How Will I See Her Then?

Yesterday Betsy was babysitting two little ones for a friend of hers. The younger one is a little over a year old. Yet she can’t walk, she can’t crawl, she can’t roll over, or sit up. She’s very stiff and ridged, unable to even bring a toy up to her mouth so that she can chew it. It is assumed that she has Cerebral Palsy.

Usually things like, Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, etc. scare me away. I don’t understand it, or why it happens. But this little girl’s big brown eyes and open mouth grin draw you over. I don’t see her as weird or frightening, for I can’t see anything but her glowing beauty.

Yesterday as I held her, while my sister helped the other child with something, a thought came to my mind. What if she never changes? What if she is always this way? And in my mind I could see her, ten years old sitting in her wheelchair at the zoo. Her big brown eyes still looking curiously around her at all the animals and she would still be smiling with her mouth open wide, even though it would make her drool down her chin. I could see myself still looking her in the face and seeing her as beautiful, even if she could never speak a sentence to me.

Yet I was saddened by this thought, for I could see another person, a person much like myself standing off to the side staring. Wondering what was wrong with her and why did she act that way? A person who didn’t see her beauty, but instead all that made her different. A person who didn’t see her as someone that the Lord longed to save, and love, and use.

The Lord’s heart is set on winning this little girl to Himself. Whether she can ever speak His name, or fold her hands in prayer, she will be His child, because He has chosen her. Even if she never changes, she is still the one Jesus came to die for, so that she could spend eternity with her Father. 

And how will I see her then? On that day when the world is passed away and all the brokenness of man is destroyed with it. I will walk down the streets of heaven… and I will see her there. The Light of the Father will glow upon her and the radiating joy of one who has overcome will shine from her… and with tears in my eyes I wonder... how will I see her then?