A Picture of Grace in Italy

Over a decade ago, we took a short trip to Italy to celebrate both Jay and my thirtieth birthdays, which were only a few weeks apart. We hadn’t traveled internationally since my stroke, so the trip felt like an overwhelming undertaking. As I recount the unbelievable countryside, fabulous food and precious memories made with Jay, one moment sticks out to me above all the others—a momentary shower of grace, vibrantly personifying the work of God displayed through a disabled body.

We celebrated Jay’s thirtieth birthday on Palm Sunday at the Vatican. As you can imagine, the wheelchair and the ubiquitous cobblestone streets of Italy were not friends, so we were late. When we arrived, we were directed by nuns and security guards to the very front of St. Peter’s Square. We could have stretched out our legs on the marble stairs the pope would soon be ascending. Because of Katherine’s wheelchair, we were ushered to the very best seats, not with dignitaries or famous guests, but next to other people with disabilities and their families. And we cried . . . hard.

The experience reminded us of how fearful we were in the world and how hurt we felt when we remembered what our lives once were. And yet now, in the soil of our pain, God planted a new story. He showed us that our weakness would be the channel through which He would show us His strength. He showed us that we didn’t have to fight so hard; He would do that for us.

And He showed us that what felt like the end of many things we had loved would be the beginning of a different story, of living a new and flourishing life in the same world that had hurt us.

I’m filled with such hope for a future filled with all kinds of grace moments, big and small. Maybe I will never again see "the works of God displayed" in that same row of wheelchairs, in the midst of a sacred place, on a holy day. But I know that, if I choose to see it, I’ll witness the light of Divine Love shining in the darkness of every day.

I know, if I focus my vision rightly, I’ll see the works of God displayed all around me—even in the wounding, even in the deaths, even in my very own disabled body that is daily enabling the second-chance life of my soul.