THERE IS A handicapped person in your future:  you...!

Handicapped persons are dealing in the present moment with what you and I will have to deal with later.  Sooner or later each of us will become handicapped in one way or another.  Sooner or later each of us will have to deal with one or several major losses in our health.  Then we will travel down the same path that the handicapped person currently walks.  Then we will know their pain, frustration and sufferings.  Perhaps if we could learn from them now, whatever our age, we would be better prepared for our own future.

Handicapped persons teach us that life is more than a body.  They demonstrate the truth...that the things that make us truly human and truly divine are not physical qualities.  They are qualities of the Spirit...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, meekness, peacemaking, purity of heart, mercy, righteousness, and suffering for the right cause (cf. Galatians 5:22; Matthew 5:3-10).  Neither Paul nor Jesus mentioned physical beauty or even physical health.  The qualities that save us do not include the shape of our bodies.

Handicapped persons also can teach us how to suffer and how to rise above bodily limitations.  Sometimes pain cannot be fixed, nor can all limitations be conquered.  Most of us will have to deal with pain and limitations, at first in minor ways and later in major ways.  We will learn new meanings for the word "courage."  Either we will rise above our limitations and learn to live with them or we shall sink to new lows of despair, bitterness and helplessness.  The choice depends largely on the strength of our courage.

In a sense, then, a handicap or a loss of health can become a gift.  It never starts out that way.  Initially it is a horrible loss.  If through the loss, however, we can learn to nurture our spiritual qualities and learn the art of suffering well, then we will have transformed our loss into a gain.  Will will have risen above our loss precisely by not letting it defeat us, but by letting it propel us forward into a more advanced stage of human existence.  R. Scott Sullender, Losses in Later Life, 3

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  2 Corinthians 12:7-9

Mike Benson