I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and on this Heart for the Disabled Week, I am so blessed to have you as my friend...
And I'll tell you why you're such a blessing: you have sent some of the sweetest, most heartwarming, most God-glorifying, Christ-centered letters and cards of encouragement to the disabled people and their families I’ve been telling you about this week. I’ve shared with you the needs of these disabled people who attended our retreats last year and, boy, you have come through: you should see our mailroom! You know, the book of Hebrews tells us to encourage one another daily and you have done just that – every day you’ve sent an encouragement and I can’t wait for Alicia and Grandmother Sherri and Ruben and all the others… I can’t wait for them to spread all these cards and all these letters out on their living room floor or on their kitchen table and have their socks blessed off! But on this last day I have one last person I want you to encourage…
Her name is Diane and she served as the leader of our Woman-to-Woman group at our West Coast Family Retreat last season. Diane is so relaxed, she’s so pretty, and she gently led these moms of kids with disabilities and women in wheelchairs through some heart-warming, deeply personal times of just counseling over God's Word. But it wasn’t until we saw Diane with her own daughter that we realized where her depth of understanding comes from.
You see, Diane’s daughter, Skyler, is profoundly disabled with cerebral palsy; she’s deaf, she’s blind. She requires around-the-clock intensive care. Diane has learned that carrying such a load can only be done in the strength of Jesus Christ; Jesus gives her enough strength to then come alongside somebody else to help bear their burden, too.
Diane explained it this way, she told me, “God gives us all a load. When it becomes heavy, we simply must help each other. And that’s what I do at Family Retreat.” However, I should say that Diane confided that, at first, she thought no one could love Skyler – deaf, blind, cerebral palsy, in pain? But then she observed that “at Family Retreat, any prejudice is lifted, any fear; there are no ‘what ifs’ or preconditions to love.” Diane is real about the ongoing struggle she lives with every day as the mother of a very profoundly disabled daughter. She says, “It’s so hard to watch Skyler suffer; as a mom, it’s sometimes overwhelming… how do I cope? It has brought me to a place of knowing God’s faithfulness, and His emotional healing. God has a plan for this, and if I’m simply willing to accept the struggle as a teaching tool that He is using, then I’m on my way.”
Well, frankly, you know, I’ve got to think that part of God's plan is that now, through Skyler’s disability, Diane has this incredible authority and expertise; she’s got such compassion when she’s ministering to others, I mean people under her tutelage are responding to the love of Christ, because they see the Spirit at work in a powerful way in Diane’s own life with her own daughter -- all because of Skyler; oh, what eternal reward awaits that little girl, right?
Would you be willing to write Diane a note today and thank her for her ministry to other women who have disabilities? Let her know you’ll be praying for Skyler and then, by all means, please do pray. Thank Diane for her commitment to shine the love of Christ to both her daughter and to others. You can write your note to Diane in care of Joni and Friends, P.O. Box 3333, Agoura Hills, CA 91376. And finally, I want to say a special thanks to all of you who have written cards and letters this week to families like Diane’s. You, my friend, you have got a true Heart for the Disabled. And that means you have the favor and blessing of our great and wonderful God!
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends