A Word from Bob
I’ve collated today’s post from The Annual Guide to Biblical Counseling Resources: 2021 Edition.
Dealing with Disabilities
Baker, Ernie. Help! Disability Pressures My Marriage!
Disability enters families in many different ways. Perhaps a genetic abnormality results in a child being born with a disability. Or perhaps a work injury renders a husband or wife unemployable or in need of 24/7 care. The possibilities are endless. Regardless of the cause, disability adds pressure to the marriage relationship. This mini-book is a gift to couples who are looking for biblical help to learn how to respond to their “new normal.”
Beats, Michael. Disability and the Gospel: How God Uses Our Brokenness to Display His Grace
Michael Beats’ concern with disability issues began nearly 30 years ago when his eldest child was born with multiple profound disabilities. Now, as more families like his are affected by a growing number of difficulties ranging from down syndrome to autism to food allergies, the need for church programs and personal paradigm shifts is greater than ever. Working through key Bible passages on brokenness and disability while answering hard questions, Beats offers helpful principles for believers and their churches. He shows us how to embrace our own brokenness and then to embrace those who are more physically and visibly broken, bringing hope and vision to those of us who need it most.
Deuel, Dave. Help! My Friend Has a Disability
Most of us could improve our friendship skills. And disability can introduce unique challenges to our friendships, as well as bring incomprehensible blessings. This mini-book explores how we can be a good friend to a person with a disability by examining the Bible’s teaching on friendships in general, and then looking at some of the specific obstacles disability can bring, including how churches can become families of friends for people with disabilities.
Deuel, Dave. Help! My Grandchild Has a Disability
A mini-book written with understanding on the blessings and challenges of raising grandchildren with disabilities. Kings and queens wear crowns, but the Bible says grandkids are crowns to their grandparents (Proverbs 17:6). But what if your crown is not what you expected? What if your grandchild has a disability? This mini-book offers grandparents their rightful place as kings and queens to their families. If the Lord has blessed you with a grandchild that has a disability, then roll up your sleeves and get ready to polish that precious and beautiful crown!
Deuel, Dave. Help! My Sibling Has a Disability
Having a sibling with a disability raises unique challenges. It can seem unfair, holding you back from doing the things other families are doing. Or perhaps you are required to step up in the absence of parents, and you feel overwhelmed by the responsibility. This mini-book, with its reminder that God makes no mistakes, seeks to come alongside you and offers biblical wisdom and practical suggestions for navigating through the different seasons of a sibling relationship.
Deuel, Dave. Is God Listening? What If He Doesn’t Answer?
How can we offer tenderhearted spiritual support to those affected by disability? As part of your biblical care for people with disabilities and their families, this mini-book can serve as a first response encouragement. This mini-book reminds us that God hears each cry for help, and He is not silent. He speaks to us through His Word—the Bible—and He acted to save us through the cross. Jesus offers us His unwavering presence and the promise that one day, those who trust Him will be delivered completely.
Deuel, Dave, and Nancy Deuel. Help! My Child Has a Disability
Accepting that God has chosen you to have a child with a disability can be hard. Dave and Nancy Deuel tell their story and share the practical wisdom they have learned, highlighting the importance of supportive relationships with family, friends, and church, as well as the spiritual joys and blessings of this journey.
Horning, Krista. Just the Way I Am: God’s Good Design in Disability
A beautifully produced coffee-table style book with inspirational verses and pictures of those who have a disability. You will see God’s providence and sovereignty in lives affected and impacted by disability.
Kwasny, John. Suffering in 3-D: Connecting the Church to Disease, Disability, and Disorder
Suffering in 3-D is a book to guide and encourage believers to get practically involved in meaningful relational ministry to all who are suffering. As Christians, we are not to walk alone in our suffering, or inadvertently force others to deal with personal suffering on their own. The church, as a spiritual hospital, the family of God, and a discipleship culture, is to be one-minded and spiritually passionate about its charge to connect to those who suffer in the midst. As you work through this book, you will be guided and inspired to engage in a holistic and practical ministry to those who suffer with disease, disability, and disorder.
