Sunday blessings: John Van Sloten - converted by an unusual missionary

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I had a son born with Down syndrome. His birth was devastating to me. That first night, I ran scenario after scenario of how shitty life would be as a father of a "retarded" child.  Will I ever love him? Will I have to take him bowling with other disabled kids when he's eight — bumpers in the gutters because no one could throw a ball straight?

Will he have any friends at 18, or will he sit alone in some high school cafeteria? And when he's 40, and I'm dead, will he rot in some horrible institution?

It was a rough night.

'That must mean I love him'

Three months later, while doing some community service in Rochester, N.Y., I got some answers.

I met a 40-year-old man with DS. His life was filled with meaning and he was the centre of his church community.

Two days later, I met an eight-year-old DS boy whose beauty and physical strength were so readily apparent. He kept showing me his muscles! Then, I met an 18-year-old DS teen whose social calendar was too full to have any time for the likes of me.

And then the next day, while driving back home to Toronto, the most powerful answer came. I caught myself missing my little boy, and thought, "Well if I miss him, then that must mean I love him."

Through the tears of that moment, it then hit me. God knew. The night I was running all of those anxious scenarios, he knew the answers I found in Rochester laid ahead.

The curtain pulls back

And then the epiphany came. It was like a curtain was pulled back and, in that moment, I got to see a glimpse of the goodness of God — absolutely huge, mysteriously holding all of reality, powerfully sovereign over all things, providentially moving and loving it all.

full story from the CBC

ps - John is now a pastor at this church, which has done some great things for a friend of mine.