Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progessiva

The title of this post is the name of a very rare affliction that turns human muscle into bone, a condition that literally, over the course of time, turns the sufferers into a statue. The malady is so rare that there are only 200 reported cases in the world.

Luciana Wulkan, Robert Kinghorn, and Adrian Berry are all featured in an online article and suffer from this disease. Luciana, Robert, and Adrian are among the 45 people diagnosed with the condition in the United Kingdom.

Professor Paul Wordsworth explains one of the more shocking ramifications of the condition by stating, "As Luciana's condition escalates, she may contort and freeze into a set position. If she's lucky she may be able to choose that position for herself, if she isn't her body will choose for her. Professor Paul Wordsworth explains that as an individual gets more and more ossification of the muscles they may have to make a very difficult decision about what they do with their life. Basically, before the body locks completely they must decide if they will spend their life sitting or standing."

Here are some various photographs of the condition.

IFOPA is an non-profit organization set up to support people and families afflicted with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progessiva.

FOP awareness bracelets can be ordered here.

Disability Ministry Education

Two programs have come to my attention. If anyone knows of others, please drop a comment and let me know about them, I would be interested in knowing if there are more programs like this.


Reformed Theological Seminary

Disability Ministry Certificate
Available via correspondence through RTS Virtual Campus

Click here for information specific to the certificate.
There is also a "Disabilities and the Church" PDF file (the link is located on the same page as the link posted above along with the information specific to the certificate).

RTS also has seminaries located in Atlanta, GA; Boca Raton, FL; Charlotte, NC; Jackson, MS; Orlando, FL; and Washington D.C.

Click here for Admissions information.

Program blurb and Course Requirements:
here is an immediate and significant need for evangelism, edification and leadership training for those who have significant physical, mental, and sensory disabilities. People with such weakness are an indispensable part of the church. The Certificate for Disability Ministry is an instructional program for effective practical ministry with a thoroughly biblical theological foundation.

COURSE	INSTRUCTOR	CREDIT HOURS
Systematic Theology I	Dr. Douglas Kelly	3
Pauline Epistles	Dr. Knox Chamblin	4
Pastoral and Social Ethics	Dr. Harold O. J. Brown	3
Disabilities and the Church	Dr. Andrew Peterson	2
History of Missions	Samuel H. Larsen	3
		TOTAL 15

Johnson Bible College

Disability Ministry (undergraduate Minor). Click here for details.
Click here to view the PDF file of the 2004-2006 Course Catalog.
Page 58 & 59 of the catalog outline the Disability Ministry courses.
Click here for Admissions information.

I have been given information that the Disability Ministry courses will be available via correspondence course format in January 2006. You will want to contact an admissions advisor for more information.

Course Blurb:

Do you enjoy helping those with special needs? If working with the mentally and physically handicapped is a gift of yours, then we encourage you to check out our Disability Ministry Program.

Our Disability Ministry program is designed to help you better understand the needs of the disabled and develop skills which will help to incorporate them into the life of the church. You will also learn the "ins" and "outs" of the services provided to those with disabilities by federal, state, and local agencies.

Along with a specialty in disability ministry, you will receive a bachelor's degree in Bible.

Down Syndrome Testing & Abortion

Al Mohler and Hugh Hewitt have both recently reported on their blogs some disturbing new trends in genetic testing, Down Syndrome, and Abortion.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported on Thursday that a fetal screening test for Down Syndrome has been developed that can detect Down Syndrome as early as the first trimester of pregnancy.

Or, to quote a corresponding article in the Washington Post: A first trimester screening test can reliably identify fetuses likely to be born with Down Syndrome...

The word "likely" really shakes me.

Instead of pouring all of this money and research into developing screening tests, why doesn't the medical industry pour that money and research into curing Downs?

Hat Tip: JT

Craniofacial Birth Defect Research

I just read an article posted on the USC Newsroom website. Though the article is a few years old, there are some very interesting statistics included regarding cleft palate births.

• One in 700 American children is born with cleft lip or cleft palate, although the incidence is one in 300 for native Americans and one in 500 for Hispanic and Asian populations.
• Every child born with this condition needs four major surgeries,” said Shuler, director of USC’s Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology. “In California, these multiple surgeries cost the state’s children’s services agency an average of $1.5 million per child

Incidentally, the article concludes by saying:

“Some of these birth defects are genetic, some are environmental and some are both,” Shuler said, “but they all result from mistakes during fundamental reactions that occur as the craniofacial complex forms.”

