Unwanted Attention Digital Cartoon

Unwanted Attention

Once, at a Christian conference, I got caught in an elevator with one of the speakers. He looked at me for a while. Awkward. Then he said to me, "God told me he doesn't want you to wear glasses. You don't need them. Let me pray for your healing right now!"

I said, "No, thank you!"

He looked wounded and baffled at once.

I was the host of the conference. Didn't look good on me.

But I have to be honest. I didn't believe him.

Wearing glasses is not a disability. But I sure can identify a bit with my disabled friends who are constantly harassed by well-intentioned people who want to heal them and fit them back into the community as "normal" people.

Imagine being constantly prayed upon in a way that disrupts your valid attempts to just be there as you are! Without having to be able-bodied and therefore "normal".

This applies to my friends with invisible disabilities as well.

I think this obsession to miraculously heal people is often motivated by an anxious need for God to prove themself and make everyone "normal".

Discrimination is often driven by this anxiety while cloaked in good intentions.