Dear Abled Christians: God Isn’t Going to Heal Me
Introduction
If you’re new here and an abled Christian (or human), you should probably read this post, first, and listen to this episode of my podcast to get a better idea of what my chronic illnesses and disability looks like. To summarize, though, I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, an illness that makes me feel like I’m about to pass out all the time, hereditary hypermobility, that gives me issues with my tissues, an Essential Tremor. Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition, chronic fatigue, and a few others that make my body feel like a living hell, sometimes. I don’t know if I’ve ever said this before, but these, alone, are not the reason why I call myself disabled. I refer to myself as disabled because I, additionally, have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, Clinical Depression, Generalized Anxiety, and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I know it’s a lot (imagine living with it, ha). I just want you to have some information about my own life before I go further.
God Could Heal Me But…
This is the way He created me. What I mean by this is that my diagnoses are not a sin problem. Most of them are related to genetics and trauma. These are things that are out of my control. But, you know who’s control they are in? God’s. He is the one who “knit me together in my mother’s womb” and still called me “good” when He saw the messed up genetics. God took one look at my disabled body and said that she was holy, too.
God took one look at my disabled body and said that she was holy, too. Share on XIt’s not that God decided, “You know what? I’m gonna start doing something different with humans, now. I think that they should live in constant pain and be discriminated against for it.” No, He created me for the purpose of being loved, loving others, and living a life of freedom, just like He created everyone else. It would be impossible for Him to create a human being with less worth or value than another because that wouldn’t come from love. The right question isn’t, “Why won’t God heal me?” It’s “What if God doesn’t want to heal me? What if He has the wisdom to know that my most authentic self can only exist in growing through my trauma, faulty genetics, and disability? What if abundant life is a part of my pain?” It’s a harsh reality to come to grips with, but God could’ve healed me at any time He wanted to. He could’ve created me with perfect genetics, too. I know from the stories in the bible and from watching other people be healed that He can heal all kinds of disabilities without batting an eye. The thing is: He doesn’t. That’s because being human is about so much more than being in perfect health. Becoming more easily exhausted and physically, is an awful experience. However, it’s only making me stronger as a whole and teaching me how to appreciate the rare painless moments I do have.
What If God Could Use Me, Disabled?
This is exactly what He’s doing. God is smart enough to create an accessible life story or calling for me. I sincerely believe that if it were His will for me to be healed. I would be healed, because it’s happened before. Some of you may know that I had vocal nodules (calluses on your vocal cords) when I was 13 or 14 years old. After months of frustrating vocal rest and lots of people praying for me, I prayed for myself and literally felt my vocal cords coated in warmth. After being in pain from singing and talking, there was no more pain. I know it might sound far-fetched, but I’m just telling you what I experienced. You can believe it or not. The point is that there are times my voice still hurts and it still gets tired too easily. I, now, know that voice problems will probably be a constant for me because it’s connected to my hEDS.
The reason why I’m telling you all this is because, having come to terms with my chronic illnesses, God is currently working in my life all the time. One of the ways He is using me is by spreading awareness about mental illnesses and physical disabilities. Disabled people need to be heard and I have a voice (for now, ha). If I had never become disabled, I wouldn’t be able to use my voice and fight for awareness, increase accessibility, or help abled people learn how to better love their disabled friends and relatives. Different doesn’t mean less human and, perhaps, He’s using me to explain that to you.
God Isn’t Using Me to Be Your Inspiration
Technically, this is a side note, but it’s such a common problem within the abled christian community that I wanted to take the time to bring it up while I have your attention. If you believe that I am inspirational for making it through an average day or doing something that “normal” people do all the time, you are falling for inspiration porn, dear abled Christian. This is kind of offensive. Inspiration porn is defined as “the portrayal of people with disabilities as inspirational solely or in part on the basis of their disability.” The reason why this is offensive is because it makes said disabled person feel like less of the strong person God created them to be and more like a toddler who just learned to read for the first time. Inspiration porn can vary from annoying to outright dehumanizing and, for the most part, people believe they’re being kind.
A Real Life Example
Meriah Nichols gives us the perfect example of inspiration porn to learn from. A few years ago, there was an image of a little girl lying down and painting in bed. The caption beneath it described how amazing she was for being able to paint in bed. Yay! Well, guess who else used to paint in bed? Frida Kahlo. The difference here is that we don’t share pictures of Frida Kahlo painting in bed as some sort of motivator when we feel bad. No! We share pictures of Frida Kahlo painting in bed to learn about her process, see her masterpiece before it was finished, or just appreciate her talent. To make it clear, the purpose of sharing an image of Frida Kahlo in bed is to point out her talent whereas the picture of the little girl is used to invalidate our excuses about painting. This makes the little girl no more than a prop or a means to an end (AKA an object) and that end is focused on abled people instead of the little girl in the image.
