Dr Paul Allen

  I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.  (2 Corinthians 12:9–10, TM) At twenty-two, Christopher Nolan was already hailed as a literary genius. With Britain’s coveted Whitbread Prize for his autobiography, Under the Eye of the Clock, his work has been compared to that of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Yet it takes Christopher Nolan a quarter of an hour to write one word. Born with severe cerebral palsy, he spends much of his life strapped in a wheelchair, his face and limbs subject to uncontrollable spasms. He can’t speak, but he can type. As a child, he cried bitterly that he was not like other children until his mother said, “Listen here, you can see, you can hear, you can understand, and you’re loved by me and your dad just as you are.”  Gradually, he looked at his limbs and decided that he liked himself! What a decision! He shifted his attention away from his limitations and focused on what was possible—what he could do with his life. He says, “My mind is lik

It Is Well When peace like a river attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, “It is well, it is well with my soul! It is well with my soul; It is well, it is well with my soul! —Horatio Spafford (1876) He Is Enough When Paul spoke of being hard-pressed on every side, he wasn’t speaking lightly. He wasn’t saying, Whew, things were a little tough for a while. He was describing pain that was so oppressive that he “despaired of life itself ” (2 Cor. 1:8). How in the same sentence can Paul be pressed in like that, yet not be crushed?  Nancy Severns knows the answer.  She has been bedridden for five years with pain from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a debilitating disorder that affects her entire body, inside and out—her ribs even slip out of place! When all feels torturous, Nancy slowly inhales and calmly acknowledges the pain. She then enters it much like the three Hebrews entering Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace. There in the middle of hell