My Big Toe: A Story of Perseverance

By Christopher J Klein

Chris achieved and accomplished things that nobody thought were
attainable. He persevered through cerebral palsy and learned that
God had a purpose for him. Chris realized he had to surrender
his disability and chains over to Jesus to have freedom in Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 16, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385027088

Christopher J Klein

Chris Klein is a voice to those that have none and helping hand to those with disabilities, even though he was born with cerebral palsy and uses augmentative communication to help him interact with the rest of the world. He graduated from Hope College with Kinesiology, which is the study of body movement. He went to Western Theological Seminary to pursue a Master of Divinity degree.

Book preview

1

The Beginning of the Journey

We look at this Son and see the God who

cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see

God’s original purpose in everything created.

For everything, absolutely everything, above

and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank

after rank of angels—everything got started

in him and finds its purpose in him. He was

there before any of it came into existence and

holds it all together right up to this moment.

—Colossians 1:15–18 (MSG)

We are all on a journey of some kind, and many of us call it the journey of life. We believe this starts the moment we are born and ends when we are called home. However, as you read this, I hope you can see a bigger journey. It’s a journey that is happening right beside our journey, but it is mostly an unseen journey.

I believe my journey started way before time ever existed. It started before God even created anything, and really, that’s where all our journeys begin. Our journeys begin in the beginning, where the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is where we need to begin. Without this, nothing would have been made or created. All of the creation starts right here. Without this, we don’t have a journey. I know this is a little obscure and hard to grasp, but it’s necessary to understand for us to handle the curveballs life is going to throw at us. If our life journeys don’t start at the beginning of everything, how can we have a purpose when everything in our lives falls apart?

On a sunny June morning in 1973, my mother woke up knowing that this was the day she would give birth to her fifth child. She felt excited yet confident, having gone through the process four times before. Still, she had some last-minute preparations to take care of. Being a woman of extreme orderliness, she promptly planned her day. She told my father to take the day off work not because she needed to go to the hospital right away but because she needed to get a haircut first. In her mind, being on the verge of labor was no reason not to look her best, and she wanted to get her hair done before checking in to the hospital.

Following her hair appointment, feeling much more presentable, she had my dad drive to the grocery store, where they stocked up on a few necessities before driving home. At this point, she was having contractions, but she felt they were still far enough apart that she could get some things organized at home before going to the hospital. At home, my parents enjoyed a leisurely lunch and took care of some household chores. Around 4:00 p.m., Mom decided she was ready to go. She called her parents to come stay with the other children.

At the hospital, Mom was admitted, and Dad staked out a spot in the waiting room. He had not been allowed in the delivery room for the births of his other children, and he didn’t intend to change that tradition for this one. Mom and Dad exchanged a kiss, and then he took a seat in front of the television while she was rolled into the delivery room, just as she had been four times before.

The doctors too expected an easy birth, yet it wasn’t long before extra attention was required. The umbilical cord was prolapsed. This means that the cord had entered the birth canal ahead of me, cutting off my supply of oxygen. In a race against the clock, the medical team tried to reposition the umbilical cord and get me out.

My dad was still in the waiting room, with Walter Matthau on the television screen, when a nurse rushed in and demanded his signature on a sheaf of papers. He signed quickly before she bolted away without a word of explanation. Stunned, he wondered what was going on. He clung to the hope that if things were serious, the nurse would have said something. He kept his eyes on the TV screen, but his mind was in the delivery room.

Without time to put my mother completely under, the doctors gave her a local anesthetic before performing an emergency C-section. After forty-five minutes, I was free of the cord and the birth canal, but I was blue and not breathing. One doctor began CPR, while the others had already given up. Twenty minutes later, the doctor stopped his compressions and wanted to call the time of death, but another doctor stepped in and continued the CPR. After twenty more minutes, I was able to breathe on my own. By the time my dad saw me, my color had returned, and I was crying powerfully. Since my birth had been so difficult, the doctors wanted to let me cry for a while so my lungs would get the workout they needed. My parents were relieved and grateful to hear me wailing. Their son had survived.

Later that week, as we left the hospital, my parents stopped to thank the doctor who had continued the CPR. Thank you for not giving up, they told him.

His response surprised them—and still carries a sting of hurt. In a few years, you might want to take that thank you back, he said.

