If my heart was revealed in that moment, one of the places God reveals His is Psalm 22:24, where He states “For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and He has not hidden His face from him, but has heard, when he cried to Him.”

 David himself was so struck by this revelation that he prefaces it in verse 23 that all Israel should stand in awe and glorify God, a God who is like this.  You see, David was accustomed to the gods of the nations being a lot like the rest of us.  They liked the strong things.  The impressive things.  

But how great is the God revealed here in Psalm 22 who aligns Himself not only with the broken but the brokenness of the broken, or as He puts it here, the affliction of the afflicted (this idea is so important, we will address this specifically in another post!).  It is this declaration (among many in Scripture) that reveals God’s peculiar passion and protection of those who are afflicted.

The passage itself breaks into several sections, each displaying yet a new facet of the concern of God.  It begins with the strong declaration that He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.  While the two words are nearly synonymous, and certainly used together add emphasis to the statement, however, they do have slightly different intentions.  

To despise often has the sense of extreme disdain while abhor carries more typically visceral repulsion. There can be no question that the words chosen here as negative descriptions of God’s character were selected because most commonly they are the actual emotional reaction and responses to both affliction and the afflicted.  The use of the past tense in this verse actually strengthens the declaration, because it is proved to be a consistent display of God’s character in the past.  

As I’ve already mentioned, we’ll address the next phrase of the verse, ‘the affliction of the afflicted’ in another post, but just let us note here that neither the affliction with which a person is afflicted, nor their condition or state of being afflicted comes under God’s disapproval or loathing.  To add force to this, the next phrase, ‘and he has not hidden His face from him’ signifies both God’s pledge of personal attentiveness to those who are weak and broken, and His willingness to act on their behalf.  For to have God’s face upon him is to have His pleasure and His presence.  This He confirms positively in the final phrase “but has heard when He cried to Him”.  Here for the first time in our verse does God speak in the affirmative.  He hears when they cry.

It was less than four weeks following my collision with that young woman that I was in a special needs classroom where I had taken a summer job as an Assistant, and within that first week I shared with my Pastor that I thought  I now knew what God made me for.  The last twenty-five years have proved the accuracy of that early sensing of God’s purposes in my life.  They have also proved the very real privilege  of caring for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities!

We wrestled for some time with the title for this present post, wondering whether we should substitute the “must” for the awkward, but more accurate “get to”  regarding our privilege for caring for orphans who have special needs.  A privilege, because anytime God calls us to be like Him, it inevitably as David Livingstone, the great missionary to Africa understood, ceases to be a sacrifice.  

To love those whom God loves is not a must, or at least not a must alone, it is a distinct privilege.  It is not something we have to do, it is something we get to do.  

When I was a boy, I remember praying, “God give me a heart that loves what You love”.  It was several months after beginning to pray this, and I would pray it constantly, that God brought about an occasion that proved that my heart and God’s were vastly different.

 I was 17 years old, and walking down the hall of my high school reading the book of Isaiah (yes, I was then and still am a bit different!), when out of a room came sprinting a young woman who ran straight into me.  Both of us tumbled to the ground.  Backpack and Bible went flying.  We happened to fall in such a way that our faces were merely inches from each other, and we both looked up at each other at the same time, and I saw that she was from the special needs classroom, being cognitively impaired, and having severe facial deformities.  

In an instant, I was repulsed.  However in the very next moment, to repulsion was added a deep shame.  Here I had been reading in Isaiah of God’s excessive love for me in my vileness and sinfulness, and how He would remove my sins though they be like scarlet, and make them whiter than snow.  And yet I couldn’t even look on this young woman who through no fault or sin of her own bore what is in this world, the terrible affliction of uncomeliness.  

The contrast at that moment, stood so stark to me, that God was willing to look on me in the deformity of my soul, and see me as His beloved,  while I in my abhorrence assessed her a value that looked no deeper than her appearance.  

Part two to follow shortly.

Welcome to the inaugural posting for Special Hope Network.  As you may have seen from the About tab, we are a faith-based non-profit that believes we are specifically called to care and to love orphans and vulnerable children who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

On a lighter note, we want to apologize from the beginning that this is the first blog we’ve ever written, and if it were not for our oldest daughter, we would not have read any others, either!  So if there are any blog protocols that we are missing, we beg your indulgence, as we wake up to the 21st century and put down our parchments for a time.  