On one level, I can read that paragraph and understand and agree completely with every word. From a medical, physiological, and development perspective, we can determine what is "normal" and "abnormal" by the frequency and rarity of which something occurs.

However, viewing the sentence through a spiritual lens creates some tension. When referring to babies supernaturally birthed by a Creator, we must ponder what words like "mistake" do to misrepresent the sovereign and intentional nature of God.

To believe that God knits us together in our mother's womb and to also believe that sometimes mistakes occur in the womb, is to conclude that God has made a mistake. But Scripture says that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. (That verse isn't just for the pretty people)!

Is living with a deformed face difficult? Yes.
Is it painful? Yes
Do I wish it would go away? Yes.
Do I believe it was a huge mistake and God dropped the ball? No.

I know there are occasions when we have to use words like "normal" and "mistake" -- I point this out only because I want to make it abundantly clear that, biblically, God doesn't make mistakes when he knits us together. Our lives (and faces) are not the result of freak accidents or uncontrollable circumstances, or fate, of bad luck, or the sin of our parents, or whatever other lie we have conjured up and come to believe. And that doesn't just go for those of us with deformed faces - it goes for everybody.

Fear Not the Disabled

Christianity Today released an online article this morning on their website, entitled, "Fear Not the Disabled."

The article concludes:
Just as important as physical accommodation is an attitude that welcomes the physically and mentally challenged with open arms. A church that welcomes the disabled is great, but a bolder step forward is for churches to be inclusive. When people with disabilities are recognized as participants, not as "the needy," we all benefit. Paul reminded the Corinthians that "the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable." The disabled need the church—almost as much as the church needs the disabled.

Hat Tip: JT

Disabilities and Abortion

A friend sent me a link this morning to an article entitled, The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have. The writer of the article has a grown daughter with Down's Syndrome and is tackling the tough issue of prenatal testing used to weed out children with Disabilities from the general populous.

I could say a hundred different things right now. There are so many downsides to a world without disabled children! Even now, with all of its flaws, America has a lot of facades -- even our freeways and trash dumpsters have to be situated in the midst of planted flower beds. In a world of poverty and suffering and war and terror, America is the Disneyland of the planet. We look around at the pretty flower boxes and children laughing and perfectly manicured lawns and smiling caricatures and sno cone machines and think, "This is reality."

But it is not reality. Disabilities are, among many other things, mercy to a dying world. When we look at quarter of a million dollar houses and bright red Corvettes, we think, "What a wonderful world!" When we see children with disabilities, we are reminded, if even for a moment, that life doesn't always run according to our plans. For a brief moment, our false sense of reality is shaken - we are forced to realize we live in a fallen world where people get sick, people suffer, and where all of us will eventually die.

In America, those thought are all buried beneath layer upon layer of funny T.V. shows, restaurants, Krispy Kreme donuts, new cars, vacations, paychecks, and shoe shopping. Name your distraction - we all have a million of them.

It is not wise, nor healthy, nor beneficial to go through life never realizing that we are sailing on a sinking ship. Reality is a good thing to taste now and then. Never thinking about death or growing old will only make those inevitable fates all the harder to deal with when they happen to you, and they both will.

I believe that God has a thousand good purposes behind Disabilities. The one I am highlighting here is only one of them. But let me tell you, from a personal standpoint -- anytime I think life is designed around my having fun or being comfortable - or that God is designed around making me happy -- all I have to do is look in a mirror and see a face full of scars to be reminded that life is much deeper and more difficult than the American media would have me believe.

Interacting with children and families with Disabilities is difficult. By that, I mean, that it takes more thought and care to meet their needs. It can be intimidating. There is always risk of offense or saying something foolish or something wrong. There is the temptation to rudely stare or ask probing questions that are too personal. And there is the gut-wrenching empathy that we must wrestle with for days after the encounter as we wonder why some people are called to suffer so much in this world.

