The first qualification Paul gives for an elder in Titus 1:6, a man called to put things in order in Crete, is that he must be faithful to his wife. He must be morally and sexually pure in his relationship with her. In a culture filled with “liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons,” a faithful husband is needed to put things in order. In the church, a pastor who neglects this first ministry is not qualified to lead. In the home, a man who is not first and foremost dedicated to his wife cannot faithfully lead his family through the chaos they face.
Families affected by disability and medical complexity do not have special needs; they have human needs with far more barriers between them and the resources they require. The weight of medical and disability parenting often falls heaviest on moms. In my experience, it is the moms fighting in IEP meetings, serving in their churches’ disability ministries, and handling insurance calls, medical appointments, and therapies. While sharing these responsibilities is crucial to a family’s functioning, the multiplying demands can increase the strain on a marriage and become a foothold Satan uses to tear down a home.
When the burdens of disability multiply, a husband’s faithfulness to his wife becomes all the more important.
Marriage Is Not Hard, Life Is Hard: There Is a Difference
Your marriage was designed by God to be a beautiful gift of delight and joy, and yet many speak of it as something of a suffering crucible. However, I want to push back on this. The strain that having a medically complex or disabled child can place on a family can make life much harder, but it does not have to make marriage harder.
If you are hiking up a hill, there are things that are ridiculous to carry and things that are necessities. I am not an outdoorsman by any stretch of the word, but I recognize that if you are walking a trail and intend to camp along the way, there are necessary supplies that you absolutely need. The longer the trip, the more supplies you need, and yet the heavier they become.
To switch to something I know a little better, my wife and I invested in a WonderFold wagon early in our disability journey. When we are out in public with our kids, we have a ton of supplies that are needed. You have the standard diapers, wipes, and change of clothes, but with us, the weight is often increased by chewies, toys, seizure meds, bottles, an AED machine, NG tube supplies, feeding pumps, backup seizure meds, and things that I know I am leaving off this list because my wife often carries the burden of packing.
Once you add three active boys and all the supplies, that gets to be around three hundred pounds of weight that we are just pushing through Target. But the moment there is a crisis in the form of a fecal emergency or, God forbid, a seizure or cardiac event, all that weight becomes a blessing in that very instant.
You see, the burdens that you have to carry are blessings, and blessings are burdens. A marriage in and of itself is not difficult. A marriage affected by disability is not difficult; it is burdensome. You can either choose to avoid the burdens and suffer the consequences or carry them with joy alongside a partner who walks with you.
A Man’s Role in Leading
In Ephesians 5:25, Paul writes:
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
A man is called to sacrificially model the gospel in his home every single day by pursuing, loving, delighting in, caring for, and supporting his wife. He leads her by living under the Word of God and faithfully pointing his household to Christ.
In homes with complex medical situations, this need is all the more prevalent. If chaos and false teaching can slip into the church easily, how much more can they slip into a home affected by disability?
The number of lies and discouraging things our wives hear when disability and sickness enter the home multiplies exponentially, both from outside the church and inside. There are those who encourage moms pregnant with children predisposed to disability to abort their children. There are those who devalue and disinvite your children from events, family functions, and even the local church. A Godly man who knows the word of God must be there to love his wife and to speak the truth of God’s word over the situation.
What Does It Look Like in Reality?
The ideal marriage and ideal parenting strategy go out the window when crunched by the weight of disability ministry. You may not have time for weekly date nights, babysitting is nearly impossible to find, and even the weight of all of it may just be too much as things stand right now. God did not call us to try to add more and more to our calendars and fit in time for the perfect marriage. He has called us to be faithful with what we have and where we have it.
Priorities become crucial for disability and medical families. What absolutely needs to get done to fulfill what you have been called to do? As a man, your job in taking dominion over your space is clear.
God has not given you more to do than you are called to do. God has given you exactly the right amount of time to be as faithful as He expects of you. He has not, on the other hand, given us the exact amount of time to do everything we want to do or believe we are able to do. I have found this both in disability ministry and in parenting: there are an infinite number of options for good things that we can do with our lives, and an infinite number of ways that we can waste our lives. But there is a real and finite amount of time that we can steward well and faithfully.
Go Toward the Pain
This is true with your wife, your children, and yourself. For your wife, you see where she is hurting, struggling, and grieving, and like Christ, you move toward that pain in loving compassion. You bring relief and provision to the very best of your ability. You listen before you attempt to solve. You care before you act. Jesus modeled this in His ministry. He did not walk through towns and villages shooting finger-gun miracles at people. He heard their cries, had compassion upon them, and His compassion moved Him toward their pain and brought relief. He placed Himself alongside people and brought them what they needed.
For yourself, it means that you willingly allow yourself to be the one who bears the brunt of the hurt surrounding your child as often as you are able. If that means being the one who makes the difficult calls and argues with insurance, you do that. That means showing up at IEP meetings. It means being the one who has the difficult conversation when it is needed.
Intercede Fiercely
It is a reality of this world that I have come to accept that there are ways my wife can move the needle to get things done and there are things I can do that can move the needle. In many spaces, because of the culture we live in, a man and a woman can say the exact same thing in the same way and receive a completely different response.
I am a complementarian by conviction and believe that God has gifted my wife and me with different abilities and different strengths, but that these are compatible. When I go into an IEP meeting and show that I know what I am talking about, my voice sometimes will be received with more weight. Right or wrong, there is a reality to this. There are places and spaces where my wife is able to work more freely. Sometimes this is based upon gender; other times, it is based on knowledge, personality, and skill. But as a good husband in a difficult situation, it is our job to know when it is our job.
We argue and fight for our kids and our spouses fiercely when they are not in the room or cannot speak for themselves. We are modeling biblical manhood when we do this. We are carrying the weight our spouse cannot handle alone.
Pursue Holiness
While this part should be obvious and can be found in just about every other work directed toward men in any situation, you need to pursue your own holiness and flee your youthful passions (2 Timothy 2:22).
If you fail in this category as a faithful husband, you have failed in the rest. You cannot provide support to a wife you are abandoning for a screen. You cannot intercede if you are making time for an emotional or physical affair.
I have a tongue-in-cheek statement that I have said to my wife before about situations where men have given way to unfaithfulness: “If you have time to cheat, you are probably a bad employee and a bad father.”
You made a commitment to the person you told the world you love the most, and you could not keep that commitment. I hope that if you are reading this, you are falling under conviction, repenting, and pursuing what you have already broken. If you are reading this and have never fallen, keep your eyes upon Christ, because the temptation is there. But in the light of the glory of Christ, that temptation can grow strangely dim.
The chaos of disability and medical complexity will bring burdens that you never expected to carry, but you do not have to carry them alone. God has called you to love your wife faithfully, to move toward her pain, to fight for your family, and to pursue holiness even when life feels overwhelming. You will not always get it right, and you will not always have the strength you need, but you can continue to look to Christ for the grace to remain faithful. Your wife does not need a perfect husband who can fix every problem. She needs a faithful husband who will walk beside her through the chaos.
Previous Articles in Series
Fatherhood in Chaos Part 1
A Father Above Reproach: Fatherhood in Chaos Part 2