Having a disability can be confusing.  It is not as easy as replacing parts on a broken machine.  Some disabling injuries are more straightforward.  The injury happens, a new normal develops, and life goes on in a different direction with different tools in the toolbox.  However, most disabling conditions are far more confusing.  Abilities to work fluctuate from day to day (or even hour by hour).  Today a medication works great, and tomorrow it may cause severe side affects that are more complicated than the condition being treated.  No wonder it is such a challenge to work in spite of a disabling illness or injury!

My co-worker, Pat Gaston, was a large animal veterinarian with a strapping healthy young body.  Until he had a stroke…or something.  The doctors can’t describe it.  They don’t know what caused it.  But now Pat has symptoms of chronic fatigue and siezures…or something, but they can’t be described either.  Pat can no longer drive, nor can he perform the rigours of being a veterinarian. Because Pat knows so much about tools from his work, and so much about disability from his life, he is able to make great contributions to the Disability Work Tools website.  Many of the animal care products and how they help a person with a disability have been described by Pat.

However, one thing gives Pat stability and strength each day.  Here are Pat’s musings on Disability Work Tools, instability and Jesus: 

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“If it is possible for someone to need the Lord even more than the average man or woman, it is a person with a disability.  The average person can kind of ‘float’ through life, but anyone with any level of disability does not have that luxury.  Their ‘storms’ of life are so much more everpresent.  We all need the Lord, without a doubt.  However, Disability Work Tools has such an opportunity to offer a lifeline to a person with a disability who feels storm tossed.  The shelter Christ offers has got to be so appealing to someone with a disability.” 

Mark 4:37-41 :   “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

³⁹ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

⁴⁰ He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

The devotional I read pointed out the key points:

1.  Didn’t God care that they were about to die?

2.  After He calmed the storm, he challenged them with ‘why are you afraid and have no faith?

3.  The disciples became even more afraid, wondering who it was that could command the wind and sea.

Jesus does offer shelter – it is always there, we just need to see it.

Disability Work Tools cannot offer a cure to a person’s disability, but what we can offer are solutions to assist them as they work, and even more important, guidance to what will truly matter.

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