what isn't, and when, and under what circumstances - because he is sovereign over all things. 

Still, if you come across a 'great' poem or story or situation, pause just for a moment before sending it on.  Will this story help them treasure Jesus more?  Will this poem reveal the goodness of God in all circumstances?  Will it help put into real perspective what they are dealing with?

If you're not sure, I would err on the side of action and send it - the Holy Spirit has used all kinds of things to reveal who God is to us!  But if your second thought is, "this really isn't all that useful," you'll know what not to do in this case.  Or maybe God will reveal something even more helpful and useful for you to share, honoring your desire to help a family in need even before you ask for it.

1. We still long for and love beautiful things.  The intensity and the chaos and feelings of being overwhelmed by everything that is associated with disability do not (entirely) crowd out our appreciation for soul-enriching nourishment that comes from art and music and books and good conversation.
2. The Holy Spirit is powerful in his ability to use things like God-centered poetry to make much of God and help us see who God really is.  I believe the key words here are 'God-centered.' 
3. Dianne was touched by it because she was able to hear the sermon!  This meant that somebody else was caring for Paul at that moment.   The love and care provided to us as parents when people care for our children, as highlighted here, allows for many other important things to happen.

(God) has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. Ecclesiastes 3:11-14

Pastor John read this poem during a sermon.  When I first heard it I cried because it made me think of how God is really in control of everything and how he loves us personally and acts in our lives specifically and for specific reasons. Also, because of this poem I learned a bit about Martha Snell Nicholson, the author, and her life story is very inspiring too.

The Thorn
(a "mendicant" is a beggar)

I stood a mendicant of God before His royal throne
And begged him for one priceless gift, which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand, but as I would depart
I cried, "But Lord this is a thorn and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift, which Thou hast given me."
He said, "My child, I give good gifts and gave My best to thee."
I took it home and though at first the cruel thorn hurt sore,
As long years passed I learned at last to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn without this added grace,
He takes the thorn to pin aside the veil which hides His face.

--Martha Snell Nicholson

(Note: This poem was read during Pastor John's 2001 Sermon, "To Be a Mother is a Call to Suffer.")

She practices extreme patience with us.  There have been countless times over those years when something came up at the last minute - generally a child not feeling well - and we didn't (or neglected to) call or email her.  

She has never once complained about our behavior, even though we know it has inconvenienced her more than once.  And she loves our boy, who also never objects to going to church when she is with him. It is very sweet to see them together.

Like her parents, she treasures Jesus above everything, and she wants us to do so as well.  So, she puts up with us.  And God has used her to build up our faith, our endurance, and our trust in him.  I am grateful to God for her!  

Most of all, she lives out 1 Peter 4:8-9 for the Knight family:

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.

This couple did many wonderful things for us in the strength God provided them, and one of the most important things they did was include their children.

Their children had been taught very well about God's good creation, and they also had been taught very well about how to care for and enjoy babies.

So, while I would sit at their dinner table, arguing with their dad about how God in fact was not good and not right and not helpful and most certainly bad, and capricious and cruel, their children played with my baby boy.

They treated him like a baby boy. They figured out things that made him laugh.  They sang songs to them.  They made funny noises.  These four children surrounded that one child and actually enjoyed him.  Very few people actually showed any enjoyment in Paul.  Most people were a little frightened of him. Not these kids, ages 9 to 16 if I remember corrrectly.

God was at work in those four children as they played.  Even in the intensity of those early months of Paul's life, God was using their sweet, simple enjoyment to prevent my stoney heart from becoming entirely hard, or, more likely, to begin softening it.

I realize this can't always happen, and as parents we need to be careful about who is playing with our children.  These were unusual young people.  They had spent a lot of time with and were entirely comfortable with babies with a good understanding what was appropriate and what wasn't, and I knew that.  My Paul also was not medically fragile, as so many children with diseases or disabilities are. 

But when possible, there is something precious about older children playing with younger children that God uses to reveal who he is.  And I know it also made their own mother and father happy as well, and proved Proverbs 20:7 true:

The righteous who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him!

After all, we're a moving target: are we having a season of good, stable days with our kids?  Are we in the midst of some difficult situation?  Are we consumed with the issues surrounding the child with the disability?  Are our non-disabled children doing something significant and interesting?  Is that all happening at the same time?

Most families are moving targets, of course.  But having a disabled family member seems to ramp up the complications, and those complications are often unusual.  So it makes it a little, or a lot, more difficult to know how to talk with us about our children. 

Which leads to two common mistakes people make:

1. Not talking to us at all, or avoiding any talk about any of our children.
2. Concentrating all talk to either the child with the disability, or the children without disabilities.

My parents, as we celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this weekend, reminded me of their remarkable ability to treat all their grandchildren and great-children uniquely with the same affections. 

These 13 (16 if you count spouses, and my parents love their three granddaughters-in-law as well) individuals are so very different, from age (29 years to 3 weeks), education (pursuing a Ph.D. to not-yet-kindergarten), physical abilities (quite fit police officer to completely helpless babies), or even musical abilities (composer to no musical abilities at all).

But they most certainly talk about and with all those children!

My parents love them all in ways that show they know them as individuals, appreciate their particular giftings, delight in their accomplishments, are confident they can get through hard times, and never, in any circumstance, stop loving them.  They are wonderful examples.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Now, certainly, grandparents have a particular interest in knowing and encouraging their legacy.  And we have also been blessed by people who take a particular interest in a child of mine; I'll post about that later.

But it is a good lesson for anyone who wants to be helpful: demonstrate an interest in all my children.

