As those of you who have read White Picket Fences may remember, I developed an eye twitch when I was working on that book. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that said eye twitch has returned, even though I was not conscious of feeling a lot of fear around the next book. Thankfully, I wrote To Be Made Well in the interim, so I’m more equipped than I was eight years ago to address moments when my body tells me I’m experiencing stress (even when my mind disagrees). So, every time the twitch began, I paused, closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and prayed for insight as to what was prompting it.

After a week or so of this, I was listening to a (fantastic) talk by Andy Crouch. In this talk, he quoted from Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in chapter 1. Paul prays, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you…” I started to meditate on the idea of having the “eyes of my heart enlightened,” and asking God to show me what I need to see. But I have also begun to ask that with that insight I might be able to see clearly “the hope to which he has called” me. Yes, I want to be a person of hope in God’s love and grace in a general way. But I also want to perceive—to understand clearly—the particular hope to which I have been called. I want to steward that hope well. I want to proclaim that hope to the people who need it most. For me right now, the particular hope I get to tell people about is that disabled people, of all ages, of all diagnoses, of all skill-levels, matter. They are beloved. They have purpose. We need them. We need each other.

Particular Hope

I recently learned the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania in 1939, who was at work when the Germans occupied Lithuania. When hundreds of Jewish Lithuanians petitioned him for visas to flee the country, he defied his government’s orders. He worked ceaselessly over the next few weeks to issue 2,100 visas, essentially saving all those lives. He later lost his job and worked as a laborer in Japan for the rest of his days. He knew the particular hope to which he was called, and he lived it out.

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