The avoidance to this point of writing a blog was not in opposition to technology itself, but from the simple fact that we didn’t have anything unique or compelling to tell.  It is this change, however, in both our hearts and our calling that has moved us to begin typing.  But in order to describe who we are, what we feel God is calling us to do, how He is calling us to do it, we need to first describe why. 

And to understand that we must describe how God has been speaking to us from His Word.  For the next couple posts, at least, we’d like to take some time to look at the Scriptures where God addresses His peculiar concern, delight, and commitment to those who are orphaned, afflicted, broken and needy.   The verses, if you care to read ahead, can be found under the Scriptures tab, up above.

The first verse and the one we have taken to be God’s specific word for us is Proverbs 31:8-9, while Proverbs 31 is most typically and rightly known for its depiction of the godly wife, the first several verses of the chapter are still instructions to Solomon’s sons and princes of how they must rule in a way that honors and reflects the righteousness of the God of Israel.  

“Open your mouth for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the unfortunate.  Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.” (This is my own translation from the Hebrew in an attempt to make it more readable in the English.)

In the typical poetic style of the Proverb we see through repetition the significance and the importance of what the writer is trying to describe.  He begins with the affirmative “Open your mouth”, evidently, as this is repeated later, their time was not that different than ours,  it is easy to remain silent for those who are voiceless.  But this is the very reason why they are commanded to open their mouths.  It is the role of God’s people to speak for those who cannot speak, to love those who are not loved, to pursue the rights of those who have lacked justice. 

So the first thing we must do, and constantly do, is simply to speak, and tell the story of those who have no one else to speak for them, with undaunted persistance declare the reality of their lives, their loves, their losses, their hopes and their needs.

So, much of what you see Special Hope doing, and you’ll see on this blog and this website are their stories, as we open our mouths and tell you of a staggering numeric population segment of those who cannot speak for themselves.

But speaking, is but the beginning.  God has called us not merely to be storytellers for the broken of this world, but their defenders.  Thus the second half of the first clause, “for the rights of all the unfortunate”, to speak up and to declare and demand the needs and the rights of the unfortunate is nothing less than an act of justice. 

Conversely, Solomon is saying to remain silent as it regards those who cannot speak is to commit a grave injustice.  Which is why he echoes the phrase again, “open your mouth, judge righteously” to remind his sons that the pressures of this world, the demands of their own lives, and the clamoring needs of those who can speak and will demand more and more of the things they want. 

It will be difficult, he, seems to be telling them,  amid the clamoring crowd of needs, to open your mouth and judge righteously.  Many, there will be, who will defend the rights of the rich, the intelligent, and the capable, but in order to judge righteously, they must be The Defenders of the afflicted and the needy.

Now this might all sound like wonderful, grand rhetoric that fall into aphorisms like “honesty is the best policy” and the like.  The next passage, though, will point out how these acts of speaking, of defending the rights of the broken and needy are not merely ideological phrases but are at the very heart of what it means to know God.  And as we will see display the very nature of God, Himself.

Jeremiah 22:16 states “He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy: then it was well.  Is not that what it means to know me? ” (Unless noted otherwise, all Scripture texts are NASB.)

Here Jeremiah is reflecting on the contrasts between King Josiah and the King’s sons.  In summation of the life and activity of Josiah, he declares this: that he “pled the cause of the afflicted and the needy”.   Notice in this passage what was the result of a life described this way?  ”It was well”. 

Without apology Jeremiah is declaring that to act in the promotion of justice for those who are weak and needy directly resulted in the overflowing benefit to the nation as a whole.  But if that is not shocking enough, the final phrase certainly achieves it.  For he concludes, rather straightforwardly, “is that not what it means to know Me?”.  Here we see that the second clause that “it was well” was penultimate in Jeremiah’s estimation of what “pleading the cause of the afflicted and the needy” achieves. 

For if we do not do, like Josiah, the former (pleading the cause…), we can only have every expectation that we will miss the latter (we will not know Him!).   I’m sure many of you have already noticed a similarity between this verse and Jesus’ declaration in Matt. 25 that “when you’ve done it to the least of these, my brethren, you’ve done it unto me” and conversely “when you have not done it to the least of these,  you’ve not done it to me.”  So, too, here in our Jeremiah passage, Jeremiah is equating that an intimate knowledge and pursuit on behalf of the afflicted and the needy is tantamount to knowing and pursuing God Himself.

This is why none of us can miss out on speaking, pleading, defending, and pursuing the lives and concerns and hopes of the afflicted and the needy.   Of whom the most needy and overlooked are those children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.