The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 8, 1986. The title of Mr. Howe's sermon is, Obstacles or Opportunities? 

When I was a very newly committed Christian in high school, I went on a retreat one weekend, and I met a young man who was studying for the ministry. He was in the final year of his seminary preparation, and he shared his own personal testimony, his witness with us. And it touched me very deeply, and I've never forgotten it.

He began by telling us that he had been born blind, and he still was. But that as he was growing up, and he began to realize some of the ramifications of that, and more particularly began to realize not only that he was deprived of the gift of sight, but that all of his friends had it and took it for granted. and began to realize that he was missing out on their common experience, he related how that began to turn into anger inside of him.

Bitterness and frustration and rage. And how that finally became a railing against God, how he would shake his fist at the heavens, at a God who he couldn't see, at a heavens that he couldn't see. and he'd say, there can't be any God and if there is, He must be evil.

How can He have allowed this to happen to me? And then he shared how at some point, and I really don't remember the details of how it happened, but at some point in his experience, a friend shared with him the love of Jesus Christ in a way that somehow got through all of that rage and touched him and changed him. And he did 180 degrees and gave his life to Christ and here he was preparing for the ministry.

I don't remember the details of the story. All I remember is the effect of it and his closing line, the bottom line, before he went and he sat down. He said, I want you to know that I now thank God that I was born blind because the very first face that I ever see will be that of Jesus Christ.

A number of years later, I found myself a new assistant at St. Stephen's Church in Pittsburgh. John Guest, the rector, was away on vacation and I got a call one afternoon, could I do a funeral for a young woman named Verlinda Chalfant? Well, the name startled me because I knew the Chalfant family.

Everybody knew the Chalfants. They were incredibly well-loved, well-respected people. Some of the most gracious, outgoing, giving, loving people that you would ever want to meet.

and I knew them, I'd been in their home many times, but I'd never heard of Verlinda Chalfant. Who was Verlinda? Turned out Verlinda was their daughter in her mid-twenties who had been born with terrible handicaps.

She too was blind, but not only that, she was deaf, she was horribly paralyzed, cerebral palsy. I hadn't known that she existed and now she was dead would I do the funeral literally in the middle of the funeral I remembered that young man and in the middle of a very brief homily I shared his story and I repeated what he had said about himself and then I added this I said I want you to know that in spite of all the terrible raging, aching, agonizing, unanswered questions that have to be in your hearts and minds about Verlinda's life and all of the terrible limitations. I want you to know in spite of that that right now your daughter is leaping and dancing and singing.

Not only is the first face she's seeing that of the Lord Jesus, but the first voice she's hearing and the first words she's understanding are His. And after the funeral was over, the childfence shared with me a little bit about her story. They said that the doctor who delivered her had taken one look at the baby and said, take her up to the top of a mountain and leave her.

And instead of following that advice, they went and saw their bishop, a great godly man by the name of Austin Pardue, who I had the privilege of knowing during the last few years of his ministry, and Bishop Pardew said, don't you do that. That child is the gift of God. And if you'll love her, and you'll care for her, you will be blessed in ways that you can't imagine.

And the Chalpin's testimony to me was that promise has been fulfilled a thousandfold. First of all, on the personal level, they discovered what so many folks have discovered who have dared to get involved with what we now call special children. That in spite of terrible limitations, they can communicate a love that transcends all of those inabilities to speak or hear or see.

For Linda, not only could receive their love, but could communicate love back to them. And it changed their lives. And I discovered something that I didn't know, that having had this so-called tragedy dumped into their laps and becoming personally sensitized to it, this family established a home for special children, and that was the first of many.

They championed homes and residential centers and care facilities for special children all over the western Pennsylvania area. But it didn't stop there. Do you know that all of their other children have either become clergy or have married clergy or have gone into some kind of full-time Christian service?

The father was the treasurer of the Diocese of Pittsburgh for many years, and the mother became the first lady senior warden at St. Stephen's Church In fact, she served two terms and had a remarkable ministry as a leader in that vestry. And that family was extremely, significantly involved. I would have to say they were the catalyst that got Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry started ten years ago.

That's not a bad legacy for a little baby born deaf and blind. I want to mention another young woman. You may have heard of her.

This one was very healthy, active, athletic. But at age 17, she broke her neck in a diving accident. She was paralyzed from here down.

She battled with depression. Became almost suicidal at one point. She still battles with depression from time to time, but she determined that she wasn't going to give in to it.

She wasn't going to let depression win. And she put her life, what was left of it, into the hands of a limitless God. And of all things, do you know what He did?

