Being the parent of a disabled child is an absolute joy, and a total privilege.

A child’s purpose is never solely to teach parents, but our son has undoubtedly taught me more than I’ve taught him; about life, privilege, faith, God.. I could go on and on. I’m so proud of him, just as I am of our other son.

The things that are hard about parenting a disabled child are not in relation to who he is, but about the world in which we live and how it disables him. (This is why advocacy is such a big part of parenting a disabled child, the world is often inaccessible and it is all too often a fight to get access and support.)

It can be very tough for many reasons, and I think one big reason is a lack of understanding. Christians can do community well, but in terms of support for families of disabled children (I can’t speak for disabled adults because I’m not one but I reckon it probably is an issue) I think we struggle.

Disability doesn’t tend to make the headlines of the church to-do list.

I read somewhere that the *highest population of unreached people is the disabled community, and while I’m not sure if that’s actually a researched statistic I can believe it to be at least somewhat true. We love to chat about mission, I can’t help but feel sad about the missed opportunities in the disabled community. One door of entry to this community is families of disabled children.

We’ve had different experiences in a variety of churches, some were really supportive and some, retrospectively, I can see made it more difficult. I’m going to share a few things I’d love folk in church to understand:

• We needed support before the point of diagnosis, too. Years of sleepless nights and relentless worry, navigating unknown territory and feeling like a failure came before the actual diagnosis. 
• When you pray for our child, please pray that the world will see him the way God sees him- as a valued and treasured child just as he is. Pray that the support he needs will be made available and that he will thrive. (Please don’t think praying for healing is always warranted. It can be very upsetting and offensive!) 
• Advocating for your child doesn’t come naturally to everyone, please bear with us as we navigate this. Support us, let us know you’re on our team, encourage us to keep going. Advocacy can be very isolating, and is a massive part of being the parent of a disabled child. If you have skills in this area, please share your knowledge!
• Disability often makes people uncomfortable, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Disability isn’t a dirty word and disabled people are just people! Don’t shy away but engage with disabled people and their families. Ask what support would be helpful.
• Accessibility sometimes means doing things differently to how they’ve been done in the past. Change can be hard, but not being welcomed in the church is harder. Asking people what could make church accessible to them is showing neighbourly love. It might be that we don’t know what our children need yet, but being asked makes us feel our child is valued and supported (which also makes us feel valued and supported!).

Disabled people should feel welcome, loved and valued in church- they are fearfully and wonderfully made too. My mama heart aches for people to understand this.

*A Note From Kay: The number of disabled people unreached or unconnected with the Gospel is part of some research from the Lausanne movement. The figure is 93% unreached or unconnected.