by AJ Canterbury

Read Time: 8 minutes

Feeling useless remains one of the fiercest temptations I battle against. 

The reality of my progressive disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, places me in a state of need, requiring the physical charity of others to do what my disability prevents or hinders. My physical limitations also inhibit me from helping others in times of crisis. Both realities feed a mental trap, sentencing me to a perceived role as receiver and never the giver. 

Hurricanes are not uncommon occurrences here along the Gulf Coast, and Hurricane Harvey struck our community with a distinctive level of disaster. Instead of catastrophic winds that toss the world asunder and move on, Harvey hovered overhead, unleashing relentless rain for four days. Homes and roadways flooded, leaving a disrupted, decimated, and displaced community.

“My greatest temptation is believing my weakness assigns me the permanent role of receiver and never the giver.” 

As you can imagine, the needs poured out in abundance. My church family jumped to serve by forming crews to gut homes and recruit volunteers to do loads of laundry and cook mass meals. They even opened a temporary shelter with members taking shifts to manage the growing needs.

I watched as the army of ants went to work rebuilding and restoring morale, longing to join them but unable to find a way to serve– at least not in the ways I valued. And that was the real catch. I wasn’t willing to accept the ways I couldserve because they weren’t the heavy-hitting helps I had ranked.

“The Hospitality of Need: How Depending on One Another Helps Us Heal and Grow Together” by Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton reframed how disability ministers to others– not despite weakness, but because of it.  A friend recommended the book after noticing how closely Kevan’s observations mirrored things I had said myself. Though Kevan and I share similar frustrations and joys, the book arrived at exactly the right moment, offering the steady perspective I needed.

Kevan’s memoir-esque narrative both confirms and reaffirms the steadfast faithfulness of God in redeeming every moment, every need. The book strengthened my focus in three specific ways: 1) the reciprocity of hospitality between Care-needer and Care-giver; 2) the unmistakable witness of love among the brethren; and 3) the necessity of need to foster sanctification.

“Disability does not prevent ministry; it often becomes the means through which it happens.”

The Reciprocity of Hospitality 

Kevan began by exploring the word hospitality. He notes its similarity to hospital and traces it to early medical care, where treatment involved both a place to go and a physician willing to come.

Like early medical clinics, hospitality contains both a coming and a going. The difference is that both the physician and the patient receive healing. Kevan’s physical needs invite the caregiver into his house, but hospitality does not end with the charity received. The patient also ministers by discerning and bearing the burdens the caregiver brings with him.

Kevan adopted the mindset that God intentionally brought the person to his door, bearing burdens of his own. Since God is aware of a person’s specific needs and he brought that person to him, Kevan knew he had been equipped with the capability of ministering to that caregiver. He must consciously take the focus off his own demanding needs so he can consider and listen for the other’s hurts.

Each day of the week brings a new face, a changing of the guard, to help Kevan. 

Kevan has never utilized insurance-provided medical personnel to care for his physical needs. Instead, friends he had developed and pursued have volunteered their time to stay overnight to reposition him, come in the morning to transfer him back to his wheelchair, and assist with showering and hygiene needs. Every scheduled visit cemented their connection so that Kevan gained the opportunity to encourage and counsel them.

Both parties cherish this shared time where mutual needs are served, but the reciprocal hospitality extends beyond the time with his night/morning aides. Kevan relates those same shared moments in his volunteer prison ministry, his foreign mission trips, and even an interaction with a coffee barista. Every time he had an expressed need, people encountered transformation and fulfillment by entering and resolving his needs.

“Hospitality is never a one-way exchange– both the caregiver and the one in need receives healing.”

As I read his experiences, I recognized how God performed the same redemption through my needs. My disability prohibits me from driving. I have attempted driver’s evaluations with accessible equipment to open doors to that independence before and failed both times. To go anywhere, I rely on someone to drive me.

The absence of a driver’s license remains a persistent sting I have never been able to snuff out. It is much more than an inability to order my own schedule, go out to lunch or to the movies when I wish. It interferes with the ministry opportunities I would like to be a part of, making the impromptu visit to the hospital or the emergency call to pick up and deliver something.

When a friend agrees to serve as my driver, the van transforms into a sanctuary. The uninterrupted time gives space for frustrations, questions, and dilemmas to surface. I minister by listening, probing, and gently steering thoughts with the Word of God.

After one of those rides, a friend remarked my van was “the keeper of secrets.” Many hidden issues have been brought into the light on those commutes. Every trip tightens the bond between us, and God redeems my dependence for his glory.

