Being a Christian and living with cerebral palsy is not an easy task. I often deal with friends who are nice but misguided. They are constantly trying to heal me.
I know, there are a few stories in the Bible that talk about healing, but that was not Paul’s experience. Paul is a pillar of our Christian Faith (he wrote a big portion of the New Testament). Would anyone accuse him of not having enough faith? Or that he needed to pray for healing?
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10. (The Message)
Other Bible translations use the term “thorn” and perhaps you might have heard people talk about Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.” How Paul responds to his “thorn” taught me to deal with my thorn of cerebral palsy.
Growing up, I had little experience with church, and what I did experience was bad. I was told my CP was a result of sin, demons, or a lack of faith. This made me feel rejected by God. For years, I prayed for healing and didn’t understand why this thorn wouldn’t go away.
But, despite bad doctrine being taught to me, I learned about who Jesus really is, and decided to give my life to Him when I was 19 years old. In my study, I came across these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” His power can be made perfect in my weakness…wow!
And that’s what Paul did, he did not respond with a “woe is me” attitude when he did not receive healing. He rejoiced that Christ would get glory through his weakness!
Jesus has taught me that human weakness is the perfect platform to display his glory. This is true with my cerebral palsy. The world and religion wrote me off. Doctors said that I would not do much with my life. Religion taught me that God rejected me. But Jesus taught me that he not only accepts me, but he was going to use my disability and my life to make much of him.
Dealing with the “thorns” in our lives is difficult. When we do not know God’s purposes for the thorns, it can add to the difficulty.
I am a husband, father, a minister and former youth pastor. And you know, maybe the doctors were right, I haven’t done much with my life due to my cerebral palsy…but Jesus has!
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Mike Matthews is a husband, father,disability rights advocate and minister. Mike was born with cerebral palsy in 1981. He lives in Washington, Pennsylvania with his beautiful wife Robin, and their three year old son Reese. Mike has been involved in youth ministry for over 10 years and preaches at the Washington City Mission twice a month. His desire is to help people see God’s good designs in disability.
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Matthew, THANK YOU for this post! I blog about my 8-year-old son who has various disabilities and when he was young, my focus was in constantly praying for his healing. I grew up in church and many people told me I just had to pray and he would be healed. But over the last eight years and a lot of struggling with my faith, I have learned that sometimes physical healing is not the most important part. I also blogged about the same passage about Paul’s thorn and God’s grace being sufficient. Those verses were a turning point for me in my faith. Thank you for sharing your perspective!
Actually, Paul was very acquainted with healing. (See Acts 19:11,12) But the purpose of those miracles was to authenticate the gospel and not to create “healthy people”. Healing is always done to glorify God and God can be glorified through lives changed in other ways than physical healing.
In the case of Paul’s thorn, God was glorified in a life that was dependent on Him more than one who had the thorn removed. We assume that God can use us more when we are well, but most of the time God allows us to remain in our situations, no matter what they are (work, family, illness) in order to cause us to trust in His plan for our lives. Grace comes when we can say, “thy will be done”.
I have CP and people have tried to heal me as well.
Wonderful words. I was speaking with a friend recently (we both have children with spina bifida) and we agreed that, unfortunately, it is often in our evangelical Christian circles that we feel our children have the most difficult time being accepted just the way they are. These friends are the ones who most frequently talk about our children’s “healing” or the possibility that they will be changed someday, rather than really seeing the beauty and possibility in the way they are now. It is all out of love but I do worry about how this could affect the way my son sees himself– as a failure for not having faith enough to be healed.
My friend Beth also has CP and has experienced similar situations. She wrote a piece for the Huffington Post that you might find interesting. I loved it! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beth-hopkins/i-dont-need-your-faith-healing_b_1844656.html
Thank you!