Faith Whilst Disabled: “What’s wrong with you?”

Accessing prayer can be fraught with challenges.

I went to the front, and asked you for prayer about a very specific issue. I didn’t think anything of the fact I was using my crutches that day, and I honestly thought no-one else would. I usually use my walking sticks, they’re black — pretty, I match my outfits with them. They’re cool. Collapsible. Convenient. I’m not a huge fan of crutches as they can be very annoying to use and hinder me from doing a lot of activities. More often than not I’ll use one if possible, and it’s rare that I need to use the upper arm support. I don’t mind them, just find them inconvenient. After being suitably rested I’ve been known to completely forget I left the house with them. So when I use crutches, one of two things has happened. The first, I need them. The second? I have probably left my walking sticks somewhere annoying, like a black hole or the centre of a volcano.

I walked up, I asked, we prayed. About the first thing. Then it started… awkward small talk about my bright, silver, NHS circa 2003 issue crutch. I go through the rigmarole. I use the osteochrondoma on my little finger to quickly and visually demonstrate what’s all over my skeleton. I briefly say it affects my joints, and then it happens. Then you ask.

“Can I pray for your healing?”

Ugh, here we go again. I honestly thought that by now I’d have some invisible spiritual system that would prevent people from asking me that question. I’m more amenable to it if it comes from someone who has seen me in hospital, someone who has seen the hardship that sometimes my impairment can bring, particularly when coupled with the oppressive society we live in. My sister can ask me if I want her to pray for my healing, because she was there when I went and had an osteochrondoma removed because I had almost no movement left in my arm. She was around. She understood. That’s cool.

But here we were again. In a church. In a nice space, somewhere I like going, but also — somewhere surrounded by people who don’t really know me. This time, I was prepared. I said no. I told her that God made me the way I am for a reason and there was nothing wrong with me. I told them that I’d been able to do so some great things because of my condition and I did not need healing. I did, however, feel obliged to ‘end the awkward’, as Scope would say. So I said she could pray for my back, as that was what was troubling me and causing me to need to use the crutch that day. Okay. Cool. So we settle down for prayer again.

“Father God, I pray for complete and total healing…”
and then, a short pause. A short pause whilst they waited for my reaction. I didn’t react. I couldn’t. I was shocked. The prayer continued.

I spent the remainder of the prayer indignant — I will not say Amen! I will not agree to this, I do not agree!

“…in your holy name, amen.”
“Amen.”

Damn it. I said it.

I walked up to you for prayer, and you decided that because I used a crutch I needed healing. I could have walked up without the crutch, but why submit and conform to ableist norms in order to prevent an attack on my very person at the alter? No. You saw the crutch, prayed about what I wanted to and then shifted the focus. I saw it as an opportunity to tell you something about me, to share. You then undermined me. I explicitly and actively said to you that God has made me this way for a reason. There is nothing wrong with me.

I’m not sure if you heard me, because your actions picked up my declaration — my disability pride declaration — and you just binned them. You may as well have torn up my birth certificate in front of me. You ignored what I said, and you told me that there was something wrong with me by praying for my complete and total healing.

I specifically said no, and you ignored me.

It’s like so many of my medical experiences, doctors become immediately distracted by something different. I’ve heard so many stories about disabled people accessing healthcare — going in because they’ve got the flu and some jumped up general practitioner thinks that actually, they’re going to cure you and get published and it’ll be their first Nobel Prize. Honestly, I just came in for a flu jab… can I live?

I get the same when I go for spiritual care. I have a very specific journey and people think that there will be a miraculous healing, a story published in Bible 2.0 and you’ll be hailed forever as a hero. You’re probably not thinking that. You’re probably just thinking, I can help.

But can you? Did you?

Had this happened before I learnt to acknowledge the difference between a faith and people who practice the faith, I could have turned further and further away. It’s not okay to do this to people.

You don’t know their life stories — you see them once on a Sunday. Prayer is complex and unless you have complete and total access into someone’s life and their world view, you won’t understand. Don’t take away their autonomy. If someone says no, respect it. Sometimes it’s okay to be there, to offer prayer, but it must be an informed profferring.

I honestly drove away from that experience thinking, well. At least you’ve written my next blog post for me. There’s always more to be done when we work towards a church that is truly inclusive, one with open doors that doesn’t throw up barriers to accessing faith and every level. For me, this specific prayer experience is something we need to change. Oppression and exclusion isn’t as easy and obvious as shutting the door on someone. You can have a completely open door policy and keep people out because you subject them to dehumanising and degrading experiences like this without realising it.

When this person prayed for me, they changed the power relations. We suddenly weren’t two equal people praying together. They became the person with the authority, dictating a need and imposing a solution whilst I had all of these labels reinforced. Like sticky tape. Another one. “Needs Healing”. I’ll just pop that there alongside all the other disablist slurs and labels I’ve had in my time. I have a separate box for those. Now I wish to emphasise, the person who prayed had good intentions. It was just unfortunate I experienced the incident in the narrative of exclusion. Pretty normal for systemic oppression. It’s unconscious. People participating without even realising it.

These experiences permeate almost every church I’ve come into contact with, because this attitude is deeply set within the church culture since Jesus healed a blind man, since Elijah raised the dead. Sick people are lesser, they are examples of how people who aren’t sick can do good. Our interpretations of biblical healing does not offer disabled people the respect they deserve. Modern Christianity must do more; the world is different. We need to change.