Picture a Banquet. Maybe you see a wedding feast – long tables draped with silky tablecloths overflowing with delicious food, wine, and decorations galore. Maybe there’s a string quartet serenading the guests, or a jazz band swaying the crowd into the moonlight. What do the guests look like? Maybe you’re seeing young, sleek, good-looking folks in formal clothing, dresses and tuxedos, while they make small talk about the arts or their startups or the keto diet. Pretty cool, right? 

What if you filled the banquet with some different guests? Picture a young child who’s visually impaired being led to do the cha cha slide. Picture someone who hasn’t had enough money to feed themself in a while eating chocolate covered strawberries. Picture two women who are communicating using Sign Language. Picture a young boy who uses a wheelchair laughing as he is cheered on going through a human bridge on the dance floor. How is this image different from the first? Personally, I think it’s infinitely more beautiful. This type of banquet is from a story in Luke 14:

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”  - Luke 14:13-14

If you’ve ever read that passage, you might have thought to yourself, wow, that was nice of him! How thoughtful and charitable. However, when I read this passage I don’t see a good deed but a necessary call to action. We are called to care for all who are broken, no matter what that looks like. 

Last summer, I had the privilege of meeting Jay and Katherine at their annual summer camp, Hope Heals Camp. Like the book mentioned, they created this space for families affected by disability to rest and find community with one another, something we all desperately need. At camp, campers are treated like kings and queens! Snow cones, wildlife adventures, spa days, accessible playgrounds, worship and praise, talents shows, and a glamorously heart-warming Luke 14 banquet, inspired by the passage in the Bible. They show how much a “tragedy” given to them but chosen by God can be turned into praise. 

God uses our brokenness – sometimes visible, sometimes invisible – to display HIS grace. That was one of the focal points of this renewing camp experience. Families came together to worship, to rest in the arms of the Father, and to reflect on bringing more together to find grace through Jesus. In their first book, Hope Heals, the Wolf’s share their unprecedented, traumatizing, challenging, but life-altering experience with Katherine’s brain stem stroke at 26, shortly after their son James was born. They candidly write through Katherine’s many medical procedures and painful rehab in an unfiltered manner. They don’t sift out all the ugly pieces that God’s placed in their story. They embrace it, and they use their story to help others cope through theirs. 

You can learn more about the Hope Heals Ministry and the Wolf’s at https://www.hopeheals.com/.