Angela Chininin Buele

When I was about five years old, my babysitter’s cat had kittens.  One of them had a cleft palate, a hooked tail, two different colored eyes, and a puny frame.  All of the other kittens were “normal.”  When I was asked which one I wanted, I knew right away that I wanted the prettiest one–the one that had the longest, softest, purest white fur.  My babysitter and my mom might have questioned my choice, but I was resolved.  In the end, I took my beautiful white kitten–cleft palate, hooked tail, different colored eyes and all– home with me.  My Maddie was my treasured pet all the way up until Homecoming week of my senior year of high school.  She outlived everyone’s expectations, and she was always a great blessing to me.

I also found throughout my childhood that I was drawn to encourage and stand by the disabled and the downtrodden, appreciating their tenderness and desiring to see their bright smiles.  Some of my most vivid memories are grown from this passion-the time I spent with my mentally impaired uncle, the urge to defend the elementary school classmate who frustrated the teacher (and the ache of loss when he killed himself later that year), and the young boy with Down’s Syndrome I saw being dragged along by his angry brother through a downpour at Walt Disney World.  All of these are forever etched in my mind and on my heart as precious souls, not mistakes of God, products of Chance, genetic abnormalities, or dented cans.

My family was most likely not surprised at all when, as a 10-year-old, I announced I would become a teacher.  Shortly thereafter I decided I should be a special education teacher.  It was through my training and my career that I found that, while I still knew each special person was made by the loving hand of our Creator God, I had become quite impatient and even unkind to one of my most needy students in my class as a first year teacher.  I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with her years later and ask her forgiveness for not serving her more generously when I was first given the opportunity to be her teacher.  Even now I am just beginning to enter the deep waters of learning how to give steadfast love to those who have special needs.  Yet it is clear to me that the reason this journey is difficult is because I have been selfish and self-centered.  I have not sought to fully rejoice in the unique gift that people of all physical and intellectual capacities are to this world.

Some of the happiest people I have met are these precious, rare coins.  I don’t find them blaming God for making them different.  Nor do I see them wishing they had never been born because they do not see their lives as unworthy of living.

So beware, my friends, if you find yourselves believing that you are being heroic to say or think that the abortion of a disabled child is compassionate since their lives would be so different compared to your own circumstances.  I assure you that none of the physically or mentally disabled children or adults I have worked with over the years would agree with this.

Key Question: Can joy be found in the middle of a challenge?

Unshakable Truth:  “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5 ESV).

The Real Choice: Will you see disabled people as dented cans to be thrown away or as rare coins to protect, care for, and appreciate?

Angela Chininin Buele

Viewing Already Fragile Life in Light of New Health Risks

Zika is a new buzz word, but all of its implications boil down to a very common fear.  When a couple attempts to conceive and are blessed to be able to do so, much is assumed about the security of the baby’s development and health.  However, tests designed to indicate level of risk (not diagnose, mind you) of potential genetic abnormality are packaged and performed in order to prepare expectant parents to decide if their baby will be healthy enough or if some condition, or the possibility of such a condition, would prompt them to abort and try again for a healthy baby.

Because those who intentionally conceive presumably have no resistance to their wombs serving as nurturing station for their developing child, the decision to abort upon receiving indication that the baby could have health problems, demonstrates an inaccurate understanding of the value of the child.  A baby is, by nature, in constant need and vulnerable to even mild risks.  The God of Life creates each person, without mistake, to reflect His glory and to give and receive love generously.  When children are denied birth because their parents are told that they will not look a certain way or perform skills at a sufficient level, we treat the bearing and raising of children like an Olympic qualifier instead of the delightful challenge that it is.  When we want to treat people like possessions, we must not be surprised when violence increases.

It is truly heartbreaking.  Microcephaly (caused by Zika), Down’s Syndrome, and Spina Bifida trigger terror in the hearts of many expectant parents.  I would like to suggest that this response offers a more certain diagnosis of a parent’s failure to love than any risk level marker/indicator can diagnose a baby’s failure to be “normal.”  It used to be understood that children come with neither manuals nor receipts for returns.  Nor do they come with warranties.  And parents who are filled with terror at the thought of having a child with special needs are not loving that child.  No baby ever hated or even mourned his/her disability.  Of course there can be physical discomfort – even pain – and that brings empathy and sadness, but not terror.

Babies are not interchangeable.  They are not accessories, nor are they entertainment or a hobby.  A baby is a tiny person that is designed by God, for God, and in God’s image.  There are lovely benefits to parent and child when love is abundant in the home, but they are some else’s treasure, and we have no right to judge them as physically or intellectually insufficient and therefore deny them life.

