The church is not complete without people affected by disability.
It's just like the Bible, when you remove disability from the Gospels, from Jesus' life, if you remove disabilities, how much are you taking from the Lord? And it's the church. And it does cost. Love is messy. Love is messy.
It is beautiful, though. When you get that glimpse of glory, and they get it, and they are loved, this is a group of people who have been left behind. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app.
This is Family Life Today. I remember several months ago, I was with over 100 women, probably 130 women. And at the end of our time together, I said, I'd really like for those of you that have children with any kind of disability to stand up. And we would like to pray over you. And so, all the women in the room gathered around the women standing, laid hands on them, and prayed that God would equip them, change them, move them, give them wisdom as they're raising these precious children. And when we were done, these women could not stop crying because they said, we feel like we're never noticed. We feel like we're all alone. And oftentimes, we feel like the church has forgotten us.
And that night, I felt like, oh, we need to be aware. We need to help. We need to minister to these families. And I think that we're missing it in the church many times. Yeah, I know as a pastor for 30 years, I missed it. And we brought some things in to help. We missed it.
But yeah. Yeah, and we want to help the church not miss it because Jesus doesn't miss it. And we've got the couple to help us through that here today, Paul and Jill Miller, who lead SeeJesus.net. I mean, you talk about See Jesus, and then you get the eyes of Jesus. And we just found out something you've been doing and creating to help the church.
And minister to all people. And many people know you from being on Family Life Today and know that you have a daughter that has taken you on a journey for the last, how old is Kim now? Forty-one. Forty-one years. Yeah, so here you are. Tell us how you decided to create something.
Take us on your journey. It starts with a story that you've told before, but our listeners need to hear it again. Well, it's a story of Jill and I probably not at our best. So, Kim would get up early in the morning, like 4.30, for who knows what reason. It was just kind of her autism. And she would pace back and forth on the third floor. And she's above you. Yeah, and so we're on the second floor. So, we would tell her to get back in bed. And because we were separated, the telling was kind of loud. So, we yelled, you know. The whole floor.
And we sort of tag-teamed, you know. And then Jill would go down and be on the first floor having devotions. I'd be on the second floor having devotions. And Kim would be pacing up on the third floor.
And I wouldn't tune into this, you know, Kim. So, Jill would yell at me while we're having our devotions for me to yell at Kim. What'd that sound like? Good, Jill. Let's hear it.
I grew up in Philly in a driveway. I can yell, baby. So, anyway, one day in 2007 in December, I decided to get up to get out of bed and just go pray with her. I thought, this is ridiculous. Yeah, with Kim. And so, I was getting out of bed and Jill said, what are you going to do? Go yell at Kim. And I said, no, that hadn't worked for 10 years.
So, I thought I would pray. It only took you 10 years. And she started laughing and said, what do you mean? It's been 20 years. Yeah, whatever.
That's not quibble. So, I walked upstairs and I just sat on her bed. Nothing fancy, just a 10-second prayer that God would quiet her. And I did notice how agitated she was under the covers. Because what she would do, she'd get out, she would run out into the hallway, flip on the light, run back to her bed, stay in bed for five minutes, and then run back into the hallway and flip the light off and come back to her bed.
In the world of autism, it's called perseverating and just kind of repeating these actions. So, I prayed with Kim and I just noticed how agitated she was. And the only thing I can say is at the end of this 15-second prayer, I knew something about Kim that I hadn't known before. And that was that I had, there was no voice, nothing. It was just a knowing that I had underestimated her ability to grow spiritually and control her own behavior. And I couldn't shake that thought. That was December.
I'd probably go up once a week and pray with her. And in the middle of March, it stopped completely. The shaking stopped or her getting out of bed?
Her getting out of bed. And it stopped because we moved. And we didn't know it. The diesel trucks of the meat factory across the street were waking her up. And so, we moved to a place where we could kind of make an apartment for Kim. It was off the road, it was quieter.
So, here I am in this new house now. But this thought is still heavy because it was clearly the Spirit prompting. Because He was prompting me to be more like Jesus. He was prompting me to see Kim in a broader way. And it was a repentance. And I just think much of what the Spirit prompts us is to holiness.
It was a new, you know, a little edge. So, I started having devotions with Kim in the morning. And that summer, I kept thinking. And then when we would pray together, she would pray on her speech computer and I would do the dishes. And I just kept, you know, I really should sit down with her while she's praying.
And just that nudging was all that summer of 2008. And then in the fall, I finally sat down with her. And when I did, her prayers just blossomed.
It was the sweetest thing. She prayed for angry people. She loves to pray for angry people because she struggles with anger. She loves to pray for her bad dog Tully, you know. She prayed.
I hadn't even talked with her about it. But she prayed yesterday when we were in the morning before we flew out that she would help Mom not to be afraid when she was talking. It was just such a thoughtful prayer.
