Unfortunately, wearing an AFO takes up space in a shoe. AFO’s require wearing shoes 1-2 sizes bigger than your foot and often require the removal of the insole. On top of that, a person wearing an AFO should be in a shoe with ample support for the whole foot, a backstrap or heel cup so the shoe stays on, and a sole that makes firm contact with the ground but without too much tread (which could be a tripping hazard).

Those limits reduce the number of shoe options significantly.

After two years of searching, I have found a few options worth noting. For my fellow shoe-lovers with limits, I’ve listed 5 options that meet my requirements for shoes I can wear with an AFO. But the fact that there are only a few highlights the need for innovation in this area. Hey shoemakers, are you listening?

It wasn’t until the storm came and beat against the man’s house that he could see for himself that his foundation was secure. How will we know if our foundation is solid as a rock? By seeing how well it holds up during a storm.

We think our chronic illness is a 605 pound, bar-bending beast and we cannot find our way out from under it. But it is as light as a toothpick for our all-powerful God. Why do we try to handle our beasts alone, in our own pitiful strength? We are fools to do that when God is standing beside us ready to lift a finger and lighten our load. He is more than able.

People in Jesus’ day understood what my mother quickly learned: Congenital blindness is untreatable (v.32). In the opening verses of John 9, the disciples don’t question if the man born blind can be healed by Jesus because they assume a congenital defect is beyond a miracle. Instead, they use the man’s predicament as an opportunity for Jesus to clarify a debated question. “Who sinned to cause this blindness,” they ask, “the man or his parents?”

We have an innate desire to connect cause with effect. But from Jesus’ reply we learn that causation is not as important as purpose. Jesus answers that neither the parents nor the man sinned—the blindness exists so that the wondrous signs of God can be displayed.

The miracle of sight in this passage is a much bigger miracle than it first seems. It led the blind man to faith in Jesus, making him completely whole spiritually and physically. We too, born spiritually blind, have been given the gift of complete healing from our sins. Jesus already compassionately provided the cure on the cross. Our part is to obediently accept His free gift of salvation. When we understand our deep need as blind people, gratitude compels us to worship Him and declare along with the blind man, “Lord, I believe.”

The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill, a podcast by CT Magazine, took the evangelical world by storm last year. My readers already know I think it’s excellent. Now that the podcast is finished, I’ll go so far as to say I think this should be mandatory listening for all seminary students, both as a cautionary warning and as a way to initiate thoughtful discussion about your own ministry style, goals, and calling.

Chad’s story reminded me that good things and painful things can happen at the same time.

Our experience with Mars Hill was brief and tangential. We were involved in a church in the Acts 29 Network, a church-planting ministry created and led by Mark Driscoll. Every episode of Rise & Fall affirmed our experience at that small church. The stories told by the disenfranchised of Mars Hill paralleled our story. When we spoke up, we too were “thrown under the bus.”

It took 17 episodes for CT to recount the losses at Mars Hill. Yet Chad’s story is different. His story recounted losses and blessings.

Chad’s story caused me to stop and consider a list of blessings, silver linings, from my chronic illness. The silver lining of chronic illness is learning there is a purpose we cannot see in the pain we cannot escape.

God knows my greatest strength is still plain weakness. He does NOT expect me to do great things for him, with my legs or any other muscle in my body. He takes pleasure in me because I am his child. That’s what it means to put our hope in him; it is to become a child of God.

When we invest our hope in God, we get his unfailing love in return. Of course, the only way we ever come to the place where we can put our hope in him is through his grace. We cannot do it in our own strength. So, God gives us the grace to love him, then he gives us his unfailing love in return. Sounds like he’s doing all the work, right? Exactly.

It is embarrassing to be loved like that. Brennan Manning calls this, “irrational love” and it is. It makes no sense. He gives his love and we don’t have to do anything for it. Nothing. God loves us because he loves us. That’s it.

Why would a perfect God love me despite my many imperfections? Especailly now, when I feel the most unworthy of love, with my newest physical challenges making it impossible to do even the simplest loving acts to show him my love, why does he still loves me? It’s a mystery.

So, I am approaching another mystery of the living God. The question is: will I embrace it or will I continue to try to contain it under the guise of understanding.

Shelley wasn’t phased by my inability to sit up in bed on my own or move from my bed to my wheelchair. She was there to help with those things. She dispensed cheer alongside my daily meds. Not the fake kind of cheer, but the infectious kind that makes you want to get up and dance, then laugh at yourself when you fall down.

Shelley was an exceptional example of what it looks like to obey the second greatest commandment: love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt 22:39). Obeying that command can look like a lot of things. If I take Shelley as my example, it looks like offering ourselves freely not expecting anything in return. It looks like being interested in others and making the people around us feel special… because people are special. It means being people who love others they way we want to be loved.

We all need to be loved and cheered on by personal cheerleaders, especially when we are suffering and feeling alone. We need to be reminded that we are unique and worthy of friendship. The best cheerleaders in life are the ones who celebrate our victories and help us find joy when we’ve can’t find it on our own.

“It’s ok if your heart needs more time to accept what your head already knows.”

- anonymous

What a great way to describe what we all feel when we’re suffering.

But not all suffering is physical. Sometimes, it’s a family relationship issue. If it feels like something in you is breaking, no matter what the reason, you are not alone.

Even though this is hard and it feels like it will never get better, it will get better.

It is possible to be faith-filled and fear-filled at the same time.

When we try and fail to make our hearts believe what our heads already know frustration is the result. Trying harder isn’t the answer.

I can’t tell you what to do to get there. But I can tell you what not to do! Don’t do anything. The truth is we can’t make our hearts accept what our heads already knows. It’s not something we can do. It is the shaping and molding work of the living God. He will do it.

it was tempting to put all my trust in the perinatologist. But with every new bleed, the lack of answers the doctors could give caused me to remain cautious and keep my trust in check. For as long as my lungs have bled, I have wanted a doctor with enough wisdom to explain why my body continues to grow bad blood vessels and how to stop it from growing more.

Compassion goes a long way in helping a suffering person endure the unimaginable. I appreciated his compassion so much, but what I wanted more was answers.

Without answers from the wisest physicians, we decided to trust God with my physical life. That was the moment I stopped hoping in the wisdom of doctors for my deliverance from future bleeds.

Psalm 20:7 finishes boldly, “Our boast is in Yahweh our God, who makes us strong and gives us victory!” The name of the Lord our God is Yahweh, I AM (Exodus 3:14). His very name is the foundation of our faith. On the other side of human limits we find hope in the infinite strength and wisdom of God. Where man’s abilities end we can find a new beginning — to trust “in the name of the Lord our God.”