They shrugged it off and took me home to meet my siblings. This is your new brother, they said, Christopher Jay. They had chosen the name Christopher because it means Christ bearer.

For four months, I was a typical baby. I slept. I ate. I pooped and peed. No problem. It seemed as though the trauma of my delivery was behind me.

But then, my mom started to notice things that weren’t quite normal. For example, I always stuck my arm out straight when I sucked on a bottle. I couldn’t hold a teething biscuit or a toy by myself. My head tended to flop around like a rag doll’s. It was clear I wasn’t developing at the same rate my siblings had, but when my mom asked the doctor about it, he told her to be patient. Chris went through a lot during his delivery, he said. He’ll need extra time to catch up.

A few more months passed, and I was still far behind developmentally. By now, my mom was finished being patient. She demanded real answers from the doctor, so he put her in touch with a neurologist.

The diagnosis: cerebral palsy.

As I grew up, I started to understand that I wasn’t going to be able to achieve the goals I set for myself. I had a dream to be the best athlete and play sports, but that wasn’t going to be possible. I wasn’t able to run or play like the other children, and I also needed help for everything else too. I couldn’t dress myself. I couldn’t feed myself. I couldn’t take myself to the bathroom without help. My dream of being an athlete was gone, but what was I going to be? Did I have a purpose in life?

I know I’m not the only person who struggles with this question. When we hit a bump in our journey, we often question our purpose. This isn’t an abnormal thing to happen. In life, we all must face adversity, and the way we handle it affects how we go about our journey.

My bump has been my physical disability. It would have been easy for me to give up and pout. I have had every opportunity to do that, but somewhere inside me, something told me I had something greater to give to this world.

When obstacles arise in life, we question whether we can overcome them. I am no different from you. I have a disability, and I had to decide if I was going to overcome that obstacle. For the longest time, I complained about my disability. I felt like God gave me a raw deal. He could heal me. Better yet, He could have stepped in and prevented my disability. I know some of you reading this feel that same way. You have an obstacle in front of you, and you feel it is unfair or unjust. It isn’t like you did something to deserve it, so it would be easy to give up on God.

Now, I’ve had my whole life to think about why God would allow cerebral palsy to happen to me. I’ve spent many days and nights wondering where He disappeared for those eighty-five minutes on the night of my birth. My parents struggled with this too. My mom felt like it was somehow her fault, and she blamed herself for my disability. It didn’t make sense to me, and I wanted to question God. I wanted answers, and I wasn’t getting answers. I started reading scripture to find answers to my questions. I’ve read a lot of thought-provoking books, talked to a lot of fellow Christians, and prayed a lot of agonizing prayers. The more scripture I read, the more questions I had. We are taught about a loving God who wants to provide for His people, yet we are living in a world that suggests He isn’t all-powerful. How do you love a God who allows these awful things to happen? It is the sole question that I have been asking all my life.

Throughout my childhood, in church, at school, and at home, I was told that God could cure illnesses, diseases, and disabilities. I read stories in the Bible about how Jesus healed the lame, gave sight to the blind, and cured incurable lepers. I longed to run with my friends and live a normal life. I longed to be healed by Jesus. Where was this Jesus? I looked at my life, and I didn’t find the same Jesus. I found a Jesus who wasn’t fair, and the more I read about His miracles, the less I wanted Him to be a part of my life.

I grew up in a Christian home, so I was taught about this all-powerful God and all that stuff. However, people would tell me my disability was God’s plan for my life. As a young child, I accepted this talk because I didn’t totally understand what they were telling me. I knew they were trying to comfort me when I was frustrated about my disability. They thought they were helping me, but what they were doing was putting more doubts about God into my head.

I know I’m not the only one with this problem. I know others have suffered pain and loss that seemed unnoticed by a loving God. An unexpected car accident kills a young mother. Cancer slowly destroys a friend who used to be so vibrant. An earthquake rattles a highly populated city, killing thousands and leaving the rest homeless.

Is this God’s plan for our lives? We hear and get taught about this all-powerful God, so when things like these happen in this world, we either blame God or say this is God’s plan. These two answers didn’t satisfy me. These two answers shouldn’t satisfy you either. How could you love a God who harms you?

As I continued studying and pursuing God, John gave me some insight on this subject. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:1–3 NIV).

I began to understand that creation started with a love affair. It was a love affair among Father, Son, and Spirit. They desperately wanted to share their love with others, so they hatched