In part one of My Disabled Self I came to realize that how we think, converse, and believe about heaven and disability reveals more about our own heart in the present than it does of any future existence for ourselves or those we love who are profoundly disabled.
So, while I cannot say with absolute certainty what our future life will be like after death (nor can anyone else for that matter) – I am at least obligated to examine the subject of disability and life after death to discern how what I believe impacts how I live in the present.
In part two of this series I share how processing my own beliefs about disability and eternal life brought clarity to the predicaments, impediments, and weaknesses of my faith.
Threads of Identity
In Perfect in Weakness, Whitaker discusses how the resurrection hope for a Christian entails a
“continuity and discontinuity between the pre- and post-resurrection embodied persons. The various threads of identity – biological, psychological, relational, and narrative – will all undergo transformation while also retaining sufficient continuity to maintain the identity of a person before and after resurrection.”
Perfect in Weakness, Pg. 10, 134
Some of those threads are more critical to our earthly lived reality than others. Some are self-chosen, others are not. Some are “intrinsic to the self though known absolutely only by God.” 1
How do we determine which threads are necessary for us to know who we are now or who we will be someday? This appears to be complicated for Whitaker to show. If who we are now is known fully only by God, then apparently some threads which I have deemed critical to my personhood may not even be part of the tapestry of my life, of who I am. Would a firm tug on the end of a thread cause the view of myself to unravel, leaving me naked before the creator? What rags have I clothed myself in? Like Paul, I do not want to be found naked – in the literal, material, and spiritual sense (2 Cor 5:3).
Might this be what Paul considered in stating, “all that I know now is partial and incomplete, [in my earthly state] but then I will know everything completely, [in my resurrected state] just as God now knows me completely.” 2
The NLT clarifies this verse a bit by stating it is God who knows me fully now. This strongly suggests I may be unable to know myself as fully now as I would like to. Since my heart so easily deceives me, my guess is I have constructed an identity of self that is incomplete, perhaps even faulty, because it rests upon the ways culture, society, my family, the church view me, along with the narrative I tell myself about myself and that which I share with others.
The Stories We Tell
Because “[h]uman life has a fundamentally narrative shape” we have this sense, this “imperative to narrate.” 3 We tell stories to make sense of our selves and of the world. Yet, it is too easy to embellish or eliminate parts of the story to suit ourselves. Some are altered significantly in attempts to appeal to a larger audience and to gain increased profitability.
Whitaker makes this point very clear:
“Narrativity unites diverse life experiences into a single self, much like pearls on a string. Certain events are selected and added to the string to form an ongoing narrative of the person’s life. These identity-forming events are cherry-picked from all those events that a person experiences, and in addition, their form on the string is shaped by the person’s interpretation of those events (the story she tells about the events of her life). In this way, the narrative can become self-perpetuation: only those events whose interpretation reinforces the person’s existing narrative are chosen.”
Perfect in Weakness, pg. 51, (my emphasis)
So who are we really? Are we who we think we are? Or are we more than that? If we have a difficult time weaving our story here, this side of eternity, imagine how difficult it must be to weave the threads of our identity into a work of art for all of eternity.
Wishful Thinking
We are still not any closer to clear answers about disability in heaven. Instead, we are still speculating as to which of these threads of identities must adhere to the resurrected individual in order for that individual to be continuous with their earthly existence.
According to Whitaker, “one person with a disability can look forward to being freed of their diverse embodiment in the new creation, while another fully expects to retain it.” 4
I am puzzled by this. This leaves the knowing to those who are incapable of knowing. If we take to heart Paul’s claim that only God knows fully who we are and who we will be, then whatever I imagine myself to be is mere speculation.
I had avoided asking my sister – who has lived 72 years with profound cerebral palsy (CP) – what she thought about the subject, greatly concerned it would cause unnecessary anxiety. Yet I was curious.
She called one day and asked what I was doing. I told her I was just reading. “God-books,” she asked? I tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, but she persisted. “What book? Read to me,” she pleaded.
The time seemed right. We discussed the notion of retained disability in life after death: that’s the view that one’s disability on earth follows that person into heaven. She made herself very clear. Accompanied by the appropriate body language, she adamantly stated that she intends to be walking on her own two feet, freed from a life imprisoned in a wheelchair!
According to Whitaker’s premise, she’ll get what she wished for. Another person who desires to retain her disability will receive her wish as well. I’m not so sure – about either view.
What Defines Our Identity?
Apparently Vickie’s entire life as a disabled person with severe CP has not defined her. She imagines she’ll be knowing herself in heaven even when walking and running. She is also fully aware that this life isn’t her best life.
Cerebral palsy has constrained her life. CP has hindered her flourishing. It has caused increased physical pain and emotional pain. She has intimately encountered injustices throughout every decade of her life.
But, I wonder this – has CP contributed to a deeper knowing of her genuine self, the one which only God knows – the one which we who stand tall and erect are far removed from understanding. This is not an attempt on my part to minimize her lived-experience but to honor it! I believe she is strides beyond most in the matter of understanding the mystery of life and dependency upon God.
