Not Abandoned: Keeping Faith as a Disabled Christian

Disabilities come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Some you can see, some you can’t. As someone who’s struggled with disability in college, and the double trouble of having an issue that isn’t always on the surface, I know firsthand how difficult it can be. These stories need to be told. So I asked my friend and fellow writer, Hannah Heath to share some of her story and how she relies on her faith, even when it seems impossible. Her godly faithfulness has inspired me and I know her strength will inspire you, too!

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I am jarred awake by pain. My hands feel like they're on fire, my spine stabs into my muscles like my vertebrae are made of shards of glass, and my jaw aches from the hours I spend clenching it against the pain. 

I just recently had my 22nd birthday. Yesterday, I looked back over the last decade of my life, the decade in which I have been fighting Lyme disease, and realized I haven’t had a single day during the past ten years where I wasn’t in pain.

It’s a horrifying thought. But, oddly enough, it doesn’t bring the same level of anger and bitterness that it would have only a few years ago.

So what’s changed? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not my health.

I roll out of bed and strategically plan every tiny aspect of my day. I select an outfit that is the least painful to wear. I pack a meal that doesn’t trigger an inflammatory response. I assess which hand hurts the most, then pack the proper brace into my backpack.

When I first started experiencing symptoms at twelve years old, I was angry to my core. I felt that my life was ending before it could even truly begin, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I turned to the Bible, and I did not like what I saw.

I had planned to walk to class today, but I am bone-achingly tired and it’s not even 8 AM yet. I need all of my energy for classes and research meetings, so I call and schedule a ride with the Disability Tram.

I grew up reading the Bible, so I had it all memorized. The "prayer will make a sick person well" verse (James 5:14-15). The "ask and you shall receive" verse (Matthew 7:7). The dozens of miracles where Jesus heals people who are hurting. 

It was all there in the Bible: God had made me a promise. A promise. He said he would heal me if I only asked. 

Well, I was asking. Asking with every inch of my soul. And, from what I could see, he had decided to abandon me. I don’t have the words to explain how much anguish that thought caused. 

I ride across campus in an old, uncomfortable golf cart that has a "DRC" (Disability Resource Center) sign painted prominently on the side. I enter the classroom and pull up my brightly-colored piece of assistive technology, then brace myself for The Looks. The Looks from people around me who feel curious and uncomfortable by the idea that I don't take notes the same way they do. I wish they would just talk to me about it but they never do, and so we sit in silence.

I was 16 years old when I decided: "Screw it. I'm done." Done praying. Done reading the Bible. If he wanted me back, he would have to come chasing after me because I sure as hell was done chasing him. 

I took six months off from prayer and the Bible. It did not help. I was still in pain. I was still angry. And I was still confused. 

After lecture is over, I hop into the tram to get to my next class and I try not to be uncomfortable at the idea of being seen riding in it. But it's hard because I know it will invite more of The Looks, as well as questions and comments I've heard before and really don't want to hear again. "But you don't look disabled." "You're too young to be sick." "No wonder you get such good grades: You get extra accommodations on exams." The anger and the anxiety and the pain rises.

After six months, I returned to the Bible and decided I was going to read it again, but this time I was going to try to read it as if I didn't know what it said. As if I'd never been to church or read Bible commentaries or listened to Christian radio stations.

I did this, and I saw something I had never noticed before. 

The Bible mentions all of the people who flocked to Jesus and were physically healed, but I didn't see it talk about all of the people who didn't make it in time. All of the people who sought Jesus, only to find him no longer on earth. All of the people who probably spent their days like I did: Asking "But what about me? You promised."

I make it to my next class and I feel it bubbling over: The exhaustion. The pain. The anxiety. The desire to curl up in a corner somewhere and hide. Not because I am ashamed of who I am, but because I’m tired of constantly fighting simply to exist as Me.

And that's when it hit me. 

Maybe physical healing isn't the end-all. It's a cool perk, yeah. But it wasn't ever really The Point. The Point, I think, was finding Jesus. Finding God. That's the healing that is promised in the Bible.

It's possible that God will decide to physically heal me some day, but that's not a promise he ever made to me or to anyone else. What he promised was healing of the soul.

This epiphany, quite frankly, sucked. I went from believing that an all-powerful being owed me healing to realizing that God in fact never promised that. Basically, I was now stuck with pain and sickness, as well as the anger and bitterness that comes from being forced into a life that I never asked for. 

I fall into bed at night, exhausted but in too much pain to fall asleep. Sometimes it comes then: The depression. The anxiety. It washes over me as I start trying to figure out how I will possibly be able to wake up tomorrow and do all of this all over again.

After a while, I started to notice some things. It’s true that I never asked to live in pain and in sickness. It’s true that I have no control over those things. 

But what I can control is the anger and the bitterness and the way that I view my life. Pain does not have to be my end-all.

I wake up in the morning to find an email from a professor I had last quarter. She says she was thinking of me and my illness, and wanted to reach out to make sure I’m doing okay. I’ve never had a professor do that for me and, suddenly, I feel a little less alone. And that’s a start.

The longer I live with my disabilities, the more I see the duality in my life. There is so much horror and pain, but there is also beauty and peace. I don’t have to pretend that only one of them exists, which is something that I use to do. I use to think that being Christian meant only existing in the good and the healing and the "fixing." But that’s not right, is it? 

I drag myself to a chronic pain support group my university’s Disability Resource Center provides. There I meet with a friend who is hurting just like I am. We laugh at our pain, swear at it, find ways to live with it. And we make plans. Plans to raise awareness for disabled students, plans to uphold and uplift our community. It’s a short, one-hour meeting, and it’s usually just the two of us. But it’s a start. 

Being a disabled Christian doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me. It also doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed healing here on earth.

I am healing, yes, but not physically. The emotional and spiritual anguish from years ago are slowly starting to mend, and I can see that God was never abandoning me. 

He was preparing me. 

A campus coordinator reaches out to me to ask if I will be on a panel to speak about being an invisibly disabled, chronically ill student. I am tired and in pain and my hands won’t stop shaking because I’m so nervous, but I go and I speak anyway. Only three attendees show up to listen, but it’s a start.

I look at my life and I’m not quite sure where it’s heading. I see so many paths. They all seem to involve pain and endless fighting, and I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t incredibly daunting and sometimes very depressing. But that’s only one side of things, isn’t it? 

Every so often, I see glimpses of the other side. And let me tell you: It is a sight to behold. I see opportunities to glorify God through my actions. I see him giving me the strength to fight for disability rights, to advocate for those who society leaves behind, to write stories that uplift and empower. 

I see many things, some of them exciting, some of them terrifying. 

I don’t know what it all means yet, but I know that I have not been abandoned. And that’s a start.