When Special Needs Truly are Special and Labels are Over-rated.

I thoughtlessly announced what my heart has always known since the day I brought her home, “You are special.”

Her toddler voice squeeks back at me from the rear seat, “I am?” Fluctuating at the end, as if asking, “Is it really so?”

My heart was broken at the thought of her not knowing, her large smile and wild hair, her wonderful affection for everyone she meets….is like smelling beautiful blossoms in Spring or catching the first white tips of snow on the crisp, jagged mountains that surround our region.

So, much like I did with the eleven-year-old we fostered, I had this child echo back to me, clear words happily announcing, “I am special”, over and over again.

I didn’t want her leaving that crescendo with any questions in her mind of who she was in Christ.

As a little girl, my family traveled around the country (in the 70’s) in a solid blue van with four beds, dark windows, a refrigerator and a tiny fan. I remember laying on the back bed (long before seatbelt laws) asking my mom to play the 8-track (AKA an old fashioned CD player) repeating a song that went….

“If I were a butterfly, 
I’d thank you, Lord, for giving me wings. 
And if I were a robin in a tree, 
I’d thank you, Lord, that I could sing. 
And if I were a fish in the sea, 
I’d wiggle my tail, and I’d giggle with glee, 
But I’d just thank you, Father, for making me ME!”

I belted out that song loud and repeatedly; that is until my family announced their distain for listening to it, for what must have been the thousandth time.

I was in fifth grade, at the time. It was the last time I can remember laughing and enjoying the uniqueness of not being somebody else, not performing like others wanted….but just being ME.

5th grade was a year I struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia. Life was worrisome and fears started rising for very serious reasons. It was also the year my public school, male teacher molested a boy in our class after keeping him after school.

The teacher was fired, never sent to jail. And news traveled fast why the cute boy with blonde locks “moved” from school suddenly, at the same time our teacher disappeared.

That year, my trip in our blue van was about escaping reality, for me anyway; venturing to Kansas, Texas and Kentucky.

After all, there was something about leaving, escaping, drifting that made me feel safe. Running away from things was something I’d fight for the next two decades.

Today, life is completely stable. Two of our daughter’s are hearing impaired. One has significant special needs. My husband and I discuss her future over coffee one morning, recognizing her future need for multiple surgeries.

But I stop him. “If she has the surgeries”, I tell my husband, “It just won’t seem like she is the same. She will look different.” I go on to explain…

“What looks disformed and different about her is actually what I love about her most.” 

Her disabilities set her apart. Her uniqueness is almost a trademark that warms my heart when I look at at her face.

And then, it struck me. “The unique, original, one-of-a-kind things about US….the different, unique or non-traditional aspects of our looks or personality must be what God must loves most about us too.”

So, why are we so determined to change ourselves?

I thought….

Perhaps God marks his children with stamps of uniqueness, selects and identifies them…using outward appearances or inwards differences.

Because, it seems, the most costly presents don’t always need the most expensive wrappings.

And maybe my own challenges, like dyslexia, weren’t something I would need to spend the next two decades hiding or regretting, but a gift God was giving me to be used for writing, challenging me in the future.

Afterall, doesn’t a challenge once met, become the asset used most in the future?

So, why is it we as a society, look at special needs like some curse or “black mark” a teacher stamps on a failing paper?

Isn’t God’s Kingdom upside-down, His thinking higher, His plans mightier? Perhaps, His ways confound the proud and mere men have little right to label what God created?

And what if beauty is uniqueness created on purpose, like a child’s face with freckles, a birthmark, or challenges that draw us to Jesus?

I know, when I look at my “unique” special needs daughter, she doesn’t fit into social norms. I notice people looking at her, disturbed by her “imperfections”…

But God, oh how He wants us to see beauty every place, especially in those things He created. 

Yet, I admit, I also used to hide away, turn away from those who looked different. I was selfish and people pleasing, needing man’s approval, because I struggled incredibly with my own identity.

Miraculously, God is delivering me from the need to find my worth in anything but Him.

I randomly turn on a video of the song I sang to myself as a 5th grader, to play for my little girls. I want my daughter’s to know their worth, see their uniqueness as beauty spilling over to a needy world.

Because stock representations get boring and the world has enough pinterest-perfect wanna-be’s.

That’s when I hear it…

A narration prior to the song. A little boy questions his identity. Then, the narrator reminds him of his worth. The child “gets it”….He understands…..He. IS. Special.

The song plays as I remember it afterwards. (Listen to the song here)

“‘Cause you gave me a heart, 
And you gave me a smile 
You gave me Jesus, 
And you made me your child. 
And I just thank you, Father, for making me Me!”

My prayer for you today, as you read this, is that it doesn’t take you two decades to see beauty in what makes you unique.

Let’s see special needs as He sees them….Truly special. Beautiful. Wonderful in its own uniqueness…

Friend, you are worthy of His love and affection, exactly as they are, despite how you look or anything you have done.

Won’t you sing to Him along with me today…“Thank you Father, thank you for making me, ME!”