I have been seeing many articles about euthanasia in Canada. More and more people are seeking to argue against euthanasia. I am sincerely thankful for that. However, it is not enough to write articles. We need to live like we believe that the disabled and elderly should not be euthanized if we really want to win this fight.
A Little Bit About My Experience with Disability and Chronic Illness:
I’ve struggled with health issues since I was a child. I had such intense ripping horrific pain in my arms and hands, I had to quit guitar, flute and was not able to further pursue piano. I had to have special permissions for extra time to write exams (in high school and college), due to the severity of the pain. I struggled to use cutlery. There are many times I could not lift my fork from the plate to my mouth. Doctors had no answers. I felt pretty lost as a teenager, not knowing what jobs to pursue because of the limitations my arms gave me. I didn’t know what college programs to pursue. There were few who even acknowledged the severe limits I was facing in my body. I was not able to get helpful guidance.
In my early twenties, my energy started to fail. I struggled deeply with indescribable fatigue, all over my body. I have often described it as gravity being my worst enemy. I could feel gravity, as it pressed me into the ground. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t fight gravity. This continued to intensify. I was still able to force myself to work, but had nothing left in the tank once I was done my shifts. I spent many of my shifts hiding my tears due to the intensity of pain I was experiencing as I worked. Every day was grueling.
A few months after having my daughter, my symptoms went totally out of control. I couldn’t sleep more than 2 hours a night…which aggravated the fatigue to degrees I couldn’t imagine experiencing. When she cried, I would have to drag myself on the floor to her crib. Sometimes I wasn’t able to get to her crib for a long time. For a couple years, I was in and out of a wheelchair.
I was plagued with questions about the purpose of my life. I could no longer work, due to the extremely unpredictable nature of my health. I still can’t. I tried every diet, every possible treatment. I went to every doctor that would see me. I fought hard for the sake of my daughter and husband to be better. I forced myself to try and exercise. I got into juicing, and all other manner of healthy foods. But I was still tremendously unwell.
I couldn’t think straight. I lived with mountains of guilt and shame. I was afraid to talk to my neighbours, because no one could understand (someone once wanted to call the police on me because I was struggling to walk). I was harshly judged by family and friends. I was accused of wanting attention and purposely ignoring my doctors. I was tormented by how to answer simple questions like ‘why can’t you go camping anymore’ or ‘why don’t you work’ or ‘why can’t you contribute to church luncheons’?
There were only a handful of people who made me feel like I should keep living. Most others piled on. Shame mounted and mounted. I started to lose the will to live. The message I was receiving from those around me was that my life was not worth anything.
I made many plans for my death. More times than I can count. I cried out to God to just end my life. I felt alone. I was a literal burden. I was a tremendous financial cost. I have other friends in similar positions who confess the same struggles with suicidality.
The more my health declined, the more I encountered others with similar health disasters. Many of them felt the same way. Worthless. Purposeless. Incapable of contributing to the Kingdom of God. Incapable of parenting, or being a spouse, or being a good daughter/son or even being a citizen. Often, they were experiencing worse reactions from family and friends (some of them even being abandoned and cut off).
How does a person living with severe health issues live faithfully if there is hardly one person who believes they have dignity and worth? People even go so far as to scorn the weak! Why should that person persevere, when they are constantly being harassed for all they fail to accomplish?
How does such a person choose to live, when the government is willing to euthanise them?
How does such a person choose to live when many are experiencing churches that judge their suffering, and blame them for what God has allowed to happen to their body? How does such a person choose to live when their mental and physical anguish is met with ignorance and horror?
How Then Should the Disabled Live?
Not everyone who struggles with severe health conditions will experience this kind of treatment. Some people are surrounded by loving community, who seek to help in meaningful ways, without judgment. There have been seasons where I have had such people care for me. I treasure them and am deeply indebted to them.
However, with the fear of being too ‘woke’ growing, I suspect more and more who struggle with disability will experience harsher critique and treatment. More and more people are becoming allergic to the words ‘kindness’, ‘mercy’ and ‘grace’. I share my experience so that we can hopefully move again towards what Scripture teaches us.
If we believe in the sovereignty of God, we must recognize that in some cases, God allows disability for the sake of his glory. God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong. If we are going to oppose euthanasia, we need to live out the ethos of Scripture towards those who are disabled. We must not mock, scorn, reject or abandon the disabled. We must not judge and presume that they are faking. We must live in such a way that shows we believe in the deep and significant value of their lives. Otherwise, these articles that are written against euthanasia are empty and meaningless for those who actually live with disability.
Will the Church die to themselves so that the disabled can have meaningful participation in the body of Christ? Will it do everything it can to learn how to minister to and include children with disabilities in children’s programs? Will it visit those who are homebound, and even bring communion to these ones? Will it learn the art of ‘Being There’ as Dave Furman writes in his book, as he shares his own experience of difficult disability?
I need people to fight against euthanasia. I need to read those articles and be re-oriented to God’s purposes in my disability. I desperately need this! However, if I am not experiencing a reality where people want me to be alive, how can I fight the worthlessness that steadily creeps in every time I hear M.A.I.D mentioned? Ultimately, I must hold onto God's truth, and seek faithfulness to His will for my life, despite what people around me say or do. Even if I were to be utterly abandoned by friend, family and church, as Job felt he had been, I must seek God and bless him. However, there is certainly culpability for the Church if they fail to say what is true of God, and torment the disabled with what are false assumptions and judgments (ie., Job's friends). There is a responsibility of the church to live out James 1:27: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." There is also the danger of false teaching, if what is acted out in our churches does not match what is preached (such as can be found in some of the excellent articles recently written that seek to fight euthanasia).
I fear euthanasia is going to win if we don’t learn to communicate sincere desire for life in those living with disability or those who are elderly. We need to be able to articulate an individual’s value, even in their weakness, as we walk with them and care for them. When we judge or scorn, we are sadly contributing to the cause of euthanasia.
Lord, have mercy.
“Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees,
Say to those who have an anxious heart,
‘Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God,
He will come and save you.’
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.”
~Isaiah 35:3-6a
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