He taught her how to paint. First of all, using a flare pen clamped between her teeth. A little pen and ink sketches with her mouth.

And then with increasing skill and sophistication, she went on to watercolors and acrylics and is now producing a stream of artwork that astonishes many able-bodied artists around the world. Johnny Erickson Tata. She's also written two books that so far have been published in nearly 40 languages around the world.

She's recorded two long-playing albums of her own music. She has starred in the film version of her own life story. And she is constantly bearing witness to the love and the majesty, the glory of the Lord Jesus You may have seen her on a Billy Graham crusade sometime.

When she's not doing that in public, she's sharing in private with somebody else who is handicapped or incapacitated through illness or accident. She is absolutely radiant with the love of God. How many of you ever heard of Bill Gothard?

How many of you have been to one of his seminars? Or know somebody who has. How many of you knew that Bill Gothard just barely made it through grade school?

They passed him on from first grade only after two years of struggle, and they said he's never going to make it any further. As a matter of fact, five times during grade school, they passed him on probation saying he is academically totally incompetent. Until he hit high school and a friend challenged him to begin memorizing Scripture.

Well, you see, the problem was his memory. Somehow he couldn't retain the things that he studied. But a friend challenged him to begin memorizing Scripture And Bill began memorizing Scripture.

And he began memorizing Scripture. And he memorized so much Scripture that it not only totally transformed his mind, it shaped his character. And out of that has come an international ministry of extraordinary proportions.

Tens of millions of people have gone and had their lives changed through what's known as the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, better known as the Bill Gothard Seminars. By the way, the next one is in August in Baltimore. You better be there.

This is what St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about himself and some of the other apostles. He said, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. Through great endurance in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger, in dishonor, in ill repute.

We're treated as imposters, as unknown, as dying, as punished, as sorrowful, as poor, as having nothing. Do you know what he called that? All of that summed up together?

This slight momentary affliction. You've heard me say before, it was Paul's great desire to personally bring the gospel to the ends of the earth, to evangelize Spain and Britain, and he didn't do that. He was clapped under house arrest and locked between two guards, chained between Roman soldiers.

Did that stop him? Not for a second. He evangelized the guards and sent them out to the ends of the earth.

and in the meantime wrote a few letters for us. The question that I'm asking this morning is, how do you view your limitations? Probably you have not had problems as extreme as some of the ones I've referred to, but you've had problems.

How do you view them? How do you view your disappointments, your setbacks? How do you view your limitations?

Are they obstacles or opportunities? Are they obstacles, occasions for bitterness, for disappointment, for self-hatred, for anger, for frustration, for raging against God? How can you have allowed this to happen to me?

Or opportunities to trust God in the midst of those limitations and watch what He can do with them. I can't! Because I'm blind.

I can't I'm paralyzed I can't because my memory doesn't work right I can't because I don't have enough money or enough education or the right background I don't have the right connections. I don't have the right friends. I'm not the right color.

I can't because I've been abandoned. I'm divorced. I'm widowed I'm orphaned I'm pregnant out of wedlock.

I've got cancer. I just lost my job. I can't. If you had my problems, you wouldn't even think about it.

See, I don't have the right resources. how do you expect me to save a wedding party with a bucket of water feed a multitude with a couple of fish get through the Red Sea without a boat fight that giant with this slingshot conquer Canaan That bunch of bricklayers? How do you do it?

By putting your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water? I've told you the story of Addy Warren over and over and over again. Little lady in a nursing home, widowed.

Her only son died ten years ago. Parkinson's disease. Absolutely radiant with the love of God and with a prayer ministry that changed the world.

And I said, Mrs. Warram, how can you be so joyful? She said, because I learned that when you lose everything else, Jesus is enough. And wherever this gospel is preached, she shall be remembered.

Let the Son of God enfold you with His Spirit and His love. Let Him fill your heart. Satisfy your soul.

Let Him have the things that hold you and His Spirit like a dove will descend upon your life and make you whole. Obstacles or opportunities. When Jesus saw her, He had compassion on her do not weep.

I'm the one who raises the dead to new life. Come on, boy, get up. I'd like to invite you this morning to entrust to this Lord Jesus whatever it is in your life that you consider dead and useless.

A limitation. A liability. an obstacle entrust it to this Lord Jesus let him lift it up to new life and turn it into an opportunity for your success and God's glory let's bow our heads together Father God forgive me for reveling in my problem instead of your promise help me to turn my eyes off of my circumstances and onto Christ be glorified in my life for I ask it in his name Amen