It has been asserted that religion offers no relevant answers to the query,
“Why is there disability?”

Answers are numerous and include the ideas that disability is:

(a) a punishment; (b) a test of faith; (c) the sins of the fathers visited upon the children; (d) an act of God; or (e) all of the above.

If these were the only choices, I would have to agree that religion has no relevant answers. Christianity has often been cited as the source of destructive stereotypes about people with disabilities. In countering these views, the challenge for people of faith is (i) to acknowledge our complicity with the inhumane views and treatment related to people with disabilities, and (ii) to uncover this hidden history and to make it available for contemporary reflection.

As a person with a disability, I could not accept the traditional answers given to my query, “Why is there disability?” Since I have lived with a disability all of my life, I have had opportunities to hear and experience many of these so-called answers. They included: “You are special in God’s eyes, that’s why you were given this painful disability”, which didn’t seem logical. Or “Don’t worry about your pain and suffering now, in heaven you will be made whole.” My disability has taught me who I am and who God is. What would it mean to be without this knowledge? I was told that God gave me a disability to develop my character. But at age six or seven, I was convinced that I had enough character now to last a lifetime. The theology that I heard was inadequate to my experience.

Over recent years the concept of “The disabled God” has been coined. This term causes us to re-think the myth of bodily perfection and how confronting it is to think of Jesus as being disabled by his treatment on the cross.

If Christ resurrected still participated fully in the experience of human life – including mysteriously the experience of impairment – we must be scandalised by our theological tendencies to perpetuate the myth of bodily perfection in our defence of heavenly (or, indeed, earthly) perfection.

The disabled God nails the lie in our belief in a paradise in which we are “released” from the truth of worldly and bodily existence. That which God has called good, and in which God has participated through the incarnation cannot be simply viewed as a temporary “evil” which we repudiate in order to participate in the promised fullness of life.

I wonder if perhaps the issue of disability is akin to the issue of divine healing. It is still a mystery to the human mind, and there are many answers to the one question or request for healing. At times there are miracles, at times modern medicine brings the necessary healing, at times healing comes in various forms and stages but is never complete – the person is simply assisted to cope with their situation – and at times, the person dies still not knowing.We can not know why different people are given these different answers. Each person I think needs to find their own peace with God and their own personal situation, as the Psalms refer to “the deep calling to the Deep”, and perhaps find that silent inner voice that might lead you to a particularly understanding doctor or provide the money for needed surgery.

Perhaps it is not a question about disability/illness at all; if our one purpose as humans is to glorify God, then perhaps this purpose is not in any way impacted by illness or disability. Perhaps these issues/obstacles to achieving our life’s purpose are really only created by mankind, and our need to compete and be more significant than the next person, so that we create reasons why we place them at a disadvantage, or lower than ourselves, as that feeds our insecurities. Perhaps this is the area in which my ministry lies, in assisting people to find that inner peace and then build on this foundation to bring about positive and loving relationships.

http://www.cbm.org.au/content/what-we-do/April-News/?zbrandid=2048&zidType=CH&zid=4136168&zsubscriberId=502862045&zbdom=http://cbm.informz.net