What Is Your Platform?

      I have been thinking about this question ever since I attended the "Colorado ChristianWriter's Conference" in Estes Park last May.  Prior to that weekend, the only understanding I had of that word was a small stage for someone to stand on and publicly speak.  A platform was not something I wanted to encounter.

     While I was in Colorado, however, I experienced another understanding of that word.  It means everything if you desire to ever be a published writer.  My platform must help you believe that I know what I am talking about.  It must make you want to listen to me.  It must make me sound like I have something to offer that no one else does.  It requires me to "sell myself."

     I have spent many hours reading about "platforms" and how important they are.  It actually makes me really uncomfortable because as a Christian I have always felt like I needed to fade into the background and not draw attention to myself.  The attention should be on others rather than myself.  Therefore, it is really a stretch for me to consider building a platform.
     Dictionary.com gives us the definition of a platform as:

plat·formNoun/ˈplatfôrm/

1. A raised level surface on which people or things can stand.

2. A raised floor or stage used by public speakers or performers so that they can be seen by their audience. 

     I find the second definition interesting; "so that they can be seen by their audience."  "Being seen" is not always self-serving.  Being seen can make an impact.  Being seen can change the course of history.  Being seen can change someone's life.

     Helen Keller was seen and known around the world.  Her platform of being blind and deaf allowed her to make an impact on the world.  I know for me personally, every time I feel overwhelmed by something in my life I reflect on her and realize that if Helen Keller can learn to read and publicly speak when she is deaf and blind, I can overcome this obstacle.
     I think of Joni Eareckson Tada who has an international ministry, trains churches in special needs ministry, delivers wheelchairs around the world, shares the gospel around the world, and helps people at some of the darkest moments of their lives.  As a person affected by quadriplegia, she has a platform that I will never have.  She is able to be seen because of her disability and the courage she has had to not let it handicap her.
     Sometimes we have platforms that we are uncomfortable with.  They are platforms that we never would have chosen.  They may even be platforms that we are praying to be healed from but nonetheless, they are our platforms.  They give us a testimony.  They give us credibility in a certain area.  They make us unique.
     In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says,
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
     Nothing is more evident to me than my weaknesses.  I have lots of them but the beautiful thing is that Christ's power can then rest on me and be seen.  Any weakness I have can bring glory to God.  Just as my strengths and gifts can be a platform for sharing about Christ, so can my weaknesses.  As a Christian my desire is not to sell myself, but to tell about Christ.  Ultimately I ask myself, what is the platform God has given me so you can see that I know what I am talking about when it comes to Christ's love?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you hear my testimony?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you see that Christ has something to offer that no one else does?

     So now I ask you, what is your platform?

My dad was and is one of my all time heroes.  I can close my eyes and still imagine him.  I see him in the mirror sometimes, especially as I age.  I remember how he smelled.  I remember how his hand felt and I remember how my hand felt when it was in his.  I remember what he cared about.

Dad fought for the rights of others most of his career.  He fought for civil rights for so many people.  I remember meeting him at the bus so that I could walk home with him and hear about his day.  He would often talk about people with disabilities and would help me think through what the reasonable accommodation would be for someone looking for employment that had a disability.  I was always so amazed by the ideas he would come up with and how simple they were to implement so someone could have a job and support themselves.

This week I am constantly thinking about the disabling disease I have seen the most.  It is a disease that causes many challenges.  It is a disease that constantly causes you to come up with a new reasonable accommodation for dealing with the challenges of life that get tougher and tougher until it seems there aren't any reasonable accommodations to come up with.  It is cancer.

I grew up with a grandmother that was affected by cancer of the larynx.  She had to speak and breathe through an opening in her neck.  She was later struck by cancer again in her life and we lost her about 12 years ago.  My grandfather died from leukemia.  My paternal grandmother died from colon cancer.  My mother battled breast cancer but thankfully has done well for the last 17 years.  My precious father was taken by a form of cancer 8 years ago and now I am watching my brother suffer from renal cancer.

In our trainings we tell people to look past the disability.  Look at the person, rather than the disability.  But when my dad had cancer it became a part of who he was.  He would never be the same again.  Dad only lived with that diagnosis for 9 days but he used even that to make an impact.

