Prayer for the Differently Abled — February 5, 2023

As I read Sean of the South’s blog titled, Good, I was absorbed in what Sean said he heard from a chaperon of children with cerebral palsy. As the children were happily and awkwardly navigating the aisles in a store, the chaperon, Peter, told Sean that the children were differently abled. What a wonderful expression. It caused me to think about me and you and to write this prayer.

Aren’t we all differently abled? As God’s children each of us have both strengths and weaknesses. Does God want us to be limited or defined by our imperfections, weaknesses, and infirmities?

How we name or refer to others limits us from looking deeper beyond mere appearances. Naming others often eclipses our view of the unseen abilities in ourselves and others. The abilities which God sees in everyone.

After polio, I have been referred to as an “invalid” (sounds like not valid), as “crippled,” “home-bound,” “handicapped,” “disabled,” “physically challenged” and as “a person with disabilities.” Once at my home a telephone repairman asked me, “Are you a birth defect?” The question did not upset me. It showed me that he had a weakness in how he viewed me. A weakness in maintaining verbal boundaries.

Just as we should not limit our belief that God has the power to accomplish all things, we should not let the words used by others to limit what we or others can become with hard work, love, and God’s help.

I think Peter’s description of the children in the store as differently abled is in perfect alignment with how God views us. Because of my own faith journey, as a collaborative divorce attorney, I focus on finding the strengths in the husbands and wives I represent. To identify and build on them. Strengths are the gifts God gives everyone of us. Those gifts have the power to overpower and overcome the weaknesses in all of us. To survive and thrive despite a divorce, the loss of a loved one, addiction, and as for me, polio.

Because of how I believed God looked at me as His differently abled child, I did not see myself as a weak muscled, disabled, polio survivor with scoliosis. The way God made me was good enough for me because the goodness of God was in me. My God-given abilities and my faith that God had special plans for me enabled me to find a wife and soulmate, children, grandchildren, success as a family lawyer, pursue becoming a songwriter and author and so much more.

Does God see you as His broken, infirm, and weak person? Or, as His child with abilities which call to be acknowledged and developed? To have every opportunity to grow and flourish to the glory of God?

God has spoken in Scripture as to our strengths and weaknesses.

“Paul quotes Jesus who said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ ”

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

Let us pray.

Dear God, I thank You for all the abilities You have bestowed in me and in others.

God, despite my abilities, I sometimes focus more on the weaknesses in me than the strengths and goodness in me.

God, please help me to see, nurture, and encourage the abilities in others to bloom in Your Kingdom.

God, I know that I am differently abled like all Your children. With prayer and Your love may my weaknesses become my biggest strengths. In that way may I fulfill Your plans for me, now and forever. Amen

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Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist