A must, must, must read: Wrestling With an Angel by Greg Lucas

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On Monday, I asked for prayers for Louise Tucker Jones and reviewed a book she contributed to, Special Needs, Special Ministry. Yesterday I told you about my favorite special needs ministry book, Same Lake, Different Boat by Stephanie O. Hubach. And I promised to tell y'all today about the disability-related book that I think belongs on every Christian's bookshelf, whether or not you're involved with special needs ministry.

What book is that? Wrestling With an Angel: A Story of Love, Disability, and the Lessons of Grace by Greg Lucas. It is a small book and an easy read, but it is the most powerful one on my shelves (except, of course, the Bible).

While it is a story about a man's love for his son with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified, which is part of the autism spectrum of disorders) and other special needs, I wouldn't describe it as a disability-focused book. It's about grace. It just uses the author's experiences as a parent to share poignant truths about the gospel.

Even the arrangement and titling of the chapters is all about God's grace:
  1. Break | Equip 
    2.        Grace breaks us with affliction in order to equip us with comfort and compassion
  2. Display | Reveal 
    3.        Grace displayed our sin as in a mirror, but reveals the cross as through a window
  3. Routine | Surprise
    4.        Grace surprises us with God's presence in the details of our daily routine
  4. Opposition | Humility
    5.        Grace humbles us by crushing our pride through humiliation
  5. Gifted | Saved
    6.        Grace saves us by freely and undeservingly giving what we need to be saved
  6. Satisfied | Waiting
    7.        Grace satisfies our heart with answers to prayer while we wait for the ultimate answer
  7. Darkness | Rescue
    8.        Grace pursues us into the darkness of our hopelessness carrying the rescuing light of the gospel
  8. Protected | Imperiled
    9.        Grace protects us through danger, not always from it
  9. Released | Gripped
    10.        Grace peels back our fingers to reveal God's greater grip of grace on our fragile life
  10. Future | Present
    11.        Grace walks with us into the future, revealing the unknown darkness as the shadowing presence of        our Father
It's a superb book. Get it. Read it. Share it.

And, if I haven't convinced you already, watch this video of Greg and his family, which you might have seen on the Desiring God blog last week: