Ain't No Yellow Brick Road

…he learned obedience from what he suffered…Hebrews 5:8

 This journey as the parent of a disabled child is a tough, difficult walk. This, we all know. But we sometimes forget that it is also meant to be a lesson. We are learning -- through our suffering and that of our child -- about life, about love, about God.

We have, in essence, been placed in a special kind of school.

The challenge for each of us is not to long for the time of our dismissal but to realize we will not graduate until we die. This is the classroom in which we will spend each of our days and we can choose to discover all that we do not know but are meant to or we can simply surrender to the life of victim: often bitter, consistently confused, and mournfully wounded.

Christ is our most dramatic example of learning through suffering. He learned – and taught – the ultimate lesson on obedience, giving up his throne and glory and humbling himself, taking on the suffering that came with his cross, for us. In him, we see all that we are not.

His was the ultimate act of obedience, the ultimate act of suffering.

To follow his lead, we must give up the desires of us; we must set aside all our ideas about “me.” What I am, what I can do, what I can be are determined by my willingness to obey God, to obediently follow the plan for life he lays out for me. This includes, of course, the ups and the downs, the joys and the sorrows, the times of frenetic celebration and the days of soul-deep suffering that accompany us as parent of a disabled child.

We are being educated about who we are, about who God is, and about what he can do when we give up the desire to be the captain of our own fate. The helm belongs to him and we will do our best when we let him steer us into the places he wants us to live.

There are many lessons to be learned on this journey. Some are meant for us – meant to reshape us, to nurture our faith, to reveal God in deeper and more meaningful ways then might have previously thought possible.

Other lessons are meant for those around us – friends, family, even the world are large. We are meant to take these lessons in and then share them with others. They learn because of this special education we are receiving as we navigate life with our disabled child.

The key, of course, is to remember it all starts with our obedience, even when it means we will suffer.