A distraction? Or a signpost?

I stumbled upon this blog by Rachel Held Evans, and was drawn to a post that she wrote - Blessed are the Uncool - in response to very sad incident where a boy with cerebral palsy and his mother were escorted out of a church service because he was making a noise, and was thus too much of a distraction during the worship time. She writes a challenging post about Jesus' response to those deemed by the cool people as "distractions". It is really worth a read if you are interested in God's vision and heart for the church.

There were a couple hundred who commented on this post in particular. It was one lady's story in the comment section that reduced me to tears - for it reminded me that God doesn't value people in the way that our society does; God's love is much bigger than I can imagine; and that God has plans and purposes for Matt is His kingdom that are beyond that which I can plan or hope.

Here is the comment written by a tender-spirited lady called Sara Harding:

"I was a volunteer in my single days at a family camp for those with disabilities. Joni Erickson Tada was speaking and this man named Geoff, who was a head injury survivor kept moaning very loudly, so loudly that it had become a total distraction. You know what she did? She asked that he be brought up on stage. Then they asked him what was wrong. He had been listening to Joni's talk about how God uses broken people to heal a broken world. And he had started crying loudly for this broken world! I cannot express the profound spirit that fell on that place then. Joni prayed with him for our broken world. And his face, his face was all shining! He was looking up through his tears and there was a look on his face I will never forget, and I doubt any who were there will forget it either. I can't even share the story without breaking down, words just can't describe it. So I try to think of that whenever there is a distraction in church by the "uncool." What was accomplished through his tears, through the uniting of everyone in prayer, what strongholds of the enemy were defeated because of a distraction."