A Severe Blessing

This post was a ministry letter from Barb Friedman.
Originally written November 2003.

About two months ago, I met a mother and her blind and autistic
son, his younger sister, and his baby sister. This family had previously been in
America and had returned to their homeland. Now they were back in the States for
their son’s sake. The schools in their homeland were not equipped for children with
disabilities like his. The family knew that in America their son could get the help
he needed. America attempts to make it possible for those who are handicapped to
live as if they were not.

The mother asked me if God was punishing her because her son was
born bind and with autism. Immediately I thought about that Jewish man in
John’s gospel who was born blind:

“As he went along, he saw a man
blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’
said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in
his life’” (John 9:1-3).

After Jesus miraculously healed this Jewish man, he believed that
Jesus was the Messiah, the one God promised to come, and received eternal life.
His blindness from birth, rather than being a curse was “a severe blessing.” It
led to his salvation.

“The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John
6:29).

“No, God is not punishing you,” I told this mother. “Rather, he
has given you this son as a very special gift. Though all children are gifts from
God, a child with a disability is even more so.”

She looked at me with surprise, disbelief and “with all ears.”
I told her that children born with disabilities are not the norm—they are not common.
Therefore, this makes these children special gifts. I expressed that God really
intended to bless her and the family when he gave them this son with his handicaps.
What many would consider a curse was really meant to be “a severe blessing.”

I anticipated this mother’s needs. Surely children born with disabilities
will require special care and treatment, as well as much more love, much
more patience, and much more wisdom. I explained that when God entrusts
to a family one of these special gifts, He certainly wants to give them all the
“much mores” they will need in order to do what is best.

Then I compared human love, patience, and wisdom, which have limits,
to God’s love, patience, and wisdom, which have no limits. This mother was well
aware of her limits, her inadequacies and shortcomings related to her son and his
disabilities. “Your son’s needs have caused you to have needs that will require
God’s help as well as His comfort. When you believe in God and in Jesus, God will
give you all the much more love, patience, and wisdom that you need in order to
do what is best for your son and family. And to do it with joy! When you believe,
this will be the first blessing your son will bring to the family.” She smiled at
me.

At our next meeting, this mother asked, “What exactly is sin?”
At our third meeting, she asked, “What really happened when Jesus died on the cross?”
She was already in Heaven’s harbor waiting to dock. Well, she got docked! May God
use her peace and joy and her new life in Christ to draw her family and others to
the living God and the love of God.

Recently, she told me how others feel so sorry for her because
of her son’s situation and the suffering it must bring to the family. She said to
me, “But we are not suffering because of our son. We have peace and joy.” I told
her to use this as an opportunity to explain how she came to believing in the living
God because of her son and how her son really has been a gift from God and a blessing
from God.

“Praise be to the God and father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our trouble…. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over
into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

If any of you are in some difficulty or having trouble of the
kind that seems too much, too big, too awful for you, remember that God gives overflowing
comfort. There is no suffering that is too much, too big, too awful that God’s comfort
cannot drown. He is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.”