Q: What If We All Had the Worst Pair of Shoes?

A: We’d all have really messed-up and hurting feet.

Today I’d like to point you to my friend Ellen’s blog for a really good post on why the idolization of people who make ‘sacrifices’ is not always appropriate, and how even progressive Christian circles sometimes marginalize members of Christ’s body who have disabilities.

Ellen writes:

Do our models of Christian service adequately encompass people whose bodies don’t work all that well, who live with chronic pain, who can’t even think about accepting the worst pair of shoes because without decent shoes they can’t walk? No, they don’t. Even in the progressive Christian circles in which I feel most at home—circles in which we strive to name and chip away at class and race and gender barriers—we often fail to even acknowledge how life with a failing, broken, pain-filled, or disabled body can drastically alter what we can and can’t do in the name of God and out of sacrificial love. Despite being very aware of the privileges that come along with class, race, or gender, we still largely fail to recognize how often the privilege of a healthy, functional body is simply assumed.

In our preparations for going to Malawi (in just a little over a month) I’m reminded again and again of how our privileges overcome most of the hardships Malawians themselves face: we’re immunized, we take malaria prophylaxis, we have water purification. But those things help us be able to do the work we are called to do. Caring for our bodies does not = selfish.

Here is the link again. Read it. You will be blessed.