But these are all good things, despite being difficult or uncomfortable. Learning how to deal with people compassionately, learning how to judge a person on the inside rather that the outside, learning how to weep with those who weep -- these are all good, character-building, Christ-like attributes, and Disabilities is one place in the world where we can find a place to nurture those characteristics and behaviors.

Scripture says that God chooses the weak and despised things of the world to shame the wise. We would do best to follow God's lead. And by His grace, we will learn to value the things that He values.

Kazakhstan Photos

I put up a tiny sampling of our photos. You can view them here.

Unfortunately, you have to put in your e-mail address and a password, but it only takes a second and you are not put on any mailing lists or bound to any obligations.

The photos are mostly of my team: Sonja, Bethann, Liliya, and myself. Nataliya was our main contact. She is a Kazak woman who works with the orphanages in Uralsk. There are pictures of kids. Shine Camp was a one-day "camp" that we held for about a dozen children with disabilities who are not orphans. They are at the camp with their parents.

The other kids in the photos are orphans. The one shot of a building is Cushum -- the disability orphanage about an hour out of Uralsk.

Enjoy! I hope to have more photos posted in the future.

Back in the U.S. of A

I got back from Kazakhstan on Saturday night. What an exhausting trip - both emotionally, physically, and spiritually. But worth every second. After church yesterday, I got home, ate a bowl of cereal, laid down on my couch and didn't wake up until 6:00 AM this morning!

I am having a hard time wrapping my little, jet-lagged brain around everything that happened, but suffice it to say it was awesome. I went with three other women and we brought three wheelchairs, two walkers, a prosthetic leg, and nine suitcases full of supplies for the orphanages in Uralsk.

Uralsk has a high concentration of deformed and disabled children because it is the city where the former Soviet Union did their bomb testing. We went to three different orphanages, one of which housed disabled children exclusively. We also did a day camp for about a dozen disabled kids and their parents.

We had a very close call. In Amsterdam, they told us we didn't have reservations to get on the plane to Uralsk. For about an hour, two of the gals bantered with the ticket agents and made desperate phone calls to our travel agent in the U.S. while I guarded the luggage and took turns praying with the other gals. Not only were they not going to let us on the plane, but they told us the next flight to Uralsk was an entire week away! We prayed and at the eleventh hour, a flight attendant was sent running on board the plane to instruct the pilot to terminate take off. We made it.

We got to Uralsk at 2:00 AM and were there another two or three hours getting through customs and passport control. Two of the three wheelchairs we brought were completely mangled and destroyed by the time we got them. A couple of days later, the team was praying and reading Scripture together and Bethann and I went over to the wheelchairs and starting trying to bend them back into shape and somehow, miraculously, the two of us, with bare hands, somehow put these broken wheelchairs back together and in "good as new" shape. Praise the Lord. It blew us away.

I have so much more to say but I am going to have to blog in spurts as my head still cannot contain all that happened. Thanks to all of you who supported me financially and who prayed for me while I was gone. Your prayers were answered beyond what any of us could have imagined.

Donna Yeatman Brown

I was at a Sister Kenny clinic this morning getting some physical therapy done on a minor neck injury (compliments of the gym...proof I never should have attempted rigerous exercise!) On the wall in the waiting room was a beautiful oil painting of a frozen-over river in the wintertime. Next to the paining was a small bio of the artist. Here is what it said:

Donna Yeatman Brown
Council Bluffs, IA

Disabled since birth, Donna grasps paintbrushes between her elbows where her arms stop. Her disability affected both legs, also requiring her to use an artificial limb. She is married, has three daughters and does all her own cooking, cleaming, and shopping, drives a car, and does volunteer work for schools and Girl Scouts.

I was amazed. I presume Donna's painting was on the wall because she must have been enrolled in the Sister Kenny rehabilitation treatment program. Here is some history behind the program:

Did you know that Sister Kenny was not a nun? Elizabeth Kenny was born in Australia in 1880. She was trained as an army nurse and treated the sick for 31 years in the bushlands of Australia. She acquired the title "Sister" -- used in British countries for "nurse."

In 1911, when she encountered her first case of polio, Sister Kenny was unaware of conventional polio treatment -- immobilizing the affected muscles with splints. Instead, she used common sense and her understanding of anatomy to treat the symptoms of the disease. Sister Kenny applied moist hotpacks to help loosen muscles, relieve pain, and enable limbs to be moved, stretched, and strengthened. The theory of her treatment was muscle "re-education" -- the retraining of muscles so that they could function again.