In those last nine days of his life, he kept whispering to me, "Trust God."  I can still imagine him saying it to this day.  "Trust God."  I think that was Dad's "reasonable accommodation."  It allowed him and it allowed us to not be disabled by the disease but to learn how to live through it, trusting God.

From A Momma's Heart...

Dear Friends,

I am excited to share an article from the heart of one of my dear friends, Jana.  We have been blessed to walk a journey together.  We have been able to walk a journey together that is different, challenging and rewarding every single day.  

She has helped me grow, she has been a cheerleader on the sidelines of my life, and she has shared her "momma's heart" with me.  Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy.  Grab a few moments and think about what she said...

Deana

I was never excluded at my former church because my child had a disability, but looking back, I wasn’t terribly accommodated either.  It didn’t matter to me at the time, though.  Everyone seemed to accept my precious little girl with Down syndrome, and for that I was blessed.  They smiled at her, spoke positively about her, and for the most part, seemed to embrace her.  That was enough back then.  It felt good, and I was happy. 

Not until I moved to my current church did I realize what Lexi and I were truly missing.  Inclusion, compassion, and earnest consideration in an open-armed church community.  It is wonderful.  Not perfect, but wonderful.  And a beautiful gift full of grace, and mercy, and love.  In short, we belong…and multitudes of people work very hard to ensure that we do.  That means a lot.  Actually, it means more than a lot.  It means that to this group of holy servants, Lexi and her relationship with God matter.  With their willingness to be inclusive, they are proclaiming that she, and the spiritual journey she is on with her creator, are worthy of respect, devotion, and humble sacrifice from her fellow believers. Oh, how she needs this church body, and they her.  Both with something to offer, and neither as complete without the other.     

Who would guess, then, that many parents and their children with disabilities don’t feel as welcomed in America’s places of worship as we have? Who knew masses of struggling, desperate, and isolated families never have the red carpet rolled out for them, because their congregations are too stuck feeding into unfair fear?  Fear of the unknown, fear of change, and fear of little faces that may not look like their own.  We know it’s dangerous to put more value on outsides than insides, or be more concerned with personal comfort than providing comfort, but it happens everyday.  Even in the church.  In the case of disability, precious people of God are being cut out, left out, and pushed out.  And I don’t mean pushed out of a potluck dinner. I mean literally pushed out the door.  

Doors, mind you, that are supposed to be opened to us all.  Sinners, saints, and everyone in between.  Men, women, and children of every kind.  The doors aren’t supposed to close when someone different, diverse, or disabled walks through them.  In fact, the Bible teaches us that those who are different, diverse and disabled are really the ones for which God is saving a front row seat!  According to Jesus, they are the group He’s got His eye on.  To Him they are not the damaged and the doomed, they are the treasured and the adored.  Not marginalized, but magnificent.  He values them, He yearns for them, and He wants them to have an equal place at His table.  

A table, by the way, that is glorified, not diminished, by their presence. To Christ, the disabled are divine.  Fearfully and wonderfully made by His own masterful hands.  No mistakes involved.  Not a single one.  Knit perfectly in the womb, for perfectly planned out purposes.  He knew what His kingdom needed, and His kingdom needed “Lexis”. Lots of them.  Those who may have smaller hands, but bigger hearts.  Those with fragile limbs, but unbending faith. Those who have more love than hate, more wonder than worry, more innocence than ignorance, and more happiness than hurting.  Those who demonstrate triumph over suffering, and exude light out of darkness.  Those who rise above a fallen world because of exquisite souls made incapable of tethering to it.  God knew that if the world was to see His reflection, it would be best in those who were set apart.  The ones who in their weakness, only He could make strong.  The ones He calls the “least of these”, in which when we care to look, we see the “most” of Him.

What church would not want those who are the “most” of Him in their midst?  What group of believers would not want to rub elbows with angels?  Maybe many of our houses of God need to actually listen to God, and rethink a few things along the way.  In Luke 14:12, Jesus said to His host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.  Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Each and every Sunday Christ’s followers need to throw a banquet and invite the Lexis.  Not only is it right, it is rewarded. And besides, if God’s chosen won’t do it, who will?    

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16.

Copyright 2011 Jana Palcer.  All rights reserved.