My youngest daughter was born perfectly healthy after an uneventful pregnancy, but she developed a fever and became dehydrated at five days old.  She was admitted to the hospital where she (and I) stayed for five days while all signs seemed to point to a diagnosis of leukemia.  I’ll pause there and ask: what does the pro-choice community offer to the parents in this situation?  Before exiting the womb, the right to abortion is championed for such “defectiveness,” but what do (read: can/will) they say about the one-week-old who seems to have leukemia?  Does she have Constitutional rights now?  Should they be revoked?

Well, approximately 30 minutes before the bone marrow draw was scheduled to be performed (two years ago today), the culture came back positive for a virus.  Our little girl was the youngest person ever to develop Leukocytopenia as a result of contracting this virus.  Needless to say, we were overjoyed to know that she would not have to suffer through such a difficult condition at such a tender age, but if she had gone through it, we would have been right there with her because that is the joy and the pain of parenting – loving through difficulty.

Key Question: Despite parents’ fear of inadequacy, is it fair to deny a child life based on the possibility of disability?

Unshakable Truth:  “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Sometimes we are given a gift like a quilt.  Hours and hours of work were done by some else, and we simply lay the beautiful fabric over ourselves and curl up in its warmth.  There is no work for the recipient to complete in order to enjoy the gift.  Other times, the gift is more like a sewing machine.  There is much work to be done before you will be able to curl up under the quilt you made with your sewing machine, and in the end, there is a quilt either way.  The difference is in the learning and the gain through process.

If the difficulty is relieved, we see His mercy for a moment, but if the challenge persists, we see His mercy each and every moment and we carry on by His grace.  His strength is what overcomes our weakness.

The Real Choice: Do you want God to change your circumstances so you can be yourself, or do you want Him to use your circumstances to change you, making you more like Christ?

Angela Chininin Buele

Prepare to Have Your Non-judgmental Standards Shaken Up

If only we had known how much death would result from one birth.  If only we could have seen it – and stopped it.  Would you have stopped the nightmare before it started?  I wouldn’t have (either time), and I’ll tell you why.

I feel anger swell up in me when I hear a news report of someone being hurt or neglected.  Sometimes it causes me to have a very physical response, which is like a surging sensation that urges me to enact change to rescue the victim or punish the perpetrator.  To the best of my understanding, and thanks to common grace, this is not an unusual phenomenon.  It is also quite normal to think that our emotions are an appropriate guide for just action.  This could not be farther from the truth.  Instead, when something harmful happens, it’s like a rock is thrown through the glassy surface of a serene lake, and our emotional reactions are like ripples in the water’s surface that obscure the reflection of God’s glory.  Just as James says, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”  Our anger does not cause us to be righteous.  But, God’s righteousness will cause us to become angry in some circumstances, and that is a completely different – and sanctifying – experience.

Just as parents are required to apply discipline with love in order to raise the child to seek the God of Life, we are called to be agents of light, seeking the good of the city where the Lord has us.  And when that brings the conflict of protecting some people from others while loving them all and pointing them all to eternal hope in the Savior, Jesus, we are often at a loss to do this properly since we lean more on the “good guy” and “bad guy” labels than we might realize.  But this is exactly where we need to wrestle as Jacob did and hold on tight until the Lord grants holiness in the merging of just redirection and steadfast grace and hope.  I’ve been parenting for just a few years now, but I see that showing compassion to the offending child (not just to the offended child) is both my greatest ambition and my greatest weakness in raising my children, whom I love with a rather giddy affection.  But the crazy thing is that I am called to show that very same just redirection and steadfast grace to those for who I have no natural delight or affection.   Would you say you would find that an appalling proposition too?   Well, it’s a good thing we have the gospel to remind us of our own debt of sin.

If we were to apply vigilante justice to prevent heartache, would we not have to erase Saul the persecutor, and with him would go Paul the missionary and teacher.  Adolf Hitler’s life is over, and we see no redemptive fruit within his personal life. But we may praise God that Cecile Richards is still alive and still has the opportunity to repent of her complicity in the systematic massacre of millions of humans of all races.  We must pray for her, my friends, to be justly redirected and for her to be changed by the steadfast grace and hope found only in Christ.

Key Question: Can you see both Adolf Hitler and Cecile Richards with compassion, or have you judged one or both to be without hope?

Unshakable Truth: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” Ephesians 2:12-13.

Hitler, Richards, and I have one thing in common – our need for forgiveness.  My awareness, in light of their apparent unawareness of this fact, must cause me pain, not pride; sadness, not satisfaction.   I wouldn’t not wish for one who champions death to be aborted simply because that would make me a hypocrite in my own anti-abortion position, but I stand up for the right to life of all pro-choice proponents because they are God’s creations and can be brought as near as a precious brother or sister by the blood of Christ.

The Real Choice: Will you love the unlovable, or will you forget that, just as Cecile Richards was once a fragile unborn baby like those she refuses to protect, you, too, were a hopeless and rebellious sinner?