In 1940, Sister Kenny traveled to the United States and eventually to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where, in 1942, the Sister Kenny Institute was established. Sister Kenny's pioneering principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy. Today, Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Services is one of the premier rehabilitation centers in the country, known for its progressive and innovative vision.

For the Least of These

Several months ago, the Disability Ministry at my church held a luncheon for all of the families involved. One of the fathers led us in a devotional and I was very intrigued with his message. This blog is a summation of his thoughts along with some extended thoughts of my own.

His observation was simply that one of the passages where Jesus heals a man who cannot walk, after the people go to Jesus and ask him to heal the man, Jesus, interestingly, does not say, “Take me to him.” But instead, Jesus says to the people, “Bring him to me.” You see the point – Jesus required faith, not just from the one who was sick, but from those asking for the healing on his behalf. Jesus made them do some of the work. Jesus didn’t expect crippled men to hobble over to him – he expected others to take notice and bring these people to Him.

After mulling this over for a few weeks, I decided to take an even closer look. I perused all four Gospels and read every passage that mentions Jesus healing the sick. (Ironically, Luke, the physician, had the least to say about this topic than all four of them).

The results were somewhat stunning. In nearly every case that dealt with a person who was unable to walk or speak – healthy people were a key component to the story. Look at the language of some of these verses in particular.

Matthew 9:2: Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.

Note that it was “their” faith that touched Jesus – not the faith of the paralytic himself!

Matthew 15:30 says: Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.

Mark 2:3-5 is probably the most radical example: Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Look at the joy and importunacy involved in this descriptions: Mark 6:55: They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And Mark 7:32: There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man. Mark 8:22 echoes the same sentiment: They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.

There are many other examples: Matthew 8:5; Matthew 9:1; Matthew 9:32; Matthew 17:16-17; Mark 9:17,20, Mark 10:46-52; Luke 4:40; Luke 5:17.

John 5:2-7 is a unique situation and yet stresses the same point.

Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

This is amazing to me. You would think one person in thirty-eight years would lend the poor guy a hand. It makes me wonder what would have been his fate should he never have run into Christ.

This brings us, of course, to application. How does the church today fit into this context? What is the Church doing for its sick and needy today? Are we, like the New Testament believers, running to find the sick and begging Christ to heal them?

Joni Camp

I have been home from Joni Camp for four days now and am still struggling to find a way to put the experience into words. It is an experience I would definitely recommend and strongly urge you to check out the Joni and Friends website and start thinking and praying towards volunteering at a camp near you.

It was wonderful, but also a lot of hard work. The days were jam-packed with activity. We were up early and in bed late, and yet, the energy seemed to always be there when I needed it, which I presume to be nothing but the grace of God and the answer to the many prayers people were praying on my behalf.

I spent the week with an adorable six year old girl with OHDO Blepharophimosis Syndrome. I instantly fell in love with this little girl - as well as her mom, dad, grandmother, and brother (who were all at the camp also).

Being put with a six year old carried with it many benefits. First being, that I got to spend time with a wonderful little girl! Secondly, the six year old team had all sorts of fun stuff planned for them. I think I had just as much fun as the kids did. We had puppet shows, games, a moon walk, a carnival, cartoons, train rides, swimming, boat rides, tubing, treats, singing, crafts - you name it. It was a blast! Another blessing to being put with the six year olds is that I had a wonderful team leader who is going to be a life-long friend.

I met many wonderful people there -- fellow volunteers, families of disabled kids, not to mention the kids themselves. It was great being in an atmosphere where everyone was friendly and kind and the rude staring and probing questions were nowhere to be found.

I am only touching on my week. Like I said before, I am still struggling for words to put this whole experience down. I am sure I will blog more as things get processed.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for me while I was gone. God went exceedingly beyond my wildest expectations and I had a wonderful time.

A Perfect World?

Hat tip to JT for sending me a link to this article in Christianity Today.

The article was written by the mother of a special needs child who is living with her family in France. Down's Syndrome is becoming virtually extinct in France due to advances in ultrasound technology and legalized abortion. In the article, the mother considers a world completely void of disability.