Although there may be disabilities in heaven, as Whitaker proposes for the future life after death, she assures the reader that any disabilities retained in the “post-resurrection life [would] be free from suffering.” How this is worked out is not clear. Yet, she wants to be clear that the suggestion of a painless-disability “does not entail the ‘normalization’ of human bodies,” which denigrates the disabled body rather than recognizing its value. 5
Normalization is the crux in this subject of disability – any theory that elevates an ideal body as the norm is to be scrutinized and rejected. From what I understand there will be no vitruvian human in heaven as there are none here on earth.
What is the Matter with Matter?
Our physical, material bodies – in whatever condition we experience them in our earthly existence – matter. I concur with Whitaker’s ‘major claim’ that “the body is essential to personal life in the new creation.” She claims our bodies “will be in some ways the same as and in others different from that which we currently experience,” 6 and for those individuals with retained disabilities, they will “experience fullness of human flourishing.” 7
That our bodies will matter in our heavenly existence is supported by Paul, who fleshes this out in 1 Cor 15:35-54. Here he argues that our material bodies which are “buried in brokenness … will be raised in glory,” and those material bodies which are “buried in weakness … will be raised in strength.” It appears all bodies, once deceased, are broken and all dead bodies are weak. Paul doesn’t differentiate between the physically broken disabled body and the physically whole body — all bodies are broken. All bodies are weak. Why? Because they die, decay, and return to dust.
In my view, the issue is the subject of matter itself. Matter decays. Since our bodies are matter – formed from dust as the Genesis narrative declares – they are vulnerable to decay. Throughout church history this narrative is tweaked to suit one’s agenda, fixating on Eve’s curse. But a close reading of Genesis 3 reveals it is only the tempter and the earth that are cursed – not the woman nor the man – but the very matter from which humanity is derived. 8
Is Paul envisioning a reworking of, a recreation of matter, a matter that no longer decays? Yes! An existence for humanity where death and decay is defeated? An undoing of the work of death in the world around us? Yes, I believe so. Is Paul arguing for an entirely unbeknownst-to-us body? Perhaps, yes! The only body we are familiar with is the one that from our first breath moves resolutely towards its last. This is good news, the gospel message found in John 3:16-18: those in Christ and the re-created cosmos will not perish.
My Predicament
If there is to be life after death – an essential Christian doctrine – what or who will I myself be in that life hereafter? Will I know myself then when I am existing in a glorious body? We can only speculate. Our imaginations fail to comprehend that which we do not know! Will I recognize others then, those previously broken, but now moving in glorified bodies? If so, how? What will distinguish one individual – or one body – from the others? Those are interesting questions to explore.
It is in my continuing study and reading of disability – especially now with a focus on attempting to understand what eternity brings – that I’ve discovered my own predicament, a revelation of a crucial kink in my character, so to speak.
If eternal life, for the believer in Christ, begins in the here and now in my current existence, as Scripture strongly implies, then what parts from my life now – in which I am investing – will carry into the life to come? (1 Cor 1:2, 30a; 1 Jn 3:2; 1 Jn 5:11, 12).
In the subsection of chapter 2, titled, “Personal Identity across Life, Death, and Resurrection” Whitaker states:
“We can be assured that our personal identity will be continuous in post-resurrection life in some way. Why? Simply because it must be so. The Christian belief in the afterlife requires survival of the very person who lived. For resurrection to be meaningful, identity must be preserved, and so if we are to have faith in the resurrection, we must also have faith in the preservation of personal identity … the post-resurrection person will still be ‘us’ after the change”
Perfect in Weakness: Disability and Human Flourishing in the New Creation,” pg. 56 (my italics)
Her claim here was disappointing because it reminded me of the patronizing responses given to the difficult questions church leaders dread. No one relishes answering them, because there seldom is an answer that satisfies. Most of us try to conceal our lack of knowing. So, we respond, ‘because it must be so‘ and worse even with this, ‘because I’m your spiritual leader and you must believe what we say.’
I don’t believe Whitaker is guilty of this. Her entire work is a serious attempt to answer a nearly impossible question. She claims that rejecting the notion that our identity follows us into life hereafter would be in essence a rejection of the truth of the Christian faith – that we will be somehow aware of who we are after death, and this is precisely why it must be so. Without the resurrection, without the concept of life eternal, there is no Christian faith to speak of.
So, with that small protest off my chest, I’m going to proceed on the assumption that my pre-resurrection identity follows me into eternity: the future state of existence where we believe we will experience ongoing life after our temporal life has ended.
Who Am I?
So what is my identity now?
I am a second-born female with a first-born profoundly disabled sister with whom I bonded circumstantially merely on account of being born second and female. I seriously doubt a son would have been expected to fill the role I have filled throughout my early childhood and teen years. Had I not been born, or removed from the family, the responsibility would have fallen to one of my sisters just as easily as it fell upon me. In fact, running away from home in my early teen years revealed that to be the situation.
