How the Christmas Story is a Special Needs Story

by jphilo | Dec 14, 2022 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Holidays, Uncategorized

How the Christmas Story is a Special Needs Story

How the Christmas story is a special needs story is something guest blogger Mark Arnold is thinking about this time of year. What he has to say will help you see how Emmanuel, God with us, is with caregiving families in a deep and meaningful way.

Every year we hear the Christmas story of Mary and Joseph heading to Bethlehem, of the innkeeper, angels, shepherds, wise men, and of course the baby Jesus. Have you ever looked at it as a metaphor for special needs families? Here’s a look at how this story parallels the story of parents of children with special needs or disabilities.

Unexpected news

Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel who tells her that she will have a very special child. This surprised Mary. She was ‘greatly troubled at his words’ before she accepted his message and said, “May it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:26-38)

For the families of children with special needs, unexpected news can arrive during a pre-natal scan. It can be troubling, devastating even. Not every parent accepts the news as Mary did. For some who learn their child will not survive or will be significantly disabled, parents grieve all that their child might have been.

A different location

Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem for the census. Joseph, belonging to the house and line of David, had to register with Mary in Bethlehem, the town of David. (Luke 2:1-5)

Places where a baby with pre-birth concerns can be delivered may be limited. This might require a journey to an unfamiliar town. Though the trip won’t involve a ride on a donkey, it may still be a difficult journey.

Unexpected kindness

Mary needed somewhere safe to give birth to her baby in Bethlehem. Although there are no rooms available for them to stay in the inn, the innkeeper allowed them to use the stable, and the newborn baby was placed in the animals’ manger. (Luke 2:6-7)

Families of children born with special needs or a disability often mention one person who brought a cup of tea and a kind word during an overwhelming medical crisis. A simple act of kindness transformed their profoundly challenging situation into something a little more bearable.

Strangers

A bunch of shepherds turned up shortly after Mary gave birth. Goodness knows what she thought about this, exhausted as she was. Still Luke’s Gospel says that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:8-20) Later, wise men or Magi from the East brought gifts and wanted to see the baby. (Matthew 2:1-12)

Families like ours get used to the arrival of strangers with impressive lists of medical and social care credentials, professionals involved in the care and support of the child and their family. We also ponder the support and care the professionals provide and wonder what the future holds for our child.

Hateful people

Mary and Joseph were warned that Jesus was in danger and fled to Egypt. King Herod ordered the death of all boys under two years old in the Bethlehem area, but was too late to catch Jesus and his family. (Matthew 2:13-18)

There are people today who do not understand or accept children with special needs or disabilities. They do and say hateful things. Some believe babies with special needs or disabilities should be euthanized. Families who encounter these views find them hurtful.

Home

Mary, Joseph, and Jesus eventually returned and set up a home in Nazareth near Galilee. It was Jesus’ earthly home during most of his life. (Matthew 2:19-23)

Many families of children born with special needs or disabilities wait a long time to bring their child home. Some never make it. Those who do come home to a different future than originally envisaged. Still it is a future that can be wonderful.

Seeing how the Christmas story is a special needs story can help us live more fully knowing that Jesus, God with us, and his parents experienced the challenges, and struggles we and other families face each day.

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Photo by Gareth Harper on Unsplash

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Mark Arnold is the Additional Needs Ministry Director at Urban Saints, a leading national Christian children’s and youth organization. He is co-founder of the Additional Needs Alliance, a national and international advocate for children and young people with additional needs or disabilities. Mark is a Churches for All and Living Fully Network partner, a member of the Council for Disabled Children and the European Disability Network. He writes an additional needs column for Premier Youth and Children’s Work (YCW) magazine and blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. He is father to James, who has autism spectrum condition, associated learning disability, and epilepsy. To find out more about how Mark’s work can help you, contact him at: marnold@urbansaints.org or @Mark_J_Arnold

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What a Difference a Decade Makes!

“What a difference a decade makes!” is the joyful cry of guest blogger Janae Copeland as her daughter, born with EA/TEF, turns eleven. Janae shares both the joys and challenges her family experienced when their daughter was born and invites readers to join in this birthday celebration.

“The first two years will be the hardest,” my daughter’s pediatrician said quietly, while looking out the window of my hospital room on the labor and delivery floor. He was watching the helicopter ascend above the trees and head west, as it carried our daughter to the place that could save her. I don’t remember much for several hours after that, mostly due to the combination of drugs I was given to relieve that physical pain of an emergency c-section, and I’m sure, others to ward off any emotional responses to the events of the past few hours.

On August 3, 2022 we reach the eleventh anniversary of that painful day.

Several moments from those first two years––and the several after––are seared in my mind as clearly as the moment they occurred. Countless others have faded with the passing of time. Memories become sewn together in swaths, quilt-like in nature, blurring timelines and sequences, but covering that whole time period with a shadow of fear, uncertainty and single-minded anxieties. Plans made and events held to preserve “normalcy” for our other two kids and ourselves continued to the greatest degree we could muster, although many of those memories seem to have gotten sucked into the mental abyss along with the others. Perhaps I was too tired to monitor my psyche for precise sorting?

Now, when my thoughts of these early years come, they generally fall into one of two camps:

How in the world did we make it through that?

or

Did all that really happen?

Recently, while spending some time with our closest friends, they asked about that day, filling in gaps of the events of the time between getting the phone call that she had been born and their arrival at the hospital. It occurred to me about ten minutes into the conversation that my daughter was looking at me with wide-eyed wonder. Sometimes I forget that she doesn’t have a consciousness of her early days. Much like the huge scar just below her shoulder blade, hidden to her due to its location, and even (unintentionally) to everyone else beyond the bathing suit days of summer, she has an underlying understanding without a fully developed context.

So, what is our reality, a decade later?

In a literal sense, she’s sitting across the room from me, foil in her hair, allowing her chosen blue highlights process on her “curtain bangs”. She just finished a bag of popcorn––I repeat, popcorn–without a drink in hand and without her dad and me holding our breath, watching for the inevitable chaos to ensue. She’s sending Amazon links via text, making sure we know some of her birthday wishes. Her first year of middle school lurks around the corner, with all the newness that brings. In other words, normal stuff! Stuff that I probably never would have been able to believe would one day be her reality.

As her mom, I am filled with gratitude, humility, and hope.

Gratitude that she continues to thrive and maintain her health. I am equally humbled as I relish in God’s grace on our family. I’m all too aware of the parents who are sitting in hospitals right now, with kids of all ages facing what seem to be insurmountable challenges. Even more humbling, some parents are looking at empty cushions where their child should be. Lastly, I have lasting hope, rooted in faith, that any challenges coming our way will be surmounted and that strength and wisdom will be provided when we need it.

He has never forsaken us and His plans for her are more perfect than we could even dream. If you are at the beginning of your journey, please know that prayers are being prayed on your behalf, prayers that you will find yourself down the road living the most beautiful, ordinary life possible. Prayers that in ten years or so, you too will be saying, “What a difference a decade makes!”

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Image by Jackie Matthews from Pixabay

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Janae Copeland is a wife and mother of 3 daughters. She lives in Jacksonville, NC where she is a K-5 music educator. She became a Different Dream mom when her oldest daughter, Jayda, was born in 2002 with hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy. Nine years later, her daughter Clark was born with EA/TEF and right microtia/atresia. Janae is grateful to have been entrusted with the care all 3 of her special daughters and seeks out opportunities to help other young mothers who may need support as they begin these same journeys with their own blessings from God.