18. Perfectly Adapted
Perfectly Adapted
There is nothing arbitrary in the different shapes of the seed-vessels.… The fine sand-like grain of this snapdragon needs storing in a capsule—such a quaint one it is (whether most like a bird or a mouse sitting on a twig is hard to say)—but it is a perfectly adapted treasure-bag for the delicate things.
MY FRIEND JUDY SQUIER of Portola Valley, California, is one of the most cheerful and radiant women I know. I met her first in a prayer meeting at the beginning of a conference. She was sitting in a wheelchair and I noticed something funny about her legs. Later that day I saw her with no legs at all. In the evening she was walking around with a cane. Of course I had to ask her some questions. She was gracious, humorous, and forthright in her answer. Born with no legs, she has prostheses which she uses sometimes but they are tiresome, she said (laughing), and she often leaves them behind.
When I heard of a little boy named Brandon Scott, born without arms or legs, I asked Judy if she would write to his parents. She did. She told them that this was at least a hundred times harder for them than it would be for Brandon, for “a birth defect by God’s grace does not rob childhood of its wonder, nor is a child burdened by high expectations.”
Judy described her life not as less-than-average, or even average or ordinary, but as extraordinary, because she is convinced that a loving Heavenly Father oversees the creative miracles in the inner sanctum of each mother’s womb (Ps 139), and that in His sovereignty there are no accidents.
We may look at the various ways in which each of us is called to suffer as the Master Designer’s shaping of the vessels meant to bear the seed of the divine life. The design of each is directly related to the function, and thus He gives to each something unique to offer, something no other is capable of rendering back to Him.
The One who formed the perfect seed-vessels according to the shape of the seed they carry formed Judy, and Judy has a special message to bear, a testimony which deals a heavy blow to the “quality of life” arguments for abortion. She goes on:
“What we judge to be ‘tragic—the most dreaded thing that could happen,’ I expect we’ll one day see as the awesome reason for the beauty and uniqueness of our life and our family. I expect that’s why James 1:2 is a favorite verse of mine. Phillips’ translation put it this way: ‘When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realize that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance.’ ”
Judy is the mother of three beautiful little girls who she said were “popping in and out” so that she couldn’t think too deeply as she was writing her letter, “but I give you a moment of down-to-earth real life which I am good at, since I am a very ‘earthy’ person.
“Being Christian didn’t shield my family from the pain and tears that came with my birth defect. In fact, ten years ago when David and I interviewed our parents for a Keepsake Tape, I was stunned to hear my mother’s true feelings. I asked her to tell the hardest thing in her life. Her response: ‘The day Judy Ann was born and it still is…. And yet when we as a family look back over the years, our reflections are invariably silenced by the wonder of God’s handiwork.
“Getting married and becoming a mother were dreams I never dared to dream, but God, the doer of all miracles, intended that my life be blessed with an incredible husband and three daughters.”
In closing, she tells the Scott family that they have been “chosen in a special way to display His unique Masterwork. I pray that your roots will grow deep down into the faithfulness of God’s loving plan, that you will exchange your inadequacy for the adequacy of Jesus’ resurrection power, and that you will be awed as you witness the fruits of the Spirit manifested in your family. ‘What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Creator calls a butterfly.’ ”
So God fits us with exquisite precision, each according to his vocation, for the place He wants us to occupy. The apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a building, “the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself. In him each separate piece of building, properly fitting into its neighbour, grows together in a temple consecrated to the Lord. You are all part of this building in which God himself lives by his spirit” (Eph 2:20-22, JBP).
Might Judy Squier have fit more properly into her place if she had had legs (and two hands—one of hers is deformed) like the rest of us? Would she have brought forth the particular fruits of holiness the divine wisdom had ordained? Her life, shaped as it is by what we would call radical limitation, is being shaped, as it could not be without that limitation, into the likeness of her Lord, so that she may shine with the special manifestation no other can claim. Power comes to its full strength in weakness, the Bible says, and Judy makes that truth visible. She lives her life in and through Him who, out of His own humiliation and poverty, manifested His messianic greatness. He emptied Himself, and was therefore highly exalted.
There is room here, of course, for serious misunderstanding. The lack of legs will not make a saint out of anybody. Externals do not create holiness. Unlike the little seed-vessels, we humans are empowered to respond to the will of God—negatively or positively. The body I live in, the genomes tucked into the nucleus of its hundred trillion cells, the year and place of my birth, are factors with which I had nothing to do. My acceptance of God-given conditions of life is a choice which is mine to make. Will I trust Him here? Will I obey? Will I be thankful, making praise “the permanent pulsation” of my soul?
“I could never be thankful if I was born with no legs,” we might say. Was Judy born with some special talent for thanks-giving? I think not. Like the psalmist who said he would bless the Lord at all times, His praise would continually be in his mouth, I think she and Joni Eareckson Tada and my father (who lost an eye) and many others I know who live victoriously with many kinds of handicaps simply respond in faith to God, and receive, for the terrible odds against which they struggle, the all-sufficient grace He proffers. By grace they welcome the trial as a friend, as Judy’s favorite verse puts it.
While no external circumstance can make a saint out of any of us, neither can it hinder the making of a saint, as St. Francis de Sales points out:
There is a different practice of devotion for the gentleman and the mechanic; for the prince and the servant; for the wife, the maiden, and the widow; and still further, the practice of devotion must be adapted to the capabilities, the engagements, and the duties of each individual. It would not do were the bishop to adopt a Carthusian solitude, or if the father of a family refused like the Capuchins to save money…. Such devotion would be inconsistent and ridiculous.…
It is not merely an error but a heresy to suppose that a devout life is necessarily banished from the soldier’s camp, the merchant’s shop, the prince’s court, or the domestic hearth….
Lot remained chaste whilst in Sodom, and fell into sin after he had forsaken it. Wheresoever we may be, we may and should aim at a life of perfect devotion.
(Introduction to the Devout Life)
There is nothing arbitrary in the shapes of the seed-vessels. There is nothing arbitrary in the shape of our life’s conditions. They are “perfectly adapted treasure-bags.”