Here are some excerpts:

I tried to imagine a society devoid of people with disabilities. What if any and all babies with special needs were to be eliminated? What would a society look like if everyone were "normal," if we never had to make provisions and exceptions for people who are deaf, blind, mute, or lame?

Could it be that the special-needs, "imperfect" people have that balancing effect on society as a whole? How would love and compassion develop among people who were only surrounded by the lovely and intelligent? My children treasure nothing more than a smile or kiss, sometimes just eye contact, from their little brother. My nephew, who is a year younger than Michael, loves to help at his school with the class of students with special needs—or as he puts it, "the class like Michael." I see my husband kiss our son's often expressionless, crooked little face, and my heart nearly bursts with a love and joy that I can hardly contain.

As I pondered this potential "perfect" society, one verse from the Bible kept coming to my mind: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit" (Phil. 2:3). Parenting a child with special needs makes living out this verse a little easier.

Baby Milagros

Fox News is reporting on the story of a 13-month old girl from Peru who was born with Sirenomelia (a.k.a. Mermaid Syndrome). She is undergoing the first of several operations to seperate her legs, which were seamlessly fused from the ankles to the upper thighs when she was born. The doctors are optimistic that the operation will be successful. The first surgery, a team of eleven doctors will seperate her legs from the ankles up to the knees. Sirnomelia is fairly rare - inflicting one in every 70,000 births. Milagros (which is Spanish for "Miracle") is one of three children alive in the world with Sirnomelia. Please keep Milagros and her family and her doctors in your prayers.

Joni and Friends Summer Family Camp

It is not to late to still sign up for a Joni and Friends summer retreat. Whether you are the parent of a disabled child and would like your family to attend, or you would like to sign up to volunteer at a family camp, you can still go to Joni's site and sign up. Here is some of the information they have posted. For more details, go to Joni's website or contact JAF at (800) 523-5777.

Since 1991 Joni and Friends Family Retreats has hosted five-day summer programs across the United States where families affected by disability can find hope get a break from the challenges of everyday life.

If your family is affected by disability, we invite you to pack the car and join us this summer at one of our fifteen retreats. Browse the family information section or check out the family registration.

Our volunteer opportunities are a great way to engage in serving others in a fun environment. Browse the volunteer information section or check out the volunteer application.

While you're here, browse through our 2005 schedule. There are also opportunities to help support Family Retreats and find referrals to other camps and conferences that serve families affected by disability.

If you are a church leader, we're here to serve you.

We're proud to be a part of the Christian Camp and Conference Association and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Defining Disability

An article currently on the Fox News homepage has sparked what will, no doubt, be an endless stream of discussions regarding the proper definition of "Disability." I am sure once everyone puts in their two cups of sugar and the P.C. movement rolls in to ice the cake, we will all be more confused than we ever were to begin with.

Some of the questions being asked are:

1. What does it mean to be disabled?
2. How should "normal" people react to those with disabilities?

My brain has no choice but to shift into its hyper-philosophical mode when I read questions like that. I understand that disabilities are real. It is a tangible concept and the fact is, some people have them and some do not. But that fact not withstanding, my rebuttal question would be,

What does it mean to be normal?

Three observations:

1. We cannot put every human being into two cut-and-dry categories as general as "disabled" or "normal." There are scads of strange people roaming the planet who have no legitimate "disability" but they are also far from "normal."

2. There are also people in the world who are legitimately disabled who, by every definition of the word, are completely "normal."

3. Treating disabled people with love and respect is not a lesson simply for the strong and healthy. (It's not like we disabled people cannot also be unengaging, judgmental, shy, socially akward, or clueless at times ourselves)!

I think it comes down to common decency. If you don't like being treated like you're a moron, then chances are other human beings -- normal and disabled alike - also don't appreciate it. That should be your guide -- the good ole Golden Rule -- treat people the way you hope to be treated. It's all pretty simple.

Liberal Agenda Now on Life Support

Opinion Journal has been following the Schiavo case from a political perspective. Very interesting.

