Like a mother who cares for her child, Jesus loves you just as much and beyond. You are his treasure and beloved.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a devotional for mothers.
The mother’s name is Elva, and we met her while delivering wheelchairs in a mountain village in Peru. Elva came to our distribution cradling her son Christian in her arms. We couldn’t exactly tell what Christian’s disability was; he was paralyzed, he was nonverbal, and he was not a little boy, he looked to be about 12, maybe 13 years old, and yet even with his size, Elva had carried her son all the way to the wheelchair distribution, getting on and off at least three different buses to arrive in time so that her son could be fitted with a wheelchair.
While Elva waited, still holding Christian, kissing his forehead and smoothing his hair, she said to her physical therapist, “I’ve had a lot of time with Jesus, a long faith in the Lord that keeps my heart strong. Hallelujah, every night when I go to bed I pray to God for strength to continue this fight for my son.” She cradled Christian in her arms with breathtaking tenderness. Brushing kisses over his face, gazing at him as one gazes at a priceless work of art. It was obvious that her son was her treasure.
Meanwhile, a brand-new wheelchair was being prepared for Christian. After a short time, the physical therapist gestured that it was time to fit Christian into it for a first fitting. But Elva, she took her time. She readjusted Christian in her arms, balancing his spastic body with precision and timing and the strength that comes from 12 years of protecting her treasure in her arms. Cradling his bulk with one arm, she took a white burp-rag from her shoulder. And with great effort, she leaned over the wheelchair and began cleaning it methodically. Never had we seen that happen! And the thing is, the wheelchair wasn’t dirty, part of standard procedure is to clean the chair thoroughly before it’s brought out for a fitting. But Elva wanted to make sure, after all, she was about to place in it her treasure.
In her poverty and the dust and dirt of her country, it’s clear that Elva will go to excruciating lengths for her treasure – her son. Even the miracle gift of a new wheelchair [that she could never afford] must be prepared to receive him. She saw to it personally, expending every last bit of her strength because her son, Christian is a treasure far greater than the wheelchair he is about to receive. And that’s what amazed us most of all about Elva.
Mothers the world over love like this, whether in grinding poverty or urban squalor. They spend everything they have to care for their treasures – their children. What the world sees as broken, they see as priceless. There is no effort, no price too high to pay on behalf of their treasures. They don’t count the cost, they don’t dole out their love in measured doses. They pour it out extravagantly. No power on earth can stand between them and their children; their treasures, no disability too hard to endure, no burden too great to bear. Elva is an earthly glimpse of a heavenly reality. In her love, the clouds part for a brief second to display the divine. For Christian is God’s treasure, his beloved one, the object of his unceasing care. And his mother’s soft songs are a mere echo as Father God rejoices over Christian with heavenly singing.
No gift is too extravagant, no price too high for our God. We are his beloved, the objects of his painstaking, never-ending care. His gaze does not find fault in our weakness, for we are his treasures. And that’s what we celebrate as we take Wheels for the World to other disabled boys like Christian [God’s treasures] across the globe.
© Joni and Friends