A man among men

A tribute to the one who stayed

by Jennifer Ji-Hye Ko

My husband and I have a Mary and Joseph-type relationship. An angel descended upon Mary to give her a beautiful burden that Joseph would help her carry. Her ministry became his ministry. While I can in no way compare my burden to bearing and raising the Savior of the world only to watch Him die, I too was given a beautiful burden that my husband helps me carry. 

My multiple, and at times severe, disabilities are a beautiful burden that the Lord has bestowed upon me. In the conservative Christian community that I was spiritually raised in, women were expected to support their husband’s ministry. But when my husband married me, I was already significantly disabled. His ministry could not become my ministry. Instead, El Shaddai, God Almighty who is greater than human traditions, showed us that my ministry would become my husband’s ministry. 

At first, it was simply living our lives with significant disability in front of and with our local church. But when they refused to bend so that I wouldn’t break, my ministry transformed. My husband removed us from that community, a pruning that allowed me and my ministry to breathe and bloom. Free from constraint, I moved past a passive and apologetic survival in front of people to an active speaking truth to those who do not have eyes to see. My decade of theological education was finally married to my decades of experience of disability and I soon became a thought leader in the realm of a theology of disability. It is a role my husband humbly recognizes as something I can do that he cannot. 

He was the one who came behind me to create this ministry. He was the one who encouraged me to educate pastors when we had been taught that women don’t teach men. He was the one who recognized I was being held back.

He was the one keeping me alive when my disabilities threatened my life and my local church exacerbated the threat.

Today, in a world where many Christian men still believe kingship is their birthright, my husband humbled himself before Jehovah Mekoddishkem, The Lord Who Sanctifies You, and accepted his role with joy. Every advent season I have this beautiful reminder that he, like Joseph, is a man among men.

A Man Among Men

He could not have foreseen, 
the deal he was making,
all he would wean, 
an invitation truly backbreaking.

God's arduous plan upon my life,
vulnerable and requiring much aide, 
not your typical helper wife, 
but even so he stayed. 

It is my body affected, 
a life he could easily trade, 
a call he could have rejected, 
but even so, he stayed.

I am a bride difficult to love,
pregnant with a joy wrapped blade,
yet sacrificially holding me above,
with honor and love he stayed.

My body constantly aching, 
my inner being completely stretched,
it feels my foundations are breaking, 
as inside of me our Savior is etched.

Many hold me on a pedestal, 
I will become a holy saint,
but his role is more incredible,
though his memory may grow faint.

He protects that not born in his body,
adopting a painful gift,
an endowment eager to embody,
if not for comfort's rift.

He sets all his plans in motion,
only to watch them fail, 
He planned a safe sanctuary,
but I'm laboring next to hay bails. 

Discouraged from loss after loss,
his manhood challenged and ablaze,
his reward obscured by dross,
but even so, he stays.

This burden he could easily toss,
ignoring the hand of the Almighty,
but he chooses to shoulder the cross, 
a choice not made lightly.

He makes "Not My Burden" his own, 
a display of lived psalmistry, 
flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone,
like He who wrote history.

It is my body affected, 
a life he could easily trade, 
a call he could have rejected, 
but even so, he stayed. 

Jennifer Ji-Hye Ko (JenniferJiHyeKo.com) is a Disabled speaker, writer, poet, author of A Lamenter's Pathway to Joy: Devotional Journal, founder of Disabled Christian Voices Ministry, and is a certified theology of disability instructor at Joni and Friends Institute on Disability. She resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, daughter and service dog.