Olsen, Rebecca. A New Normal: Learning to Thrive in Suffering
A car crash has left you disabled and in constant pain. You or a family member just received a serious medical diagnosis. How do you begin to piece your life together after it has been changed forever? When suffering waylays you, it doesn’t seem as if anything will be “normal” again. How do you take steps to move from surviving to thriving? Rebecca Olson walks you through the questions you may be asking of yourself and God as you process a long-term trial or a devastating loss, and she invites you to consider how your heartache, your illness, and your sorrow can be a platform for experiencing the grace of God.
Tada, Joni Eareckson. A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty
In this account of her struggle with physical pain, Joni Eareckson Tada offers her perspective on divine healing, God’s purposes, and what it means to live with joy. A Place of Healing is not an ivory-tower treatise on suffering. It’s an intimate look into the life of a mature woman of God. Whether readers are enduring physical pain, financial loss, or relational grief, Joni invites them to process their suffering with her.
Tada, Joni Eareckson. A Spectacle of Glory: God’s Light Shining Through Me Every Day
After nearly 50 years of living as a quadriplegic, and dealing with chronic pain on a daily basis, Joni Eareckson Tada has learned the importance of glorifying God through the toughest of situations. Through this devotional, Joni helps readers discover how to put God’s glory on display: how to say “no” to complaining and say “yes” to daily following God.
Tada, Joni Eareckson. When God Weeps: Why Our Suffering Matters to the Almighty
If God is loving, why is there suffering? What’s the difference between permitting something and ordaining it? When bad things happen, who’s behind them—God or the devil? When suffering touches our lives, questions like these demand an answer. After more than thirty years in a wheelchair, Joni Eareckson Tada’s experience with suffering gives her a unique understanding of God’s intentions for us in our pain. In When God Weeps, she probes beyond glib answers that fail us in our time of deepest need. With firmness and compassion, she reveals a God big enough to understand our suffering, wise enough to allow it, and powerful enough to use it for a greater good than we can ever imagine.
Tada, Joni Eareckson, Steve Bundy, and Pat Verbal. Beyond Suffering: A Christian Perspective on Disability Ministry
Beyond Suffering is a unique Certificate of Completion Program comprised of a study guide and leader’s guide that includes contributions from 40 experts. The lessons are supported by video case studies and involve four thought-provoking modules: 1) An Overview of Disability Ministry, 2) The Theology of Suffering and Disability, 3) The Church and Disability Ministry, and 4) An Introduction to Bioethics. Each module is designed to give Christians an understanding of the issues involved in various aspects of disability ministry.
Tada, Ken. For Better or Worse: When Disability Challenges Your Marriage
Disability has a way of trying even the best of marriages. The cumulative effects of daily routines that never vary, social isolation, financial pressures, unmet expectations, and a life that is vastly different from most couples can wear on the spirits of the strongest husband and wife. Without Christ firmly in the center of the suffering, a spouse can crack under the pressure that disability brings to the marriage. Ken Tada, husband to Joni Eareckson Tada, shares that disability does not have to be the defining word in your marriage. Instead disability is an invitation for you and your spouse to depend on Jesus in your weakness and grow closer to each other than you ever thought possible.
Tautges, Paul, with Joni Eareckson Tada. When Disability Hits Home: How God Magnifies His Grace in Our Weakness and Suffering
In disability, our hearts become tethered to pain, thereby providing an unusual opportunity for God’s grace to be magnified and faith is trained to be dependent upon the Lord. In When Disability Hits Home, written with compassion and sensitivity, Paul Tautges, with Joni Eareckson Tada, draws upon key biblical principles to nurture faith.
Join the Conversation
What additional biblical counseling resources would you recommend regarding dealing with disabilities?
