i remember sarah telling me that she was shocked to see ian showing affection to someone – she was used to him being the sarcastic life of the party. willing to talk to anyone, but also not shy to say funny things that may or may not be taken well. but he was in love, and this friend that she had known since she was little and had been homeschooled with was actually outwardly showing his love.
that’s the ian that i fell in love with. and that’s me that he was showing affection to. he would gently hold my hand – as gently as he could considering that he has the fattest fingers in the world. to me it often felt like a vice grip. but it was still so sweet.
but then for a few years, that hand didn’t have life. it couldn’t squeeze when it wanted to or reach out to find mine.
that’s different now.
that same ian seven years ago that shocked sarah is still marked by gentle affection. and he can make that hand move again. since we’ve been married, one of my favorite parts of my day is falling asleep holding my husband’s hand. and one night as i lay there, i realized that this is what i want all of my girlfriend’s to have. a gentle husband who is so happy to fall asleep with hands bound.
i’m thankful tonight to be married to a tender heart.
throughout our engagement and into our marriage, many inquiring minds, who are strangers and not dear friends, have asked about our ability to have children. surprisingly, because of our disability, there has seemed to exist an assumption that those questions are appropriate, when none of them were asked to our friends who are in full health. not that these questions are wrong, but they’re not helpful either. here’s why.
in any marriage, how does anyone know if they can conceive until God reveals a yes or no?
with or without disability, no one can answer that question except for God.
and so that’s where we leave it. we would both love to be parents. i would love to have a mini ian running around, filling our lives. maybe not yet. maybe not for a long time. maybe next year. maybe we’ll have biological children, or maybe we’ll adopt.
just like we don’t want people to assume things about our own life and future, we don’t want to assume on God. He may call us to raise 10 children who look and sound just like us or he may just keep providing nieces and nephews for us to spoil. either way, “before me, as behind, God is and all is well.”
i dont know, maybe it’s me, but sometimes suffering is embarrassing. when it’s prolonged, and so outwardly apparent, and creates so many needs. living through brain injury and brain cancer, and losing someone to brain cancer, and now thinking about a smaller type of cancer, it’s another need. another reason for people to pray. another reason for maybe some to think that our faith is too weak. another reason for “i just feel so badly for them.” yes, here we are again, friends, needing healing, and relief, and strength.
i don’t know what the Bible says about it. ian would say it’s just a feeling. but it’s there. and i’m sure we’re not the first ones to feel it. so that’s probably why i want to say it out loud. and i know that it is good for us to be cared for, and prayed for, and to ask for prayer. and i’m sure that somewhere Jesus can satisfy and heal it. but sometimes, it just sits there in our gut.
as for ian’s appointment, it may not be cancer, but they will treat it as if it were. we will be scheduled for two outpatient procedures in pittsburgh, so we will just say overnight at a hotel. they will remove the nearest lymph node and have it tested.
thank you, truly, for praying. even if sometimes it feels, embarrassing:)
late last week we learned that ian has pre-osteoporisis in his lumbar spine and left femur. please pray that we’re able to do enough exercise for him that it doesn’t progress quickly.
Desiring God has released a new e book on disability. It is geared toward pastors, but has affected my heart just a few pages in. Click on our right link to DG to download.
An excerpt, that we all need, because my Ian, and so many other beautiful, disabled people are deeply loved by God and need to be hemmed in by others:
“And I would just plead in passing—children, young people, and adults—see people with disabilities. And I don’t mean see them like the priest and the Levite on the Jericho Road, passing by on the other side. This is our natural reflex—see and avoid. But we are not natural people. We are followers of Jesus. We have the Spirit of Jesus in our hearts. We have been seen and touched in all our brokenness by an attentive, merciful Savior.
If you want to be one of the most remarkable kinds of human beings on the planet—a Jesus kind—see people with disabilities. See them. And move toward them. God will show you what to say.”
“Paul, called by the will of God, to be an apostle of Christ Jesus” 1 Cor. 1:1
reading tonight, and listening to a teaching, and thinking of how Paul was called to be an apostle, and how as Christians we are called to a purpose for the glory of God – this strikes us.
this week on vacation, we don’t have a caregiver with us and we don’t have murphy brothers with us who know just how to care for ian. and while it can be tiring, taking care of ian is what fills me, and teaches me, and humbles me and moves me toward heaven. when i have days with just ian, i am completed much differently than days at my office.
tonight as we read with the rain falling on the leaves outside, and as we draw nearer to our book really happening, and as we look at requests for speaking, our purposes become a little bit clearer.
this marriage, this hard and magnificent marriage, is to what we are called.
ian murphy, called to be a disabled husband, for the glory of God.
larissa murphy, called to be a wife, for the glory of God.
“you shouldn’t have said that today, maybe that sounded harsh, you’re assuming a heart motive, that’s not believing the best of that person, you’re angry again, you’re inpatient again,” the voices in my heart and in my head drone on all day.
eventually my body sits to write – to be the means of a story God has written that has nothing to do with myself.
a calendar with dates for talking to people in public, at retreats, conferences – who am i to have this place?
my sins rattle throughout my brain all day and tell me that this is fraud.
that this experience, this public story we’re telling, is not worthy of being told by me. that my sin somehow cancels out anything God would do through us.
that this husband, so sweet and foundational should have more than this sinning wife.
“the Lord your God is in your midst; a might one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exalt over you with loud singing.” – zephaniah 3:17
my God still rejoices over me. he will quiet me.
so humbly and dependently we make our way.
“Who, oh Lord, could save themselves, Their own soul could heal? Our shame was deeper than the sea Your grace is deeper still”
