Serving Those With Disabilities

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

1 Peter 4:10

 

While I was a youth leader, I thought it would be wise of me to take a job working inside of one of the High Schools where the students attended. I applied for one job, but when I went on the interview, they told me they were considering me for a teachers assistant position. This TA position would be with students who had disabilities. I spent about 10 minutes trying to explain that I was not qualified nor trained for that job to no avail. They were persistent and they hired me. I started the following week. I worked in this job for about 4 years and I have to be honest, I loved that job. I learned in that time that God gave me the special gift of carrying for those students and I felt blessed. I also got to see my daughters daily because they were peer helpers for students with disabilities.

 

In April of 2008, about 10 years after I left that job, I walked into a church and saw a girl with CP in a wheel chair. I walked up to her and asked her to help me find a book and she quickly told me she couldn’t help me. I didn’t accept her answer but insisted she tried and with that her dad heard me and walked over to meet me. He was impressed by my boldness and later told me that is when he fell in love with me. We married in September of 2009.

 

In July of 2011 my new husband suffered a serious heart attack and died. When I woke up I pulled him off the bed and started CPR. The paramedics arrived and were able to get his heart started. Gary was brought back, but he has an anoxic brain injury which is devastating. The list of lost cognitive skills is exhausting. He lived with me for about a year before I had to move him to assisted living.

 

In June of 2010 my grandson Mason was born and today he is in a special needs classroom in preschool. He has selective mutism and he is being tested for Autism. In December of 2011 my granddaughter Trinity was born, she has Apraxia of Speech and is being taught how to speak, and eat.

 

Sunday this group was together at a party. They all sat at the same table and ate pizza and drank juice. At one point Gary stole Trinity’s napkin, took it right out of her hand, because he wanted it. Trinity who has trouble speaking said, “Hey damma (grandma) Papa tole (stole) me nakin (napkin). She got a new one. Mason sat next to Papa, not speaking and eating his pizza, cheese only. Sauce all over his face and up his nose, happy as can be.

 

Later that night I lay in bed thanking God. For He prepared me and my daughters for the life He was going to give us. He also gave to us the gifts needed to be good moms and grandma’s to children with disabilities. He made me a good wife to care for a husband with a disability.
God is our Father and to us He gives good gifts. We are to use these gifts to serve others and we never know when we serve where that will lead us. Now many of you can say I served and it lead me to a hard life with disappointments. You would be wrong. I served and it trained me for a life filled with blessings.