MY husband tells the story of a fishing trip with a mate, probably near a decade ago now.
They were on their way home from the lakes, revelling in their catch and groggy memories of beer and snags and campfire capers.
Sitting in the driver's seat, said friend suddenly appeared transfixed, his head turned to the side window. His muscles tensed and he was unresponsive. He was having one of his first epileptic episodes.
Hubby grabbed the wheel, flicked the gearstick to neutral and steered the vehicle until it slowed to a stop.
They were extremely lucky that day. (Actually, luck didn't have a look-in. Their time obviously wasn't up - God needed them on the ground a bit longer.)
This friend is now married with three children, he runs a successful small business and very few people would even know he has epilepsy. Most of the time it's simply irrelevant.
In our politically correct society, we are careful not to define a person by their disability. They are not a "disabled person" but a "person with a disability". Not an "epileptic" but a "person with epilepsy".
We've come a long way since words like retard, cripple and invalid shaped language around disability. Or have we?
There is still the occasional slip- up and, you have to admit, it can be gruelling keeping up with the latest lingo deemed appropriate.
Attitude is what counts in the end.
It must be frustrating, degrading and downright crushing to have your entire identity reduced to one disability. A person who uses a wheelchair, for instance, can usually do everything your average Jo can, minus using the legs, plus the operation of those fancy-schmancy chairs. Pretty sure I'd be rubbish at that.
"Wheelchair bound" - see, it's the language that restricts, dis-ables.
And really, don't we all have disabilities?
Hands up if you wear glasses. Take blood pressure tablets. Sing off-key. Use orthotics. Have a bung knee or hip or shoulder.
They're all examples of the body working below the optimum performance levels.
I love it that Jesus scoffed at disability. At a time when people believed disability to be a physical manifestation of sin, a curse if you like, he came alongside them without fear. People believed in a duality of physical and spiritual disability, of physical and spiritual cleanliness. Which is why it was a big deal when Jesus reached out and touched people inflicted with leprosy (we call it Hansen's disease now - a contagious skin condition that is easily treated today, but which steadily deteriorated the health of a person in Jesus's time). Read about one of the people Jesus healed of leprosy in Matthew 8.
God chose people with disabilities to do great things.
Moses had a speech impediment, for example. Esther - who saved the Jewish people of her day from certain death - was a woman, a huge disability in her day (women were to be seen but not heard). Pretty much every personality documented in the scriptures had a weakness or disability of some kind.
Disability is turned into strength in God's plan.
I'm reminded of that wonderful verse from Matthew 7:12, "Do to others what you would have them do to you."
Can't say I share the views of theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, but he is a great example of talent made truly great in weakness. He is only mobile through use of a wheelchair and can only speak through a machine. However, within that "disabled" exterior is that famed, intelligent mind.
How many people would have written him off without a second thought?
When you are introduced to a person with a disability, what do you see first? The person or the disability? The one disability or the many abilities?
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