Parents of special needs children will tell you that they did not expect or specifically ask for the challenges that they face.  There are those rare gems who seek out special needs children to foster or adopt and I believe those parents will have a mansion or a castle in heaven as a reward. As a parent of a child who has severe medical issues I can tell you that the life we lead is very different that what we expected when my wife became pregnant with our second child in 2004. The difference has turned out to be such a blessing to us and so many others who have come into contact with our almost seven year old son Caden.

We visited a new church (Deer Park Baptist) this weekend. The message delivered by Dr. Stephen Carr was great. We learned how horrible of neighbors we are when the pastor looked at our visitors card and then proceeded to tell me that he lived two houses away from us on the same side of the street. [blushing] It turns out we had both been witnessing to the same family for some time now. I am sure we will spend some time getting to know each other moving forward.

Like with most sermons different people often learn different things from the same message regardless of what the pastor is teaching on. In this case I believe God spoke to me in a way the pastor may never have intended when planning this message. The message was framed by the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4. I am pretty sure the pastor’s primary intent was to encourage believers to use average conversations to share the gospel so other people would get saved as a result. Just as Jesus did with the woman at the well by sharing the promise of eternal life. She in turn shared with others who also believed. I got a bonus message from a nugget he threw in there when describing the dynamics of the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Here is how the passage goes in John 4:

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.t)

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (NIV)

As the pastor pointed out, the Samaritan woman did not know what she was asking for. She was obviously asking for drinking water even though Jesus had just explained that he was offering something very different. What she got from Jesus turned out to be best for her and it saved her and many in her community. What the woman intended to gain with her request appears to have been a purely selfish. That way she “won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water”.

This is like when parents pray for a healthy child (some for purely selfish reasons). they want the perfect child in every way. They want a healthy, smart, and beautiful child. And then they end up with what the world describes as a “sick” child. Our son Caden if often referred to as sick by the doctors due to the vast number of complicated medical issues Caden has and still does face. Caden has had way more major surgeries than birthdays, surgeries on his heart, neck, stomach, and spine. Caden is exclusively tube fed and has never taken single bite of food by mouth and he has never been able to drink from a cup to satisfy his thirst even though he so desires to do so to this day. Not exactly what can be described as healthy.

Just like the woman asked Jesus for water even though he had described something different, we asked God in our prayers early in the pregnancy for a healthy child and he knew exactly what was giving to us. Just like Jesus did give the Samaritan woman water based on his definition, Jesus gave us a healthy child based on his definition, not ours. The woman did have to go back to the well for water to sustain her physical body. We have had to go back to the hospital to sustain Caden’s health.

What we received from God was an encounter with Him that sparked a change in the community around us like we could have never imagined. Like with many special needs children, you only need to spend a few minutes one-on-one with Caden to fall in love with him. God is using him to create a new definition for the word healthy.

As parents of a special needs child we have received way more than we could have asked for or imagined. We have a child that God has used to bring our family closer together, bring us closer to our friends, and closer to God himself. I don’t know exactly how many or if any have been saved as a result, but I know there will be some. Glory to God!