Everyone’s Abnormal

“No one’s perfect, you know.” This is not a good excuse when you’re trying to get yourself off the hook for having done something wrong, but it is a good description of our genetic makeup. The average person has 18 genetic mutations in his DNA.

One of my DNA mutations resulted in my eyes not developing as God knit me together in my mother’s womb. My parents didn’t know anything about this mutation until after I was born. It was a shock to them, and they experienced a sense of loss, but my mom comforted my dad with the reality that this is a temporal condition, not an eternal one.

While I was being tested and scanned to ensure there were no other abnormalities, my parents saw many infants who were battling life-threatening conditions. It struck them that I, in comparison, was a healthy baby.

Providential People

I grew up in Chilliwack, B.C., where I spent my first 25 years. Though statistics show that many couples divorce when they receive a disabled child, I was blessed with parents who loved each other and stayed together. My home was a safe, loving, orderly place where my parents read the Bible and prayed, and they taught us children to do the same. Neither of my parents was converted at the time, but these activities proved to be foundational for all of us.

I grew up as a baptized member of a church that was large enough to have its own Christian school. I attended that school from kindergarten through 12th grade, with Connie deJong as my itinerant teacher. She learned to read Braille with her eyes in order to teach me to read it with my fingers, and she spent hours transcribing my workbooks and readers. Knowing that only 10 percent of blind North American children learn to read Braille has made me very grateful for the work she did for me. The use of Braille has been essential in my life.

Salvation

When I was seven or eight, the Lord used a radio program—a dramatization of the conversion of a soldier during the Vietnam War—to begin His work in my life. The Holy Spirit showed me that because of my sin I was dirty inside before the God who had the right to expect perfection. I was very sad about this, but I didn’t understand how the righteousness of Christ was the answer to my sin problem.

When I was 10, my parents began attending a new church in the area, a Free Reformed Church (FRC). There the gospel was proclaimed and my parents were being taught and blessed, so my family became members there when I was around 12. It was shortly after that that Pastor Jerry Hamstra preached about the wrath of God increasing against sinners while His grace restrained His wrath. He warned that, like flood waters that sweep down a valley when a dam collapses, the wrath of God will break over the impenitent. The Lord used that to show me the danger I was in and my need of salvation.

When I look back on my life prior to God’s call in that sermon, I think of it as a time in which I understood the truths of Christianity objectively. I knew the Bible stories and could answer the questions correctly, but the truths of Scripture didn’t resonate in my heart. The Lord used Pastor Hamstra’s frightening example to wake me up to my danger.

After several years, Pastor Hamstra left the Chilliwack FRC and Pastor Hans Overduin became our pastor. The Lord used his ministry to teach me more about the way of salvation and the suitability and excellence of Jesus Christ. God saved me when I was in my teens at a time I can’t specify. Even as I called others to trust in Christ, my assurance of my salvation was weak. I knew that I wanted to be saved, and that the way to be saved was by trusting in Jesus alone. During Pastor Overduin’s ministry, I read sermons by Charles Spurgeon, and his repeated calls to look to Christ brought me to greater assurance.

Technology

Besides Braille, several technologies have greatly impacted my life. Programs that enable computers to speak allow me to “see” what is on the screen with my ears. A scanner and optical character recognition software allow me to read most books with next to no errors. Voiceover on my iPad gives me access to Kindle books from Amazon as quickly as sighted people. My refreshable Braille display enables me to read from my computer or iPad at church, when I make home visits, and when I’m on the road. Hard-copy Braille books give me access to the Bible in Greek, Hebrew, and English. They also give me access to my sermon notes with no fear of a dead battery or a computer freeze-up.

Changing Plans

I started my post-secondary education with the plan of earning a degree in criminology in preparation for a career in chaplaincy in local prisons. I had been involved in local prison ministry and thought this was the path of gospel ministry the Lord wanted me to travel. Time passed, and I realized that in order to prevent the prison chapel from becoming a place where crimes were organized or committed, sight would be essential. But, I continued to study history, philosophy, and political science—three disciplines I’m still interested in.

The door to chaplaincy having been shut, I decided that once I finished my undergraduate studies I would get a doctorate with the hopes of teaching courses in apologetics at the seminary level. My involvement in a class in the philosophy of religion, however, reminded me that without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the best arguments can’t change a person. The Lord used Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ,” to once again change my plans; I saw this as God’s call for me to preach the gospel.

I began my seminary studies at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in 2005 and graduated in 2009. Since then, I have been serving various churches with pulpit supply: as far west as Langley, British Columbia; as far north as Calgary, Alberta; south to Hull, Iowa, and Charlotte, N.C.; and east to southwestern Ontario and Providence, R.I.

Marriage

In the fall of 2005, I stayed with a pastor who shared how he had met his wife. Her brother had encouraged this pastor to write to her with the possibility of pursuing a relationship and, God willing, marriage. I laughed at the time. In 2009, when this same pastor asked me if I would be interested in his recommending a young lady to me, I remembered his story and this time didn’t laugh. The young lady, a member of his congregation, was a woman named Frances.

I need to back up a bit. Before the pastor approached me, God had already been at work in the hearts and minds of several people. There were people who were praying that the Lord would bring my wife and me together, but they never mentioned the two of us to each other or got involved in any way. Others prayed that the Lord would bring me a wife from their church, not knowing who or how; they simply prayed in faith, and watched to see what God would do. (Only after we were married did they tell us they had prayed for us before we had even thought of each other.)

There were people whom I had stayed with on various occasions who spoke about me and how it would be good for me to be married. They were visiting with acquaintances of Frances who thought she might be a good wife for me. Once the matchmakers got this far, they were stumped. How was their scheme to be realized? That’s when they decided to get the pastor involved.

Frances and I were married in May 2010. Our marriage is a continual reminder to me of the grace of God in His gift of a godly wife.

God’s Power Made Perfect in My Weakness

One Lord’s Day, when I was serving a small congregation in a country chapel, an old man said to me, “You are a miracle man!” I told him he was right; God has worked a miracle in my life. Some people seem to see God’s power more when they also see my physical imperfection; and that makes the efforts of studying for the ministry, preparing sermons, and traveling from place to place worthwhile. Though God’s work in helping me and working through me are reason for amazement, God’s power to raise sinners from spiritual death is exponentially greater and worthy of our everlasting amazement and praise.

Perfect Timing

Is this the best of all possible worlds? I’m in agreement with Jonathan Edwards that this is not the best world that could ever be. However, there is no doubt that this world unerringly follows God’s plan. Besides the many things in my life for which I rejoice, there have been disappointments along the way, sinlessly planned and providentially timed by my God. Twice I came one vote short of receiving a pastoral call. Then I received a call to serve a church in the U.S., but immigration was denied because the church lacked the necessary documentation with the IRS. Work at the church plant in Calgary has come to an end and the plant has been closed.

God is still in control. He knows what He is doing, even when I don’t have any idea. He is still worthy of being trusted. He is still worthy of being praised by all people. He still wants His gospel to be proclaimed, and He is still guiding all things by His providence. The story for every believer in Jesus will certainly end with living happily ever after. Until then we’ll grieve, we’ll rejoice, and we’ll work for our God and hope in our God.