January 10

Blessed are the Meek

              Blessed are the Meek, for they will inherit the earth.        

Matthew 5:5

First off, “Meek” is not the same as “Weak.”  Here is the very best explanation of Meek that I have found: “Meekness is therefore an active and deliberate acceptance of undesirable circumstances that are wisely seen by the individual as only part of a larger picture.  Meekness is not a resignation to fate, a passive and reluctant submission to events…(It is) the patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances.” (Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology)

The patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances.  Blessed are you…Fortunate are you when you are faced with rough circumstances and choose to endure them with hope rather than lash out, for your Heavenly Father will give you the world.

This flies in the face of everything that we know about advocacy and supporting our children through the bureaucracies of this world.  What good will patient and hopeful endurance do when my child’s school aides are cut or therapy services are threatened or people won’t give him a chance to participate because he is quirky?  The stereotypical special needs parent is a freight train that will not be denied of what their child needs in order to succeed and woe be to anyone who gets in their way.  There is nothing meek about that.

This is not a call to stop advocating.  This is not a call to stop striving for the best for your child.  This is an invitation to learn…specifically to learn from your child.  There is no one that teaches meekness, the patient and hopeful endurance of undesirable circumstances, better than our special needs community.  None of them asked for these circumstances and yet they endure, day after day.  They endure with hope and with patience on the good days and on the bad days.  They endure when we are in a good place and when we are not.  They endure…and God holds a special place in his heart for them and calls them Blessed.

A moment to reflect:

What can you learn from your child about the benefits of being Meek?

Refrigerator Art of the Day:

D age 14