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Is My Disability A Blessing Or Curse?

Is my disability a blessing or a curse? I was up late with that question and couldn’t sleep after hearing Dr. Amy Kenny speak at the Creative Justice Conference. She brought up so many great truths and points regarding disabilities and life. But in my mind, they seemed overcasted by her continual focus of being created disabled while emphasizing the nuance of being disabled in her identity as apposed to having a disability as part of who she is. She would say, “I am disabled. I am not a person ‘with‘ a disability.”

I wasn’t created with my disability, though. At least not with the paralyzed body I have lived with since I was 15 years old. And I don’t believe God orchestrated my car accident that resulted in my spinal cord injury, either. The body God intended me to be created in was fully able in the physical sense of walking and functioning without the challenges of the paralysis I’ve had to endure for the last 3 decades and continue to experience today.

So with Amy Kenny’s emphasis on how being disabled is defined with the meaning of being blessed within her created identity, I struggled with the deeper question within myself, is my disability a blessing or curse?

Blessing

The Jewish Rabbi in ‘Fiddler on the Roof‘ quite truthfully said that there is a blessing in everything. The nature of our humanity, no matter what struggles and sufferings we are enduring, is rooted in an identity that reflects God’s character and presence everywhere.

In the very beginnings of creation, the word God used for blessing was the Hebrew word “Baruch“. (Gen. 2:3) While it was especially spoken of over the Sabbath, the same blessing was given over all creation. Repeatedly, he would speak the words… “And it was good.”

Reflecting that same characteristic of God, Dr. Nathan Lopes Cardozo, a Jewish scholar, also shares, “How wise were the sages of Israel when they instituted the custom of making a blessing on almost anything, whether it is eating, drinking, observing natural phenomena, or smelling extravagant aromas. They depicted all these activities as nothing less than totally miraculous.”

Blessings are not the riches of good health, accumulated wealth, or recognized successes. It is not in finding your healing or getting rid of pain and anguish. It is in finding the miraculous in everything that is a part of life both in physicality and experience. Or more meaningfully, it is in recognizing God’s love and presence within every given moment in time — we do not possess blessings; we submit to our relationship with them in God’s revealing.

As my friend Dick pointed out in conversation this past week, the disabilities I experience do not limit the ways God reveals his blessings through the experiences I face — and for sure, it is my friends who truly reveal God’s presence and goodness around me, too.

I also love the way Maya Angelou describes it when she wrote:

I believed that there was a God because I was told it by my grandmother and later by other adults. But when I found that I knew not only that there was a God but that I was a child of God, when I understood that, when I comprehended that, more than that, when I internalized that, ingested that, I became courageous.

Ramsey, K.J.. The Lord Is My Courage (p. 5). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

When we find the disabilities in our life, we experience the blessings from them shaping our identity not because of them, but because we begin to live with them courageously, mercifully, gracefully, and lovingly for God’s revealing presence being at work and present in our lives and in the lives of those around us. As the old saying goes, we are blessed to be a blessing.

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#blessing #Curse #SpinalCordInjury

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Is My Disability A Blessing Or A Curse?

Is my disability a blessing or a curse? I was up late with that question and couldn’t sleep after hearing Dr. Amy Kenny speak at the Creative Justice Conference. She brought up so many great …
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#Sorry I have been away a few days. Here is my new #Furbaby !!!!

I felt it was best to refrain from posting these past few days. I was very #sad , #confused , & #hopeless due to my heartwrenching experience at the shelter I went about a week ago. I was even #Feeling like there might very well be a #Curse on me & my life. I pretty much believed that any & every thing I might & would do or try to do, was destined to be #tradgedy & cause me more #Heartache . To put it honestly, day to day was kinda "touch-and-go" moreso than ever. Recently, it came to a head, and I honestly felt that i had no idea if I'd be around to see the next day. But today, I brought home a new #Cat . He was the best cat there at PSPCA. (Pennsylvania SPCA. ) health-wise, age-wise, & he is calm with a #wonderful temperament. He is asleep on the couch with me right now. I like it at cold temps, but I not want him to get sick. He doesn't (yet) seem to feel ok about having a blanket over him, for warmth, but then again, he is just getting to know & has to have a bit of time to learn he can #Trust me. Anyways, I am keeping my leg against him for him to have my body warmth. I am SO pleased the way the day turned out. Had some very rough spots there, but it ended up not getting the best of the situation#. I have my baby! His name is what I consider extremely anti - #Christian . I don't even like to say or write it. I have been calling him "Baby" when I talk to or call for him. Still, I'm taking my time about giving him his permanent official name !!!

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#Therapy for lifelong #Trauma #PTSD 1st time at 37 #help !!!

#Trauma #Therapy for #PTSD 1st time really “ready” to open up with #Psychiatrist at 37 #childhoodtrauma #abuse #neglect #fearofabandonment #psychologicalabuse from a father that I would describe as #CharlesManson with a #TheBible in one hand and #Alcoholism in the other. In addition to a family that #rejected me completely so much so that on both sides of my #Divorced #Family I had rules that if I walked in the room within one minute all of my cousins had to leave my #physical presence because I was just #different but never had #behavioral #Problems just major misunderstandings and what seemed like a lot of #bad luck because of the many #Labels that seem to get stuck to me throughout the years in public #Education . So I was sent to live #alone with my #Father at 11 on a #cult like farm with no access to the outside world (no modern technology including TV, Radio or Phone) and he #brainwashed me as a #Child to never speak to anyone or they would lock me up and throw away the key or call me a liar and ignore me completely. So I have major #Trust #issues and have no clue where to begin when I see my #Therapist via video this week. I also have #ADHD with a #mind that is #hyper #creative and #super analytical seems like a #Gift and #Curse when expressing my #Thoughts and #Emotions #help #Advice #ParanoidThoughts

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