ArticleBlog | Weakness is God’s way: three voices and one church
Weakness is God’s way: three voices and one church
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 23.09.22
Disability can highlight how different God’s ways are to ours. We tend to see power in capability, but God often shines through disability so that he gets the glory. These are three accounts of people at Christ Church Bromley who inspire us with their joy, hope and courage in the face of disability.
Associate Vicar: Matt Lloyd Matt Lloyd has been Associate Vicar of Christ Church Bromley since 2018. Matt was a sporty man in his fourth year of curacy when, in 2013, an unexpected spinal cord abscess resulted in lower-limb paralysis. Suddenly everything changed.
Nine years on, Matt reflects that one of those changes is that he is more comfortable expressing his weakness. ‘It’s obvious when people meet me that there’s a struggle; it’s liberated me to not have to pretend.’ This has resulted in a greater empathy for those who suffer. ‘Whereas before I didn’t move as naturally towards those who are suffering because I didn’t know what to say, I hope I’m a bit better at doing that now.’
Matt’s disability also makes him long for a more inclusive church. His vision comes from 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul describes the weaker parts of the body as being indispensable. ‘Those with disability feel they are weaker and have less to contribute. Quite the opposite. How we help the disabled in our church family be part of it… that’s God-honouring.’
There’s lots to be thankful for, but there are harder moments too. While God has blessed Matt with a wife and two children, the joy of family is mingled with frustration, for example, in some of the things that he can’t do with his children. Expressing his grief to God and close family has helped him process it, often through the poignant language of the psalms. And grief is not Matt’s permanent posture because of his unsinkable hope in the resurrection: ‘I don’t think you can fully own your grief unless you know this life isn’t everything. It would be too crushing. There’s a buoyancy in the resurrection which keeps me from the abyss.’
