Who I Am

There once was a cripple…

Who was not afraid to acknowledge that she was a cripple, nor to bear the deepest and most everyday facts of her private life, her wounds, to strangers…

Here I am.

No two human beings are exactly alike, but we don’t always appreciate how unique and particularly beloved we are. I have always known that I am different, mostly because I was born with a genetic muscle-wasting disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (type 2). Although, if we met in person, my crumpled and crippled body in a wheelchair  would probably be the first thing that you would notice about me, I don’t share this fact as an introduction to who I am —for I am so much more than what my body can’t do. We are not meant to define ourselves by our limitations, though always, in wise humility and love of truth, we must acknowledge them.

How, then, should I introduce myself to the world?

I’m not going to identify myself as a poet…but the beating of my heart is poetry.

I’m not going to identify myself as a theologian (certainly not)…but the light of my mind seeks the Divine.

I’m also not going to identify myself as a writer, however, I do process the experiences of my life through words, words that I ponder and that I share, both here in a blog and in a book.

I am not the author of my life … but the Author has given me free choice to edit as I go, which will be the making or the breaking of this story.

I will not, in other words, identify myself here with nouns. I sense. I seek. I write. But most importantly, I am.

I will, however, identify myself as a cripple. My genetic, progressively weakening and lifespan-shortening disease makes me completely physically dependent on others and as weak as waste — certainly a cripple. Forget political correctness. All of us who live and breathe in this terribly beautiful Creation, which is other than Perfect Wholeness, are cripples in some way. We desire. We need. We lack. Each one of our stories might be terribly sad, but that we are being infinitely loved. Therein abides true human dignity. In divine love is the joyful fulfillment of being human.

For infinite and eternal God so loves humankind that He became one of us, incarnate, assuming our natural limitations, sufferings, delights, fears, and wonders. Christ lovingly lived the sacred littleness of human life to raise us up to the Divine, now and forever.

© 2019 Christina Chase

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