Do you ever feel like you are in the way?

Moms like to talk about their kids. It doesn’t take long for our conversations to work around to our kids. We share in our children’s joys as if their joys were our own, and we are brought to our knees over their sorrows as if their sorrows were our own.

I have a friend who is in a unique position as a mom. Her kids are grown up and out from under. They are young adults out in the world. I used to think our maternal instincts would lessened to a degree at that point in the game, but those moms whose kids have flown from the nest know this is not the case. My friend’s unique position as a mom comes from the fact that her son, James, is blind. He developed a condition as he neared adulthood that caused him to slowly lose his sight. My friend had to watch her son’s visual world slowly fade into darkness knowing there was not one thing she could do about it.

There are remarkable aspects to my friend’s story about her son.

Against all odds, her son finished college, and with the aid of family and his humongous guide dog, he lives on his own. For a while his accomplishments brought him a small amount of local notoriety. It seemed that in spite of his disability, the road ahead of him would be paved with opportunity. But that was then. Now when I ask my friend how her son is fairing and what is going on in his life, she can only seem to shake her head and dab at the tears that come to her eyes. I can almost hear the breaking of her heart.

It just seems like every door of opportunity slams shut on him, one after another. For a while they were taking these setbacks in stride, believing that an open door was coming and would be held open for James. But lately I am afraid they are losing their grasp on the hope they held for his future. He depends on family for many things. James cannot drive, and so his family takes him where he needs to go. With tears in her eyes, she recently told me that her son feels he is in the way. Looking into her eyes, I knew that nothing could be farther from the truth.

I stood before my friend with not one word to say. I am rarely at a loss for words, but as hard as I tried no words of platitude would come. She is right. The situation stinks. All I could give her was a promise to continue to pray for her son.

As I turned and left my friend, the thought that stayed with me was that James felt in everyone’s way.

I know how I feel about things that get in my way. I am annoyed and frustrated by them. I can only imagine how it must feel to think you are what’s in the way. Yet the more I thought about those words, the more I began to wonder if James could use those hard words to his advantage. How could he turn being “in the way” into a positive? Of course, first, he would have to modify what he means by the phrase.

In New Testament times, being in “the Way” or a part of “the Way” could buy you a lot of trouble. If you were a follower of Christ you were part of the Way. That’s what Christians were called back then. Saul, before he was the great apostle Paul, was a persecutor of those who were a part of the Way, and many lost their lives by Saul’s hand. Jesus referred to Himself in John 14:6 as “the way”. The expression is adapted throughout the New Testament, where we read of “the way of salvation” (Acts 16:17), “the way of God” (Matt. 22:16; Acts 18:26), “the way of the Lord” (Acts 18:25), “the right ways of the Lord” (Acts 13:10), “the way of peace” (Luke 1:79; Rom. 3:17), “the way of truth” (2 Peter 2:2), and “the right way” (2 Peter 2:15).

Fast forward to today. We still use this word, “way”. You know what I mean. You say something unbelievable but true, and someone says, “No way!” To which you respond, “Way!” The word still means truth!

I understand that when James thinks of himself as being in the way, he is not thinking along the lines I’m considering. It is my wholehearted prayer that he soon will. Maybe standing in “the way” is exactly where God wants him. James faces challenges in life that I cannot fathom. Neither can I grasp the challenges that faced those early followers of the Way. All I can say is I am so eternally thankful that they did face those challenges. It is through their sacrifice and wild belief that I can stand as a full-fledged member of the Way today.

It is my prayer that James is always in the way. It is my hope that his life is given to standing in the way of unrighteousness and using the wonderful gifts God has given him to point others to the way of Christ. It’s not a fanciful life. There is precious little glitz or glamour. Standing in the way demands determination and a goodly amount of fortitude. It’s no place for sissies. But if we stand in the way wonderful, God sized, things begin to happen. It is James’ limitations that cause his feelings of being in the way. But it is through his (and our) limitations that God gets big. Our weaknesses do nothing to stall the Heavenly Father.

It is in our weakness that He is made strong, and our faith and usefulness to the Kingdom increases.

In what ways are you standing in
“the Way” in your own life?