It was just so sweet. And anyway, there's a lot more pieces of the story than that. But the other thing I did that summer, I went to our pastor and I said, I'm going to stop teaching Sunday school because I want to teach Kim and her friends. And Jill had done this in previous churches numerous times and she was just at that point just kind of fried. So, this wasn't new, but it was new for us in this situation. And he said, Paul, you know, you're our entire Sunday school program. I said, I know, but I have neglected Kim.
She just doesn't know the Bible. And so, they found a room, a little deserted room next to the furnace room in the basement. It's always in the basement.
We gathered with two of her friends. And I just hunted for curriculum online and we ran out of stuff really quickly. There wasn't hardly anything there. And it was all kind of dumbed down. And then, oh, I should say this. When I stopped, I would develop my material in Sunday school or small groups. So, I was shutting down my writing, you know. So, I was putting a stop to this.
And it's one of those, so it was a little bit of dying that was through that. But let me tell you, let me pass this off. So, about a year into this, Jill had joined us teaching. And so, she had been teaching.
We have a team of three of us that were teaching. And then Jill had been teaching women's Bible study, one of our person of Jesus Bible studies that looks carefully at what Jesus is like as a person. And she had an epiphany one day. So, Kim came home from walking, or dogs. She has a business where she goes from house to house walking dogs. Somebody comes to house, picks her up, and they travel around all day. And she came home upset.
I'm, you know, clearly upset. And I just happened to share with her what we had learned in women's Bible study. And as she was taking her coat, from her coat going through the hall to the kitchen, I could just see her just quiet. And she got it.
And then she walked from the kitchen after washing her hands back to the TV to turn on. I was like, she got that. You were surprised. I was, especially how God just touched her heart with it. And I had just recently retired from teaching at school.
And it was September, late September, early October. I'm watching these school buses go by, and I was like, now what, Lord? I'll just wait.
What do you want me to do? And I just, I was like, okay, let's take the curriculum that I'm teaching these women and let me not water it down. That's a biggie. But adapt it. And that is what we started 10 years ago. And I guess it got started to get published like seven years ago.
I don't know. Yeah, there was even a fun story. Jill came, so she started in September writing these studies. And it's really hard, like she had no template to work on. There were no, so it's an interactive Bible study for people with intellectual disability. And there's a lot of us.
And just differences, yeah. And I try to always write that everybody's interested in what they're reading or involved with. And that's what we did. So, January after Jill started, she says, Paul, I just can't get my voice. I just can't.
This isn't working. And I thought, huh, I should probably pray for Jill. It's the story of my life. So, I wrote out a little prayer card that I still pray for every day. And I wrote Luke 14, Jesus' instructions on how to have a really good party, go out and get the blind and the poor and the disabled, and you'll have a lot of fun. Oh, absolutely.
And so, within three weeks, Jill said, Paul, I found my voice. And that became, so she's written 10 of these lengthy Bible studies that hundreds of churches across America are using them. And unfortunately, we have no competition because no one else is writing interactive Bible studies.
And in a business principle, in a growing market, you want competition. And so, it's just like, people can't even, they're basically like me in 2000, before that spirit prompted me, thinking that these kids can't learn. Well, I mean, just look at them.
Look how disabled they are. And it's only when you actually, I mean, what's it like to teach these studies, Jill? It is just awesome. And you follow the questions, and I call it the gang.
That is a loving term for Kim and her friends. And there's variances of all their abilities. They have all different abilities. And they get it.
How do you know? Like, what's that look like? Their response to the questions. Their responses to the questions, some of them, as a teacher, you're like, wow, I didn't think of that. Yeah. And Jesus is alive in these studies.
It's fun. Can you give us an example, like teaching the wedding feast? Like, what are some of the responses? So, we start with reading the scripture. And some of the gang can read. Some of the gang can't read. Some of the gang helps others read. They clap when they read. They're so encouraging.
It's beautiful. So, we read the scripture, and then we act it out. And so, we just use scarves over people's heads. They absolutely love that. When we had Esther, at one point, we had the Bible study on Esther, and they just loved that crown. They loved that crown. And the scepter. They loved that scepter. That scepter was swinging.
And it was just, and hey, man, we had a ball. And for such a time as this. And it is such a time as this. The banquet table has to be full. And we want it overflowing.
It's going to be so much fun. And so, after we act it out, then we'll draw. Very rough drawings.
I call them bubble people. And one of the kids is an incredible artist. He has autism. He'll draw it out. And it'll take him the whole lesson to draw out the scene.
And it's just beautiful. And then the gang claps and encourages. So once they go through those stages, oh, and then we show a video of it. So I'll find something on YouTube, and they'll see that. So we go through four different ways. And I'm telling you, by the time we get to the interactive questions, they're there.