If you’re feeling a little convicted right now, don’t worry. It’s an easy fix. The next time you see a disabled person acknowledge their humanity. Don’t comment on how it’s so sweet of an abled person to give them an opportunity, but how amazing it is that the disabled person is finding ways to pursue their passion. Another one I’ve seen a lot is a video of a woman without arms using her mouth to steer a car. As Nichols says, the better response to her driving across the country is, “Cool road trip!” Remember, she is not a prop that you can show to your cousin to convince him to get his driver’s license at 23 “because anyone can do it.” She is a human being who wanted to take a road trip.
Healing Isn’t Always a Permanent/Complete Fix
Like I mentioned my own personal experience with an “imperfect” healing, there’s a book by Sarah Bessey called Miracles and Other Reasonable Things where Bessey discusses her own experiences with chronic pain and fibromyalgia as a result of a car accident. I won’t go into too much detail because I don’t want to give away her story. Basically, she experiences a partial healing and spends her time trying to hide her leftover pain from herself and the rest of the world because that’s not what happens when God heals you. I’m just gonna be honest and say that it is. If you know someone who was healed from cancer and, now, they’re going to the hospital five years later, don’t get mad at God. This doesn’t mean that He didn’t heal her five years before. He did. They don’t cancel each other out.
The most common version of this that I can think of is when someone is healed from mental illness and has a relapse. In addition to having a relapse, you’re also left feeling guilty for struggling with that mental illness again. In her book, Rhythms of Renewal, Rebekah Lyons opens up about having panic attacks years after she had been prayed for and healed. The thing about cancer, mental illnesses, and life is that sometimes things aren’t as black and white as we want them to be. Our brains like working in the binary–black and white, good and bad, or rich and poor. Those automatically make sense to us, but as Richard Rohr explains in Learning to Let Go God likes to function outside of the usual duality. Let’s look at a Jesus story to better explain what I mean. In the story of the Samaritan Woman, Jesus has two acceptable options. He can either ignore the woman or call her out on her sins and publicly exclude her. However, He chooses the third option and talks to her as if she were a capable human being. Thus, He changes her life and in some traditions, she is now recognized as a martyr. As a disabled person, I don’t comfortably fit into the boxes of healthy or sick. In this light, I would always be considered sick and incapable. However, I am here today to tell you that I’m not healthy, I’m not sick, nor am I somewhere in between. I am a completely separate option from the ones you have been trained to expect. I am a relatively capable disabled woman and just because I don’t fit into the expected binary doesn’t mean I should be treated as possessed, a child, or anything less than human.
I am More Than My Disability
If you still can’t see that, then I respectfully ask that you will pray for me from a distance. I am not a problem to be “fixed.” I am a human being. Being prayed for can sometimes be a trigger for me and many other people. Now that you know this, think before pressuring to pray for someone. There is a difference between a close friend offering encouraging prayer or a community standing together, taking time out of their normal everyday lives and what I’m referring to. I’m talking about when a disabled person goes to a church and the whole sanctuary ends the service in passionate prayer. Imagine if this happened every time an abled person had a problem. Not only is it very time consuming, but it can be exhausting.
Picture this. One day, you decide to go to a new church in the hopes of being treated like the capable human being you are. Instead people begin to make facial expressions filled with pity and can’t stop staring because of your wheelchair. You do your best to explain what’s going on without going into too much detail because that would be draining and also require a doctorate for you to have a chance of understanding. All of a sudden, it happens. At the very end of the service, the pastor looks your way and everyone around you begins to watch you like you’re a child who just peed herself on accident. You just wanted to leave so you could get to work or finally take a break from people-ing, but settle for subtly rolling your eyes. The sanctuary erupts with both silent and spoken prayer for a few minutes. The whole time you’re thinking about how you had hoped this would be the church that treated you like an adult and would be interested in your graphic design talent–not because of the diversity factor. After it’s done, strangers begin to walk up to you and explain how inspiring you are for driving to church alone (like any other person). You do your best to explain inspiration porn if you have the energy, wishing that you could just carry your life story around in a pamphlet to hand out since everyone has the “right” to know it. If this sounds like an invasion of privacy or a dehumanizing experience, good. That’s exactly what it feels like.
Conclusion
We just want to be treated like every other adult in the room. If we need prayer, we will ask for it, just like everyone else. I should also note that I don’t speak for every disabled person. I can only speak on my own experiences being neurodivergent, having mental illnesses, and a couple of chronic illnesses. Other people with disabilities might also be deaf or blind, not have all of their limbs, and/or have darker skin than I do, We all have our own triggers, experiences, and problems like any other group of people does. The reason why I wrote this letter to you is because I noticed a recurring story that disabled people experience within the abled Christian community. Also, you may be an abled Christian who knows exactly what I’m talking about. This letter isn’t geared towards you but maybe a couple of other members in your church or family (you know who I’m talking about). If that’s so, share this message and start the conversation now. That way the next time a visibly or invisibly disabled person shows up at your church, they will be happily accepted into God’s fully inclusive love as the capable human beings they are.
Your disabled sister in Christ,
Kiki Judith