Who'll Remember Terri Schiavo?--II

Yesterday we speculated that the Terri Schiavo case may help Republicans and hurt Democrats among voters who suffer from disabilities, who have obvious reasons to look skeptically at claims that a low "quality of life" makes life not worth living. We actually visited this issue last year: In September, we noted that President Bush was doing surprisingly well in a Harris Interactive poll of disabled Americans. He led John Kerry 48% to 46%. A similar poll a month earlier had given Kerry a 50% to 40% lead.

Our thought then was that disabled voters were put off by Kerry's clumsy exploitation of the wheelchair-bound Max Cleland, but blogger Ed Jordan offered a better theory, which we noted the following week: that the swing was owing to the Florida Supreme Court's striking down a law designed to save Mrs. Schiavo's life. As Jordan wrote, "there is good reason to believe they are sensitive to the fact that liberals like Senator Kerry want to give them the right to die, while conservatives like President Bush want to give them the right to live."

More reason comes in a Nov. 9 press release from the National Organization on Disability:

In a dramatic shift in support toward a Republican presidential candidate, a clear majority of voters with disabilities chose George W. Bush over Sen. John Kerry in last week's national election. According to a survey conducted by telephone between October 29 and November 1, 2004 by Harris Interactive, likely voters with disabilities preferred President George W. Bush over Senator John Kerry by 52.5 percent to 46 percent. . . .

In past presidential elections, people with disabilities have consistently supported Democrats over Republicans by solid majorities. According to Harris Interactive, in 2000, Vice President Al Gore was preferred 56 to 38 percent by likely voters over then-Governor George W. Bush. Bill Clinton carried the disability vote 69 percent to 23 percent over Senator Dole in 1996, and 52 percent to 29 percent over President H.W. Bush in 1992.

NOD's president, quoted in the release, ignores the Schiavo issue and tries to explain the shift in terms of the same issues that affect all voters: terrorism, greater GOP turnout, high turnout among the elderly, who have a disproportionate rate of disability.

This seems unpersuasive. Overall, voters swung from a 0.5% Democratic plurality in 2000 to a 2.5% Republican one in 2004, a shift of three percentage points. The disabled, according to the NOD poll, went from an 18% Democratic plurality to a 6.5% Republican one--a shift of 24.5 points, and of 16.5 points after the Florida Supreme Court acted to bring about Terri Schiavo's death.

To be sure, there is a good deal of imprecision in these polls. They have a small sample size (253 disabled likely voters in the last pre-election survey), and the definition of "disability" leaves considerable room for interpretation. But the shift is so striking, it's hard to discount--and hard to explain except as a response to issues of particular concern to voters with disabilities.

No More Tears

“Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.”
(1 Corinthians 10:31)

I don’t have tear ducts. This is one of the many results of my birth defect. This means, that my tears run down my face instead of draining properly. So, I am constantly wiping tears off my cheek which has led to the question I get on an almost daily basis, “Are you crying?!” Through the years, I have heard many responses, but the most interesting was from a coworker who said, “God must have never wanted you to cry.”

Hearing such a response from a non-religious person really convicted me. At that point in my life, I had done a lot of crying and I was ashamed when I realized that most of my tears were rooted in the sod of self-pity. I determined at that moment that from that point forward I would cry “for the glory of God.”

I figured that determining what made Jesus Christ cry would be a pretty safe place to start. Scripture gives us three accounts of Christ crying: weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), weeping at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:35), and weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion (Luke 22:44). I put these accounts into three categories:

1. Weeping over hard hearts that do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah
2. Weeping out of grief over the loss of a loved one and/or seeing others we love grieving.
3. Weeping over the thought of being separated from God and falling under his wrath and condemnation.

The reason I concluded (#3) that Christ’s tears in the garden were the result of being separated from his Father and having the wrath of God fall upon him instead of simply saying that Jesus was crying because he was afraid of death and the pain of torture lies in Matthew 10:28 where it says, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” I am confident that if God requires us, as mere mortals, to face death without fear that his Son, Jesus, modeled that for us perfectly without contradiction or failure.

I doubts that Christ was looking forward to it or that he enjoyed the torture, but I don’t think that is why he was crying. Christ knew his death would ultimately repair the separation between him and God and remove God’s wrath, this is why Hebrews 12:2 says, and “It was because of the JOY set before him that Christ endured the cross.”

Christ was right to weep over the thought of falling under the wrath of God and we overlook a valuable, beautiful, life-saving Truth if we reduce his tears in Gethsemane to, “Jesus was scared to die.”