They are there. And so we go through the study, and then we go through a practical application. So what's this for your life? For such a time? What is this?
What is this? What looks like a mess in your life that God's gonna straighten out? He has it. And you know, we're all the same. When you're teaching that, you're like, they are my friends.
They're my peers. Because we are the same. We're just the same. We're wrapped a little different, but we're all the same. And when you come out of these Bible studies, the gang teaches you.
I was gonna say, you've probably learned more from them and their responses than anything. Oh, and that's our hope. So the church is missing this. How do they pray, Jill? What's prayer for them? Oh, their prayers are so real and so deep. They'll remember months later and say, hey, Jill, how's Ashley? How's your dog, Anaya? I mean, they remember.
How well do they do community? We have a Thanksgiving feast. They always want to party. Oh, my word. You know, they beat any college spring break.
Let me tell you. There has to be something to celebrate. So when we have a party, they're all there. They bring their friends. When we have a beach day, there's kids who can swim, who bring their friends into the ocean. There's kids who know how to use belly boards, who teach those who have trouble walking.
There's chairs that go down to the beach and they haven't had their feet in the water for a decade. And there's just beauty. It's just so fun. You know, at the end of the day, one's burnt to a crisp. He's like, Jill, I know you put that lotion on me.
I'm like, I'm telling you, Matt, I did put that lotion on you. It's just beautiful. And that's what the church needs. The church is not complete without people affected by disability. It's just like the Bible, when you remove disability from the gospels, from Jesus's life, if you remove disabilities, how much are you taking from the Lord? And it's the church.
And it does cost. Love is messy. Paul says that to me all the time.
Love is messy. It is beautiful, though, when you get that glimpse of glory and they get it and they are loved. This is a group of people who have been left behind. In school, in churches, they're lonely. And the parents are lonely. Oh, and some of them, I'll tell you, they do hand out bulletins.
Some of the gang does hand out bulletins. I get that, and that's a step. But to mentor, to disciple, not do we just want to teach, we disciple. And that's our thing. And we've just, oh my goodness, we just got us into chili. Can you believe this? And so I know. Wow.
Dave's eyes are big. And we've gotten 12 liters, and in chili you want to spread this out, and their scarves are on their heads in chili. Hey, Jill, could you give a snippet like the banquet, like when we did a fundraiser, the parable of the man who sold all he had for the treasure of great price. And you had, remember all the treasure you had in the wagon? Yes, I put all Kim's favorite, favorite, favorite things in a wagon. And I made a huge mistake not to warn Kim that I was going to do this.
So I have this wagon on a stage with this fundraiser. There's like 20 kids up on the stage, all of them with disabilities in wheelchairs, and Kim starts getting mad. Kim's getting really flustered. Because Mom's giving her treasure away. I'm going to sell all my goods to buy a field. And Kim's like, wait a minute, Mom, they're my treasures.
They're not selling them. And so Kim comes up, and her brother was there. So sweet and kind, and took Kim to the side and explained it to me. And then we went on that night to discuss eternity. And I was trying to get the gang to understand eternity. So I had a string.
And one of the gang was holding the end of the string, and the other was holding the whole ball of string. And so Lucas was at the end. And I said, now, Lucas, keep going out the door.
Because I said, our problems are a pinprick compared to our life is so short. It's one tiny spot. And we're going to, this is one tiny spot, but we're going to live forever. So Lucas started with the string, and he went off the stage. He went past the gas. And he stopped, and I said, oh, no, Lucas, you keep going.
This is an eternity. So then he opens the emergency door, and he goes, bing, bing, bing. Then he goes out the door.
I said, oh, no. Oh, no, Lucas, keep going. Lucas keeps going and keeps going.
And my hearing's not that great. And they're like, Jill, he still can hear you. And he kept going, the kids. And it never ended. And I said, that's eternity, what we have in Jesus.
And even though your life is so hard here, it's such a short time compared to eternity. And the message, it calls it a small potato. And I had a potato on the stage.
I said, your hardship is a small potato. And you know, when we talked about eternity, the gang all clapped. That's how I know they get it. They get it. And the church needs to teach because that table has to be full. You guys, I'm thinking about parents listening and their church doesn't have anything for their child that they love so much. They feel isolated. Their child's not learning. Talk to them.
Like, how can they encourage their pastor or their church or find a church that is wanting to teach our kids? And many, a lot of this, Anne, comes from the parents. It's the parents who started. Just kind of like it's the parents in a school. Yeah. It's, and I hate to say that, parents.
Gird your loins. But it is from parents. And sometimes pastors are touched. They really are. I'm not saying they're not. But the momentum a lot of times comes from Anne and Dad's book, definitely.
