WALLY FALKENBURGER
The value of life

I have had multiple sclerosis for over 24 years now. My disability has progressed gradually and continues to progress. At first, I experienced some fatigue and problems with my eyesight. Then I got wobbly legs and graduated to using a cane. After that, I was driving around in a scooter. In those days, I was a member of a new Christian church (Glencairn Mennonite Brethren Church in Kitchener, Ontario, where I am still a member). I remember giving kids rides on my scooter in the church gym. One day, I popped a wheelie with a boy hanging onto the back of my scooter, and we both ended up on the floor. At home, I tried the same trick with a different wheelchair and ended up in the flowerbed blossoming with the tulips.

Now I am becoming more and more dependent on my wife and others to do things for me – like getting dressed, showering, feeding, crossing my legs, speaking, remembering and planning my day.

Often in my earlier days of coping with my condition, I thought it was impossible to get past these circumstances and have any value in life. This is where my commitment to God comes in. God taught me that when I am no longer able to change my situation, I am challenged to change myself – with His help. Viktor Frankl wrote: “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I have chosen life with God, and a certain attitude goes along with that. Constantly, I am being confronted by the lies of the devil – thoughts like “No one cares”; “There’s nothing more to expect from life because I can’t do anything”; “I can’t live like this”; “I have no value.”

And it is then that I choose life again and again.

Here is what connects me with this life:

I can feel – the touch of my wife, the handshake of a friend, the gentle breeze on a warm summer day. I can see – God’s creation, those tulips I fell into. I can learn – patience and endurance, which mean more in a wheelchair than they do when running several miles on a track. I have friends – who visit, bring doughnuts and other goodies and tell me about their lives and experiences. I have hope – that things will get better.

The best part of my life is the peace. I know God loves me, and this gives me peace with Him, with my circumstances and with myself.