ever have to pay kids to come to your child's birthday party?
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A friend of mine shared a conversation with me recently. It began with this question to a mom whose adult child has several disabilities: "What was the hardest thing for you about his childhood?"
Her answer? "Having to pay the neighborhood kids to come to his birthday party."
I can't even type that without feeling a lump form in my throat. To her, it was vitally important that her son experience childhood rites of passage, like birthday parties in the backyard with his friends. He'll never know that his neighbor "friends" required bribes to come; he just remembers fun parties with other kids.
His mom knows what it took, though. She knows that the other kids didn't think hanging out with her son was incentive enough. She has bittersweet memories of watching other children celebrate with her son and then doling out cash afterwards.
Most folks think that special needs ministry is about the people with special needs. And it is. But it's also about the mom who would love for her child to be included with other kids.
And it's also about the other kids who get the opportunity to learn that they can love a child who seems different from them. It's about seeing those kids come to realize that they have more in common than they realized. It's about blurring the lines between "us" and "them" and just being the unified diversity that is the body of Christ.
Instead of the family with special needs having to pay the non-disabled kids to come to the party, how about this instead?
Her answer? "Having to pay the neighborhood kids to come to his birthday party."
I can't even type that without feeling a lump form in my throat. To her, it was vitally important that her son experience childhood rites of passage, like birthday parties in the backyard with his friends. He'll never know that his neighbor "friends" required bribes to come; he just remembers fun parties with other kids.
His mom knows what it took, though. She knows that the other kids didn't think hanging out with her son was incentive enough. She has bittersweet memories of watching other children celebrate with her son and then doling out cash afterwards.
Most folks think that special needs ministry is about the people with special needs. And it is. But it's also about the mom who would love for her child to be included with other kids.
And it's also about the other kids who get the opportunity to learn that they can love a child who seems different from them. It's about seeing those kids come to realize that they have more in common than they realized. It's about blurring the lines between "us" and "them" and just being the unified diversity that is the body of Christ.
Instead of the family with special needs having to pay the non-disabled kids to come to the party, how about this instead?
He [Jesus] said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” {Luke 14:12-14}Now that's more like it, don't you think?