My Donkey Body by Michael Wenham
I have just finished reading this book and found it very moving. It is a church minister’s autobiographical struggle with Motor Neurone Disease. He can be found blogging here and here. I am struggling at the moment to know how to help a friend, his wife and a young son who have just heard that his brain tumour has come back following a remission over the last couple of years. He lives in Leeds so a long way a way and I feel powerless to help them. They are Christians and it is a struggle to see where God is in the illness but I spent a bit of time with them last weekend and I came away knowing and being utterly certain that it was a complete privilege to spend that time with them. I felt that they knew how sacred and special each day was, and in spending time with them I was granted a glimpse of that insight as well.
I got the same sense from this book. To me it had two main messages:
Firstly that religion and faith is not a crutch that makes everything better. To quote: “Don’t come talking to me about consolations of religion. Not that my faith leaves me cold or without resource – far from it – but it raises more painful questions that it provides answers. I would not advocate it as a panacea for pain. There may be som evidence that it aids the healing process, but it doesn’t reduce the hurting a jot. Instead, the person with faith in a divine Creator is forced to ask a lot of ‘Why?’ questions which need never both an atheist.”
Secondly the book is transfused amongst the pain it shares with the hope that each day is a gift and not matter how dark God can transfuse it somehow with his light. One of the quotes Wenham uses is from Angela Beise who says this about bringing up a disabled child: “To parent a disabled child will require many ambitions to be laid aside… The child will become the focus of most of your time and energy and will determine what you can and cannot do in many situations. he can bring limitation to the dreams you can pursue. He can bring more sleepless night that most parents will ever have to endure. Parenting seasons will be unusually long, and grief will last the lifetime of such a child. Parents not only grieve the child they ‘lost’ at his birth but grieve as they watch him struggle with tasks that normally come easily to a child of his age. They grieve when he realizes he is not like other children, and when they see him in physical or emotional pain…”
He then points out that Beise concludes by saying “I am on parent of a child with special needs who is better because this child came into my life. Would I have chosen this road? Never in a million years. Am I grateful for the changed person I am today? You bet. Would I trade one sleepless night, hour in a hospital, penny spent on medical bills, or minute in a therapist’s office? No chance. All heartache considered, I’ll take the imperfect society.”