There is another interesting tidbit that seems to weave these three accounts together. Christ wept in Gethsemane and three days later he rose from the dead. Christ wept over Lazarus and three minutes later Lazarus rose from the dead. It leads one to assume that the hard hearts in Jerusalem, embalmed with the tears of Christ, will also one day resurrect.

I conclude, therefore, that God is honored when we weep over hard hearts that reject Jesus as the Messiah (John 14:6), death or grieving along with others who are grieving (Romans 12:15), and facing the wrath of God without a Redeemer (Romans 2:5). Another instance where I believe it is glorifying to God to cry, and a scenario Christ could not possibly have modeled for us, is to weep over our sin.

Finally, it is interesting to me that the American culture has a stigma against men crying, sighting it as a sign of “weakness.” However, the Bible comes to a radically different conclusion – showing us a Man who wept and whose tears were so strong, they raised the dead.

A faithful and serious pondering of these things will revolutionize the way we live, the way we pray, and…the way we cry.

Rock On!

Here is a really interesting article about Joe Grushecky

Over the past two decades, he's raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for all kinds of causes, including headlining a sold-out (in 57 minutes!) "Flood Aid" benefit concert last December in Pittsburgh with his good buddy Bruce Springsteen.

He's a musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, music arranger, recording artist -- and he leads what's been described in top music publications as "one of the best bar bands in America." Moreover, a song he co-wrote with Springsteen recently won a Grammy for best solo rock vocal performance ("Code of Silence").

Do you know him? Probably not.

Here's the lowdown on Pittsburgh's Joe Grushecky.

Grushecky, 56, is a highly acclaimed, almost-famous rock and roller, who, along with his band, "The Houserockers," still fills small and medium-sized nightclubs nationwide. They've also toured overseas a few times in venues packed with appreciative audiences.

But that's just a hobby. His day job involves teaching developmentally disabled, physically disabled and emotionally disturbed kids -- a high burnout career, and he's been doing it for more than 25 years.

Lucy Grealy

At the age of nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a lethal form of cancer with only a five percent survival rate. She lost nearly half her jaw to the disease, endured three years of chemotherapy, and endless painful operations attempting to reconstruct her face. Yet in her 1994 memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy tells the story of a different kind of pain - "the deep bottomless grief . . . called ugliness." It is this pain that she calls "the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."

The book is a powerful, strikingly candid account of the alienation, humiliation, and hostility Grealy endured as a result of her deformity. It is also a fresh and insightful commentary on the relationship between beauty and happiness in our society. The critical response to the work was overwhelming.

You can order Lucy's book through Amazon.

Lucy is now a writer and poet. Here is a quote from her book, Autobiography of a Face:

"I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."

Edgar Allen Poe or the American Justice System?

Here is an excerpt from an eerie article appearing on the Not Dead Yet website.

Disability activists have called for a nationwide moratorium on the dehydration and starvation of people alleged to be in "persistent vegetative state." This would apply to individuals who do not have an advance directive or durable power of attorney.

The call for a moratorium is a reaction to the newly-published report indicating high levels of brain activity in people thought to be in "minimally conscious state (MCS)." The study, published in the February issue of Neurology, discovered evidence that these individuals may hear and understand much of what is going on around them, but are unable to respond.
The study drew a distinction between MCS and Persistent Vegetative State (PVS), but the distinction is not a reliable one. In a New York Times article, Dr. Joseph Fins mentioned research indicating a 30% misdiagnosis rate of PVS, indicating that nearly a third of persons diagnosed in PVS are actually in "minimally conscious state." Fins is chief of the medical ethics division of New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center.

With the exception of oblique references to Terri Schiavo, current coverage of the study and its implications dance around the most important issues regarding this study. Namely, thousands of people around this country with labels of both MCS and PVS are being starved and dehydrated, often without an advance directive indicating their wishes, or a durable power of attorney appointing a substitute decision-maker they chose for themselves.

"Given the current research regarding brain activity and misdiagnosis, it's a virtual certainty that countless people have been helpless to prevent their own deaths through starvation and dehydration," says Stephen Drake, research analyst for Not Dead Yet, a national disability rights group opposed to legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.