But my question is this: How does my sister’s identity as a disabled person, wholly dependent upon the care and labor of others factor into my identity? 9 Am I defined and known primarily by my relationship with her? If so, are those factors so essential to my identity that they must follow me into the hereafter?
This relationship between my sister and I has been interpreted by myself and others in my family in contrasting ways. First, it is a God-ordained relationship, one that is intended to govern my life from birth for the sake of another previously born.
The second view, one that I hold to, is that our relationship developed due to a lapse of parental duty and obligation on behalf of their dependents. By virtue of being a parent, society recognizes an obligation of the part of the parent to care for and provide for their children. Some argue that a miscarriage of justice transpired in our home and community. I tend to agree.
Is my future identity, as one bonded to a disabled sibling for decades, contingent upon this relationship to the degree that her disability must continue into the hereafter in order for me to know myself? What of other identity markers – that of my own family, my calling as wife, mother, grandmother, homemaker, minister, counselor, student, teacher, writer, quilter, artist, gardener? And what of my faith and trust in Christ?
Each relationship along life’s journey has contributed significantly to the ongoing development of my identity, of who I am today. Every relationship in various ways continues to provide the essential substance that transforms my seeping, gaping wounds caused by injustices in my life, into scars imperceptible to those who know me now.
Tell Your Story Now
I truly appreciate the words of Peter, who tells us to tell our story now. It’s the ongoing gospel story – rescued out of darkness and brought into light by the mighty work of God in our lives (1 Peter 2:9). Narrating our stories on this side of glory, with all their diverse and dreadful parts, is helpful in recognizing our identity in the here and now.
So, the question is: Which identity follows us into eternity? That which others have constructed for us, the one that binds us in an unhealthy, disabled state of being, the one that we contrive with wishful thinking? Or the one we presently experience in Christ that continues to remedy the brokenness of the past? When asked to tell our story on that side of glory, we may be required to tell both sides of the story in order for others to comprehend the cost of our redemption.
Being born into a story where I was expected to serve a weaker sibling at great cost to my own self has shaped my attitude toward the care of the other. Will there ever be a time when we escape the responsibility of caring for others?
Nancy Eiesland argues that disabilities will continue after death into life eternal. If that is so, my question is valid: will others be present to assist the disabled? Experience has shown me that the anyone severely disabled and confined to a wheelchair requires another to be her hands of care. Without the care of others death is inevitable.
We are vulnerable creatures from birth. If not for storge love — that instinctual bonding between parents and offspring, that love that gives life to the vulnerable — we would all perish. Humans without God, our ezer, would perish as well. We know it to be so. Eve the life-giver shows that the work of birthing, nursing, physically bonding to the infant is first and foremost the work of a woman. So what might woman and God share in common? There’s a story there to tell! But I digress.
Eternally Serving?
At first, this digression may seem to be a distraction from the subject of continued disabilities in eternity, but bear with me. The very idea of needing to serve another – especially an other with a monumental physical disability in the future state of life after death, in the place we call heaven, seems to be ludicrous and off-putting.
It overturns our contrived system of Heaven – that place where life after death restores us to an Edenic space where we are whole. Doesn’t the concept of a heavenly existence mandate for wholeness and perfect-abled bodies? The idea of serving the other – those with un-whole, disabled, broken, incomplete bodies, those who are weak – for all of eternity is more than mind-blowing.
This exercise has revealed a flaw in my character! Another’s suffering became mine, yet I fought against it. Like the caged bird I injured my wings to be free from the cage built for me.
Many of my unique gifts, dreams, pursuits and desires sat on a back burner to care for another. Studies and artistic pursuits were co-opted by another. My children and spouse’s needs came second. Another’s needs consumed much of my life and sixty-nine years later, it’s still there: this load of the weaker carried by the stronger.
Forgive me then when I find the idea of a disability of this sort living on into eternity. It is a serious challenge that reveals a flaw in my character. No wonder we buy into the idea of a heaven out there, away from the toils of life. We long to be on the receiving end, being the ones served, and released from the task of serving. For once, we envision lounging back while others wait upon us. Ah, but so many things about this picture are wrong.
So the question I’m left to wrestle with is this: Does the call to serve one another cease in the new creation? What might our response to this question reveal about our honest view of serving others now? Perhaps a look at the earthly life of Jesus will enable me to answer that question.
- p. 132
- 1 Cor 13:12b, NLT
- pg. 51
- p. 11
- Pg. 11
- pg. 19
- pg. 131
- Whether that is a consequence of the fall is a debated concern and a matter to be discussed elsewhere.
- I’m currently drawn to the philosophical and feminist work of Eva Feder Kittay. Her book, Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency, was referenced by Lisa D. Powell in The Disabled God Revisited: Trinity, Christology, and Liberation. Kittay’s work is the first I’ve encountered in disability studies that explores the vulnerability of the dependency worker and not just the dependent. She draws attention to the moral obligation to care for both, and the injustice of failing to do so. She critiques the political view of equality that stresses the value of individual rights while inadvertently or overtly discounting the vulnerable and dependent persons.
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