Greg Lucas blogs about loving his son with severe disabilities. It is a blog stained with tears and filled with hope. I want to be more like Greg.
Here’s a post about God’s care for his son Jake. (The context is that Jake was recently enrolled in a a special needs program to help transition him to living as an adult.) An excerpt:
I do not believe Jake has a guardian angel assigned to his disability to protect him from harm. I do believe, however, that he has a guardian Father who sits on His throne in heaven surrounded by an army of angels intently watching the face of their Commander and Chief.
And with one nod of the Almighty’s head, a legion of angels could be dispatched to preserve and protect my son. Night and day they wait and watch the Father’s face as His eyes watch over Jake.
Our house has always been like a fortress, locked down with alarm systems and dead bolts keeping Jake from escaping into an outside world where danger lurks and disaster waits. But locks and alarms are a false sense of security from unpredictable circumstances and sovereign providence.When Jake was three years old he nearly drowned in a creek outside our home. The Father nodded and the angels were dispatched. My wife found him face down in the water, lips blue and skin cold. She administered CPR until he began breathing again.
When Jake was five he wandered out into traffic on a busy street. The Father nodded and the angels were dispatched. The speeding car screeched to a halt just inches from my son.
A couple years ago, when Jake escaped the house and wondered deep into our neighborhood at the vulnerability of traffic, strangers and vicious dogs—the Father nodded, the angels were dispatched and Jake was brought home.
Only days after Jake moved to the center and school, another mentally disabled resident took a pillow and put in over Jakes face as he slept. The Father nodded, the angels were dispatched, and the care worker decided to check the rooms of the sleeping residents. He walked in as the other child was trying to smother Jake to death, “because he was being too loud.” The other child was removed from the building and Jake never even knew what happened.
Will God always protect my son from danger and harm? No, because it is always dangerous to be His child. And sometimes pain, suffering and even death are ways that God is most glorified in our lives.
But God will forever be present, care for and love my Jake with a Father’s compassion that outshines my best abilities and most hopeful intentions as an earthly father—a compassion that is always diligent, always attentive and always caring for his most intimate needs.
And so as I sit and listen to the creek flowing hard against its banks tonight, I have time to think. It is a bitter-sweet time. I miss my son. But I am reminded that God is on His throne at this very moment. He has His eyes on my boy, and an army of angels have their eyes on the face of my Father.
Jake is in good hands.
