Dear to the Heart

Dear to the Heart 👋 Daughter-Father advocacy duo
♿ Becca's got things to say with 😂 🧠 & 💜
⛪ See disabled folks how God sees them
💜 Rett Syndrome, Church of Jesus Christ

05/03/2026

Every month we share witnesses of Christ by people with disabilities.

Not because people with disabilities shouldn't share their witness in church, but because many people don't get chances to see people with disabilities share their testimonies.

Disability doesn't prevent someone from having a personal relationship with Christ. It also shouldn't make you assume their testimony is "simple" or "childlike". It might be, but it's not appropriate to default to that because they have a disability. Either way there is something to learn from them.

If you have a disability and want to share your testimony, we'd love to include it in our upcoming videos. It can be spoken or written down or on a speech device or via sign or a smile or any other way, just reach out and we'll figure out the best way to include you.

Sometimes we think the only options for disabled people are "participate as planned" or "watch from the sidelines", but ...
05/03/2026

Sometimes we think the only options for disabled people are "participate as planned" or "watch from the sidelines", but that's never true.

How things go depends a lot on the people who organize the activity, and if that's you, I hope you see people with disabilities and think "I bet we make this work for them". Ideally in advance, but also on the spot if it's unexpected.

A couple additional notes:

Remove Urgency - I highly suggest having two adults running the activity if this is part of your accommodation plan. Some neurotypes struggle with hurry-then-wait and somebody can have the job of keeping things active while someone else helps support anybody that needs the slower pace.

Reduce Complexity - Lots of games have a simple set of rules and a more advanced set. Gamers usually like the added complexity, but there are plenty of people who like games kept simple. Again, you don't need to say "those rules are too complicated for Becca", even if that's true nobody wants to be singled out like that. You don't k ow how much they comprehend, but disabled people often have to hold more in their head than anybody else just to participate like anybody else.

Remember Agency - I didn't put this one last because it's the least important, it's the starting point of actually doing the activity, and needs to be remembered throughout. So hopefully putting it third means you spent some time on the other two in advance of the activity. It's gotta feel pretty discouraging if people knew you were coming and couldn't bother to remember that in their preparations. Also don't use people's hands for them unless you have explicit permission.

If you have a disability and struggle to stay part of the activity for one of these reasons, I hope you can find a way to share these ideas with the people around you. If there's a different strategy that has worked for you please let us know!

05/01/2026

Lazy judgment is quick to accuse people of lazy parenting, but it's pretty hypocritical to accuse someone of not bothering when you're not bothering to understand the context.

See more in comment

04/30/2026

The world is full of gatekeepers, people whose job it is to say "no I won't let that happen". The people on the fringes, like those with disabilities, are the most likely to run into these gatekeepers.

And trust me, they do on a regular basis. It happens often enough that it gets to where it's not frustrating anymore, it's just reality.

Imagine what kind of difference you could make to be someone different. When someone with a disability shows up for your lesson or activity or whatever, you might think "this will never work for them" before you catch yourself.

But when you do catch yourself and instead say "I bet we can figure this out" -- you're going to surprise some people, sure. But more importantly, you're saying "maybe we can make this less of a disability for a bit."

The social model of disability says some percentage of what we consider disability is just our cultural inability to accommodate differences. When you act as a gate-opener instead if a gatekeeper, you're actually eliminating some disability. Isn't that worth the effort?

If you have a disability and run into a lot of can'ts, it probably feels very unwelcoming. You may even notice the hypocrisy of able-bodied people getting exceptions that were denied to you due to your disability. There's different strategies for handling that, but I hope however it goes for you, you can know that God loves you as you are, and His love isn't gatekept for you or anyone else.

04/29/2026

Quick win for the win!

See comment for more

04/29/2026

It's not censorship, it's survival. Whenever one of our posts goes a bit mainstream we get to meet a new species of troll.

Consider this your PSA, if your comment isn't civil and sincere, it's getting deleted. We have to be strategic with our time around here, and the mess that comes from those rants just isn't going to make the cut.

We *love* hearing from other people. We love discussing different viewpoints and learning from others. We are grateful for respectful corrections. But you're gonna want to send your drama somewhere else 💜.

04/28/2026

If even the ER needs help from the homefront to support people with disabilities, maybe you should plan to check in with them too when you're teaching, watching, leading, etc.

See more in the comments

What is the character of our communities, our churches, our companies, our country? We can invest in accessible faciliti...
04/28/2026

What is the character of our communities, our churches, our companies, our country? We can invest in accessible facilities, inclusive activities, disability supports, etc. if we choose to.

How we treat people with disabilities says something significant about who we are. Something a lot more important than the efficiency of our resource allocation or our popularity ranking.

When someone says "please do this for me" and they can't follow it up with "and then I'll do something for you" we should listen closely, not turn away.

Change can happen in a single congregation, or neighborhood, or family, but it takes someone speaking up and saying "we should do this -- because it's the right thing to do."

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