God's Care for the Mentally Challenged

I did the funeral of a mentally challenged young lady yesterday. Her mother had been in a wreck when seven months pregnant. The unborn child had brain injuries. She never developed past nine months mentally. She died at thirty-four having lived much longer than predicted.

Her parents loved her with all the love parents can give. They told me that she loved to play patty-cake with her mother. She loved to repeat the word, "Hi" back when it was said to her. She disliked strong wind, but liked the calm. She enjoyed classical music. Her parents knew her personality and shared this with me.

Many people don't understand what happens to the mentally challenged when they die. They can only see them as they are. They can't see them as they will be in heaven. I think they have the sweetest of entrances into heaven.

The Bible tells us that we are spirit, soul and body. The spirit relates to God. God is a Spirit and with our spirits we communicate with God. Our spirits are made dead with sin. This young lady had never known sin. She grew up protected from that. She could always relate to God. It was done on a spiritual level.

The soul contains the mind, will and emotions. This young lady certainly had these. She would let you know that she didn't like the wind by making loud noises. She would communicate with her eyes what was going on within her. 

Many people say that her problem was her mind but that is not the case. The problem was in her body. The body contains the brain. The brain is the information processor. Hers was not functioning like others'. It could not process the information necessary to allow her to talk or walk or coordinte her body. It could not process and file away information to recall complex information. It was unable to act like most people's brains.

All of us are perfectly healed when we get to heaven. The blind can see. The deaf can hear. The lame can walk, run and jump. The problems with the old body are gone. That old body is left behind. And so it is with the mentally challenged.

They have left their old brain, that disfunctioning information processor, behind. They are healed from that problem as easily as those who are blind, deaf, lame or any other malady that we face in these old bodies.

Last week this young lady developed an obstruction that led to an infection causing her organs to fail. She was placed on a respirator for a couple of days. The doctors gave no hope and the parents had to have her removed from the device.

They told her to run to Jesus. For the first time in her life, she ran.

If you know someone who has lost a mentally challenged child and you believe this would help them, would you please email this to them. They need to know their child is fine in the arms of Jesus.