My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church

by Amy Kenny

This woman uses the prayer card to justify imposing her prejudice on a stranger she assumes despises being disabled. I am not confined to my wheelchair. I have not lost a battle to a disease. I am many things, but a tragic defeat is not one of them.

To assume that my disability needs to be erased in order for me to live an abundant life is disturbing not only because of what it says about me but also because of what it reveals about people’s notions of God.

To suggest that I am anything less than sanctified and redeemed is to suppress the image of God in my disabled body and to limit how God is already at work through my life.

The goal of healing isn’t fixing, but restoring. It’s a transformative process that seeks to make someone whole. Healing is not about erasing the experience of trauma (which I’m pretty sure is impossible) but about processing it and coming to terms with it, no matter how heavy it might be to carry.

That’s the moment he realizes who Jesus truly is: not some random magician or prophet, but the Son of Man. That’s when he’s healed.

Instead of desperately trying to cure all disabilities, the church should do the slow and difficult work of healing the surrounding society by tearing down spaces, practices, and mindsets that are inaccessible to disabled people, even when those spaces are inside the church itself. The church should follow Jesus by healing instead of curing.

Ableism is “a system that places value on people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, intelligence, excellence, and productivity.”2 It claims that some bodies are better than others. It values people only for what they produce. It suggests our résumés and our GPAs are more important than our humanity. It withholds belonging until we prove we are worthy of it.

How we treat disabled people is how we treat Jesus.

A person’s feelings of discomfort should never be in competition with someone else’s belonging.

This plot twist might seem harmless in a serial crime drama, but the suspicion that someone is faking disability for emotional or financial gain spills over into the real world. It perpetuates skepticism of all disabled people, casting us as “fakers, takers, and moneymakers.”2 People are so convinced that behind every cane is a con that they interrogate us without cause.

Our disabilities do not give you the right to treat us as a subcategory of human. My life is worth living, regardless of whether you accommodate me.

I have the right to mess up. To talk about my pain without fear that you’ll use it against my community later. To not have it all figured out yet. To not be your token.

His limp becomes a beautiful reminder of this transformative encounter. Instead of curing Jacob or killing him off, Scripture introduces a disability that tethers him to the graciousness of the living God.

There’s a freedom in using mobility devices that acknowledges the limits of my body and declares that I can’t do it all by myself, and that’s not something to be ashamed of.

As people who claim to love our neighbors, we can aspire to more than simply “not harming” people—we can become proactive in listening to the pain we cause. It will feel bumpy at times, but we are not called to be comfortable: we are called to love one another.

I wish people loved me enough to cast out their fear of being wrong. I wish people loved me enough to stretch their understanding of embodiment and disability language. I wish people loved me enough to crucify the dominions of darkness they’ve internalized. I wish people loved me enough to change.

For nondisabled Jesus followers, this should include considering the concerns of the disability community. We should care about the pain of our neighbors, even when we don’t fully understand it. Even when you think I’m oversensitive. In doing this, we are fulfilling the law of Christ. It’s not about having the “correct” theology or believing all the same things. It’s not some intellectual assent to lofty ideals. It’s not even about being right. The law of Christ is fulfilled when we take another’s burdens as seriously as we take our own.

Realizing that you might not understand my pain but committing to taking it seriously. Listening instead of gaslighting. Believing instead of doubting. Perhaps then, love can cast out our fears of getting it wrong and stretch us enough to be in community with one another.

God doesn’t remake bodies to fit the world but restores the world to welcome our diverse bodies. God’s kingdom is built around disabled people, and so, too, should our churches, as they are appetizers for the banquet of the kingdom. This kingdom isn’t like our ranked structures, but a kin-dom: a place where interdependence and relational ties supersede any hierarchy.

People who like to comfort themselves with the idea that disability does not exist in new creation are centering their ableist discomfort in someone else’s story—in my story. My disability is not for others to write. My body is not an empty canvas on which nondisabled people can paint their fantasies of new creation. Even if our bodies are not disabled in new creation, why does that make someone so thrilled? When we worship God, we shouldn’t harm people who bear God’s image.

After a friend declared that her disability would be removed in heaven, Eiesland was horrified because she felt that would erase a part of who she was and how she understood God.3

I can totally relate to this. I've had CHARGE all my life. I can't imagine a world where that wouldn’t be the case, much less heaven itself! Trust me, I've tried.

What’s insulting to God is when we don’t consider disabled people image-bearers. Or when we can only imagine paradise by erasing one-quarter of humanity. Or when we don’t feed the least of these when it is well within our power to do so.

On some level, it doesn’t matter if our heavenly bodies will be disabled or not. No one can know that. It is out of my control and does nothing to restore the way I am treated now.

You don’t have to burden yourself with what you have accomplished today but can rest in the truth of your belovedness.

The disabled Christ is the definitive revelation of God to humanity. The disabled body is the source of our redemption. In Christian circles, we often say the way to be Christlike is to take up your cross and follow Jesus. We sing songs about it and put it on water bottle stickers, but we rarely live it.

We are called to share in the suffering and death of Christ by taking up our cross on behalf of others. We are called to share whatever power or privilege we have so everyone can flourish. We are called to be disabled.