And we have hundreds of churches that have, they've gotten in touch with us. And I'm not talking, I am not about numbers. Am I about numbers, Paul? I am.
No. I am not about number. And it's just, every time I wrote a Bible study, I was on our front, and still, I'm on either, now it's at a desk, but I'd be on the front porch and I'd lift up a bag and I'd, literally, a brown lunch bag, and I'd say, here it is, Lord.
It is a floppy fish and a loaf of stale bread. And if you want to feed one person, that's fine. If you want to read four of them from one, that's fine. You do what you want to do. And that was how I started, when I would sit down for a lesson. And he's done it.
Yeah, I mean, we got to watch a couple, just here in the studio, and man, they're really, really good. It's Jesus. And everyone can learn from it. Yeah. And teachers have said that. It's like, oh my goodness.
Oh, anyone. This is the way the Bible needs to be taught. And that's the way Jesus taught. He taught the whole crew. All the senses involved.
He did. Exactly. So, we're going to put, even the videos we watch will be in the show notes, so you can click the link and watch them yourself.
Fun. And then, how do people get them? They can get on cjesus.net, our website. But, like, people are so afraid. The Bethesda team does both online training and in-person training.
It really helps to go through one of their seminars, where you can learn how to teach and interact. Like, people are kind of afraid to do interactive Bible study on their own. And, you know, I think the funnest part of these studies is kind of organized chaos. Like, things go wrong all the time.
Of course. But the kids love it. I mean, that's part of the fun and the... Yeah. Like, a lot of times people will say, well, look, you just buy the curriculum and then you take off with it. And we have really found that communication with us has really helped.
They're much more successful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we all have to get it, you know? So, there's actually a script they have to follow. And people like to be creative and run off on their own tangents. But it's really important to follow the script. Like, ask these questions.
And they're brightly colored. And people... And just to be... To go... Just trust the plan. And then watch the plan.
Because you've worked the plan. You've seen that it works. And I'm still struck by the beginning of your story, Paul, of just praying for Kim. Yeah. Of taking the time to just pray with them.
Yeah. So, I'd love for you guys, one of you, to pray for our parents, to pray for their kids, to pray for maybe the circumstances that seem so hard right now. Father God, I pray that you will quiet these parents' hearts right now that we're talking about and praying for. And I know that you know them by name.
You know the numbers of hairs they have. You know every thought before they even think it. You know the burdens they bear, the love that they so strongly need from others, from you, from the church, helpers. Lord, Father, I just pray that in the spot that they're in, they will know that you are with them, that you are for them, and you are mighty to save, that you truly do sing over them, and you will do what you can do because it's who you are. So, Lord, we just lift up these parents that you will give them hope, real certainty of hope. We pray you will anoint them with a strength and a vigor that can only come from your spirit to continue to strive to feed these kids your word, that they go to their churches, even if they're on their own, Lord, just give them what they need. And I pray that you will just ease, ease their burden, Lord, through the power of the spirit that is alive in them, Lord, that they will know that every single thing you have given them is through the palm of your hand to create beauty from what today they think may be ashes. Oh, how we praise you that you are the one and the only one who can do this. Anoint the church with love, Lord.
Anoint the gang with your word that they will know you are for them and love them more than they'll ever imagine. Fill that banquet table overflowing, overflowing, Lord. In the name of Jesus, we say and thank you. Amen.
Amen and amen. I once heard a pastor say that we as Christians are appropriately described as sad celebrants. And that prayer from Jill really captures the description quite nicely. We mourn living in a broken world, but we don't mourn without hope, hope in Christ and his ability to bring beauty from despair.
You're allowed to be a sad celebrant today on this 4th of July holiday. Know that there is always hope in the power and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. I'm Shelby Abbott. You've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Jill and Paul Miller on Family Life Today. Jill has written a book called Finding Jesus on Upside Down Days, Family Devotions from the Barnyard. She intertwines the beauty of farm life with profound reflections on faith and walking with the Lord. And you can get your copy of Jill's book by going online to familylifetoday.com or you can find it in our show notes.
Or give us a call at 800-358-6329. You know, earlier this week we had on the Dr. Gary Chapman and he wrote a book called Five Traits of a Healthy Family and who doesn't want a more healthy family? His book is ideal for any family member seeking guidance on fostering a loving and stable family environment that's rooted in biblical principles and offers insight and practical advice for anyone who wants to embody God's intended design for family relationships. And this book is gonna be our gift to you when you give to family life. You can get your copy right now with any donation by going online to familylifetoday.com and clicking on the donate now button at the top of the page. Or you can give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800 F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Or feel free to drop your donation in the mail to us.
Our address is Family Life 100 Lake Heart Drive, Orlando, Florida 32832. Now, tomorrow, Ron Deal is gonna be joining David Ann Wilson to share with us how childhood trauma shapes our adulthood. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