As my family started our weekend celebration of mom's and dad's 60th wedding anniversary last night, I realized that all the women in that room have lived with me for periods of time over the past five years.  

During my wife's chemotherapy and radiation treatments for her cancer in 2004 and 2005, one sister spent more than 6 months living with us, and my other sister and mother also spent days or weeks living with us.

The sole reason: my wife and I couldn't do all that needed doing to care for our four children at that time.  We needed help.  I could not fulfill the American ideal of doing it all myself, going it alone and triumphing in the end.  I couldn't do it for myself, and I certainly couldn't do it for my family.

That was very good for me because of the picture of God it demonstrated: kindness and mercy in a situation in which I did not have the ability to repay; giving good gifts I frequently did not even know I needed; encouraging me to lead my family and serve my wife and children, and helping me see how to do so.  They made much of God in their service to us.

And because they were all so gracious and kind in the midst of that truly horrible time, giving not just their service but their very hearts, we are all much closer for it. Sinful, finite, weak human beings, knit closer together because of need rather than what we can 'do' for each other.

God wants us even more dependent on him than that.  He wants to give us the greatest gift - himself! - rather than leave us alone in our sin and puny, selfish existence.  He wants us to experience ever increasing joy in and with him forever, because only he can do that!  As Pastor John has helpfully taught us, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him."

Many people are at least familiar with Psalm 40:17 because of the heartfelt cry of David in a time of great trouble:

 As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

Pause, however, and remember how David set it up in verse 16:

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the Lord!”

Seek the Lord!  Rejoice and be glad in that Lord!  The Lord takes thought of the poor and needy!  

And sometimes that thought is sending an army of women who want to make much of God by serving me, or you.  And I am very glad for it!

After 14 years of living with Paul and almost five years with Dianne's cancer, I have a lot of things!  God has been merciful to bring people into our lives, sometimes just for a moment, and sometimes for years or decades.  

But it was easy to think of who to concentrate on this morning, because in a couple of hours my family will be packing up to go celebrate a special weekend with them.

The reason:  60 years of marriage!  Isn't that something!  The legacy of Harland and Pauline (Larimore) Knight includes three children, nine grandchildren and now four great-grandchildren!  The stories of their faithfulness to me and to my sisters could go on a very long time.

So, they might show up a few times in this series, but I'll give you just a taste right now:

Paul was born without eyes, the first of his disabilities we would discover.  Surgeons in Minnesota could not adequately address his under-developed eye sockets, which would result, over time, in some very significant problems in his facial development.  In the entire United States, there were only two doctors who had developed two different techniques to address issues like this. We chose the clinic and doctor in Indianapolis.

Since we live in Minnesota, this obviously meant traveling and finding lodging and dealing with a hundred details associated with the medical procedure for our very young boy. And we would have none of the comforts of home we had learned could be helpful for Paul in his recovery.

Grandma and Grandpa's solution?  Drop everything (that statement doesn't have the impact that it should. Winona, MN practically stops working when they leave town, such is the number of things they do to serve people there.  I've stopped counting the number of service awards they've received because I can't count that high!), throw a rocking chair in the trunk (not as easy as it sounds), drive 500 miles one way, and spend days in the middle of an emotional storm with their son and daughter-in-law taking turns rocking their grandson.

Because they knew Paul liked to be rocked.  And they knew Dianne and I would need some time alone together in that strange place to process what was happening, or just to rest. And because they simply couldn't not do something.

So, I am a grateful son who can say of his mother: 

She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.  She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Proverbs 31:26-29 

And if I have learned anything in how to serve my family, it is because of my father: 

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?  1 Timothy 3:2-5 

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

More stories to come.  And I hope you will consider contributing by sharing the helpful things people have done or said to you!

But I am more grateful that while they celebrate, Joni continues to proclaim Jesus Christ:

As the ministry turns the corner on this its 30th year, it continues to fulfill Tada's vision of accelerating ministry to those with disabilities.  "If churches around the world would grasp the revolutionary truth that Christ's transforming power always comes through sacrifice and weakness, it would dramatically alter the landscape of the global church," Tada said.

Yes, Joni - it is Christ's transforming power!  And he freely and kindly creates some to live with disability for some or all of their lives to make evident his power and mercy and grace, for his glory and for our good.

You can read the entire press release here.

Joni also gave a great address at the 2005 Desiring God National Conference on suffering.

Yesterday we received Paul's test scores in the mail from last spring's Minnesota Test of Academic Skills. The Saint Paul schools always send these scores about this time of year.

His score:  zero.  

And that was on the alternate achievement standards test for kids in special education.

After a few of these I expected it, but the stark reality of the score still makes me pause, because I have a decision to make in that moment:

• Do I consider all the assets Paul has and brings to our house to balance off this rotten score?  Do I think about how loving and happy he is?  Do I add in how happy his sister is to serve him?  Do I consider how he has helped me view the world differently?  Do I hope in his innocence?

All of these are good things, but I'm back to me trying to give him some value that can justify his existence.  And eventually it just makes me think about all the things he can't do.

• Or do I obliterate my desire to find comfort in temporal, earthly things, even good things, and remember what God has to say about his creation and his elect?  Things like:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Isaiah 43:1-2 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

2 Timothy 1:8-12 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

I do not need to justify my son's existence to the world. I may and do have to defend him, but God has already confirmed his value because God gave him life.  And God created Paul for God's own purposes, which do not include high test scores. All the other joyful things, like Paul's generally happy disposition, are just benefits.

So, the score came, and the pause came, and I did not succumb to the temptation to make much of the earthly gifts Paul has. That is a grace from God as I have frequently failed at that first moment.  But not this time.  Lord willing, not the next time, either.