th<\/sup>
\nwedding anniversary. They bought three tables and invited a host of friends and
\nfamily for an afternoon together.<\/p>\nI was touched that Mom and Dad saw this event as a fitting
\nway to celebrate and commemorate four decades of life together. And you might
\nassume that this support came on the heels of learning, four and a half years
\nago, that their granddaughter had Down syndrome. <\/p>\n
The thing is, before Penny was born, every member of my
\nfamily had some experience with people with disabilities. Mom and Dad supported
\nthe ARC (Association of Retarded Citizens), later renamed Abilis. Kate had a
\n“Best Buddy,” a woman with Down syndrome, in college. She told us stories about
\nhow Sandra made her laugh and how grateful she was for their time together.
\nBrooks traveled to an orphanage in Peru and came home with stories of the
\nchildren with disabilities and her love for them. Elly also had a Best Buddy
\nfor all four years of college. My parents and my sisters knew that there was a
\nwhole world out there, of people who weren’t easily accepted by society, of
\npeople who looked different, talked different, thought different, than the
\nnorm. And they knew that it was a wonderful world. Long before me, they entered
\nin.<\/p>\n
I stayed on the sidelines. I didn’t even know what I was
\nmissing until this daughter of mine came into my life. I didn’t know that
\nhaving her in my life would open my heart to a whole group of people and
\nfamilies who have learned that love really is the most valuable human trait, that
\ncompassion matters more than competition, that admitting our need for one
\nanother and giving and receiving freely is constitutive of what makes us human.
\nThankfully, my family waited for me. As we celebrated my parents’ life
\ntogether, I was glad, finally, to have a seat at the table. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few months back, my dad invited us all to a fundraiser for Abilis, an organization that supports individuals with developmental disabilities. The catch was that the fundraiser was happening on my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. They bought three tables and invited a host of friends and family for an afternoon together. I was touched that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\n
Disability: A Seat at the Table - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/06\/disability-a-seat-at-the-table-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Disability: A Seat at the Table - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A few months back, my dad invited us all to a fundraiser for Abilis, an organization that supports individuals with developmental disabilities. The catch was that the fundraiser was happening on my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. They bought three tables and invited a host of friends and family for an afternoon together. I was touched that…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/06\/disability-a-seat-at-the-table-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-17T08:55:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Disability: A Seat at the Table - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/06\/disability-a-seat-at-the-table-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Disability: A Seat at the Table - Thin Places","og_description":"A few months back, my dad invited us all to a fundraiser for Abilis, an organization that supports individuals with developmental disabilities. The catch was that the fundraiser was happening on my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. They bought three tables and invited a host of friends and family for an afternoon together. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}