Divine Healing: The Emporer has no Clothes?

For some time I have been trying to write about how life long disability shapes a person. I have mulled over the title of Accent of Disability or something like that. I have gotten great input from people who frequent the Cerebral Palsy is Awesome board and others. But, I haven't been able to get very far in my writing because I don't think I had faced a foundation of my beliefs about lifelong disability yet.

I was born with diplegic spastic cerebral palsy. That's a mouthful to say that my brain does not control the muscles to my legs and right arm or hand very well. I walked late. I fall often. I am uncoordinated and clumsy. My speech is a little disarthic. And now in my mid-adult years I am weak and frequently in pain. And, I am finally at peace with all of that. I can no more change this then I can my genetic structure. Cerebral palsy is a part of me. It permeates deeply into what makes me, me. It has strengthened me and changed what I would have otherwise deemed important. It has made me search for the inner value in people instead of looking at outward appearances. Cerebral palsy has taught me to be gentle with myself and others in ways that I don't think I would have learned otherwise.

I wasn't always at peace with myself. I have written before of my pentecostal roots. In those circles many people believe in and seek divine healing. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself in my opinion. A more recent development in those divine healing beliefs is that healing is the right of all Christians. True believers have only to claim this right. If they are to continue to be sick or have symptoms then they need to hang on to their healing anyway, it is their divine right. If healing is a right of all Christians, then those who are not healed are ignorant, in sin or lack faith. Which of those categories did I fall in? I used to ask myself that question over and over again. I poured over my soul looking for little tiny excuses of sin and unbelief trying to purge myself of whatever would keep me from my divine right - healing of my cerebral palsy. Others thought this way too and tried to help me. My ailment is not invisible or silent. It hung out there on public display for people to see.

A church I attended in the 90s had a tradition of declaring a direction for the year every new year. One year it was proclaimed that that year would be the Year of Miracles. It wasn't too long after that proclamation that I announced I had been healed of cerebral palsy. This wasn't a lie. I fervently believed I had been healed. I believed this passionately. And when my symptoms declared otherwise I clung to what I believed. I even signed up for a ballet class. Me, in ballet? It would be comical, but I can only compare that now to the king parading in his invisible clothes. What was more interesting is so many people around me refused to acknowledge the fact that I was in fact, not better. I still couldn't dance and I still for all the world looked like I had cerebral palsy. Many were afraid of looking unspiritual if they didn't stand in faith with me for my healing and acknowledge anything different. One person claimed to have a ministry of deliverance and even offered to help me cast out the spirit of cerebral palsy. I questioned how one casts out a brain injury and that pretty much ended that conversation. Everybody was afraid to state the truth - the emperor had no clothes, I had cerebral palsy.

When I left church and began a period of soul searching I was amazed at how all the shame and guilt just dropped off of me. I was free to be me, who I really was, in many different ways. And I was amazed at how much emotional energy I had used fighting for a healing. A healing that will never come and that is okay. This was a great relief in many ways. That is not to say that I don't go to the doctor or work with physical therapist to maximize what I can. But, I will never be as someone who doesn't have cerebral palsy. And that is not only okay, that is wonderful.