Head and Heart
PETER W. TEAGUE
Having been in Christian education close to 50 years, I have always believed that for students to really thrive in their educational experience, they must practice a rigorous life of the mind. Far beyond an environment where just knowledge is communicated, there must be a setting that provides a deep kind of heart component. In that environment, knowledge transforms into understanding then, ultimately, wisdom as guided by the Holy Spirit.
Far beyond head knowledge and memorization is the interaction between professor and student that engages with head and heart. Teachers model the questions that always follow from an educated heart: How does this glorify God? How does it praise God? How does it make us give thanks to God? How does it help us to think about what God might be doing in my life and in the world despite or, perhaps more accurately, within the context of life’s fleeting yet daunting circumstances?
After a day at Hershey Medical Center on Feb. 8, my wife and I came face to face with these questions in the most personal of ways. On March 12, 2021, our daughter Jessica became blind when she lost the remaining vision in her right eye. She has been under the care of a marvelous retina specialist, but she has undergone four surgeries in the past 11 months with no improvement in her vision.
On his recommendation, we sought the medical opinion of cornea and retina specialists at Hershey Medical Center. After careful examination, we were told that in all probability a cornea transplant would not be successful, and she will, in all likelihood, remain blind for the rest of her life unless the Lord divinely intervenes.
You can only imagine how devastating this news was to us and to those who love her and so tenderly care for her. Once again through our tears and heartache, we brought ourselves to the truth of Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
We trust the Lord that this, too, is among “all things that work together for the good.” As we have experienced time after time with Jessica, who was born with severe intellectual disabilities, there is always evidence of God faithfully at work. Throughout this journey, Jessica has remained happy, content and joy-filled within the context of her circumstances.
On March 22, Jessica turned 41. Little did we know when she was a child how God would use her life to touch so many people. We know God will continue to work through Jessica to bring glory to himself through Jessica & Friends Community, a residential and respite care ministry we founded in York for people with intellectual disabilities or autism.
It has been noted that the pain and troubles of life “are like the type that printers set.” They appear backward to us, without sense or meaning. “But up there, when the Lord God prints out our life to come, we will find they make splendid reading.”
Recently, upon hearing the news about Jessica, a friend sent me John Milton’s Sonnet 19, in which the poet considers “how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide.”
Milton reflects on the challenges of losing his eyesight. He expresses his inability to complete the tasks that the Lord had given him to do. Much as we, as Jessica’s parents have had to do, Milton expresses his fear and frustration, but ultimately finds acceptance.
Once again, our loyalty to the Lord causes our faith in God to be unshakable as we navigate a new way of life with our daughter Jessica. In his recent book “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life,” Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks draws the lessons born in weakness, pain and loss from the apostle Paul’s transparent vulnerability. Brooks claims the converted Paul to be the most successful entrepreneur in human history. Brooks goes on to underscore our need for “deal” friends in life, and more importantly, “real” friends. “Deal” friends advance our life pursuits, while real friends tend to be utterly useless in this regard yet carry the disproportionate weight of encouragement in trying times. In other words, heart.
I am grateful for both kinds of friends in this classroom called life: those who have advanced my work in five decades of Christian education, those who recognize the sentiment of a sonnet, and those who walk with us in the present toward a confident future, of splendid reading, none more closely than God. He is able. He is faithful. He is love.
Peter W. Teague is president emeritus at Lancaster Bible College and serves on the IACE Board of Directors.