An inspiring testimony: Living with vulnerability and under medical threat yet hope and refuge in the arms of a strong God.

I belong to a very ordinary Australian family, albeit with two obvious differences. First, compared with the stereotypical sports-loving, tough Aussie, some of us are quite weak and physically frail, thanks to a mutant gene. Second, my family has resisted the secularism that is a dominant feature of modern Australian life.

I believe it is no accident that we preserved our Christian profession. One reason ill-mannered New Atheist attitudes gained little traction among us is that Christian theism provides a secure footing for our family in a darkening world, which, thanks to the recent proliferation of “genetics counseling” clinics in modern hospitals, is increasingly hostile toward the congenitally weak and imperfect.

… [excellent article]

As one born congenitally frail, I have come to respect this mysterious disorder called osteogenesis imperfecta and even thank heaven for how it prematurely confronted me with my own frailty during my youth. By forcing me to face my limitations and find the fortitude to transcend repeated bouts of medical adversity, in requiring me to choose a vocation in which success did not depend on brute strength, OI made me a stronger and more mature individual.

In the end, we are all frail creatures. Maybe this is why some people wish to abort persons like my father and me: Perhaps we confront them with the inconvenient truth of their own mortality and the ultimate futility of their existential rebelliousness. Rather than pursuing the futile idea that humanity can live in perpetual defiance of God, we Brittle Burchams have found great hope and refuge in the arms of the strong God who became as weak as a newborn baby to conquer the evil that stains our fallen world.

Full article, March 2013, My Brittle Bones, by Philip C. Burcham is a professor of pharmacology in Perth, Western Australia.