“God redeems my redeems my dependence by turning the interior of my van into ministry.”

The Witness of Love Among the Brethren

It took me a fourth of the way into the book to connect that I had heard part of Kevan Chandler’s story before. Several years ago, I watched a video where Kevan and his friends crafted a backpack harness that he could ride in, allowing him to be carried when traveling. His friends hiked through exotic places, taking Kevan where no wheelchair could go.

Acts of love exchanged between fellow Christians communicate the gospel to watching crowds. Their attentiveness and sacrifice breathe life into the gospel message, giving it credibility. This explains the enduring power of the story of paralytic and his friends (Lk 5:18-19). Kevan’s friends, like those companions, did what was necessary– improvising, sacrificing, and carrying—where he longed to go.

His friends displayed such a profound act of love by ensuring Kevan could accompany them, but it reveals something about Kevan also. He obviously lived in such a way to attract and cultivate relationships that inspired such devotion. Between the lines of his narrative, I caught evidence of how he gave attention and interest to those surrounding him. Kevan valued his people, and, in return, they prized his friendship.

“Acts of love exchanged between Christians gives the gospel credibility before watching crowds.”

He narrates a time when a stranger came to stay at Kevan and his roommates’ apartment. During his stay, he wondered at the influx of people passing through the revolving door of the apartment. He not only witnessed the multiple caregivers stepping in to serve Kevan, but also the developed community stopping by to visit and share meals together.

Caring for the needs of others within the faith builds camaraderie which becomes family, and that family takes every chance to be together. The early church in Acts illustrates that. The church in Jerusalem looked after one another’s physical needs, distributing food and selling property to preserve one another. The result was they were always together, learning about God and gathering around the table (Acts 2:42, 46, 4:32, 34-35).

Service and need produce bonds in all communities, but there is something unique to the fellowship Jesus assembles among his saints, whose love for each other is only surpassed by their love for God. The stranger, during his brief stay, witnessed the power of Christian brotherhood. His exposure to it left an eternal impression on him, pointing to something greater than devoted friends: the reality of Jesus.

Discovering the Necessity of Need

“The Hospitality of Need” reinforced the give-and-take nature that occurs when my dependence is being supported, and how the devotion of a Christian community promulgates the gospel to those who witness it. The book also challenged me to remember the mutual sanctification that occurs with the meeting of a need.

In one scene, Kevan shared an exchange between him and the friend who gave him a ride to school. Kevan, while out late with other friends, sent a quick text with the time he needed to be picked up the next morning. His friend replied with a gentle reprimand, reminding Kevan that he wasn’t a taxi service at his beck and call, but a brother serving him out of love.

For Kevan, the check from his friend served as a wake-up call not to see his caregivers as servants to carry him through disability but to honor them as willing companions to shoulder his burden. That observation hit me instantly. I try to be mindful and show my appreciation when a friend steps to my aid, but I recognize my tendency, especially with the ones closest to me, to take them for granted.

God, in his graciousness, places us in moments of dependence to grow us. Need exposes areas we have neglected or ignored, and God often uses the caregiver to identify and extract the rot.  He is as interested in meeting our spiritual needs through others as he is in meeting our physical ones. 

“God uses dependence to sanctify both the one who gives help and the one who receives it.”

In my previous post “What are the Reasons Disability Exists?,” I write of the multi-faceted purposes scripture gives in answer to that question. God uses our desperation as an opportunity to sanctify others as they help, and to further sanctify the one requiring the help, mutual conforming to the image of Jesus. Kevan’s example is a fine addition to the purposes for disability.

The lesson is not only for the disabled. Everyone, at some point, becomes the dependent. When that moment comes, the Christian can trust that God is working for good—both in you and the one he brings to your rescue.  Humility follows whenever our weakness is telegraphed, but God refines both caregiver and recipient through that expressed need.

I find I am in constant need of this truth. At some point, one would assume that my daft mind would embrace that “for those that love him, God works all things together for good.” Pride, as it turns out, is difficult to extricate. These all things include your burdens, dependence, and your small, seemingly insignificant, contributions. They are all necessary features to your sanctification process.

For all those compounded by dependence and to those pouring out care to another, this book will challenge and encourage you to adopt a biblical perspective to hospitality. Order your copy of  “The Hospitality of Need” and let me know what stood out most to you. How have you seen these three observations (the reciprocity of hospitality, the witness of love among the brethren, and the necessity of need) at work in your life?

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