Reflection of a Life Worth Living

By Matthew Shea

In “Reflections of a Life Worth Living” Matt Shea opens up about real life struggles he has faced throughout the years and ways in which he has found to overcome them. From being born with a physical and developmental disability, experiencing the unexpected death of family, to graduating from an out of state college, Matt has learned the value of persistence and trusting God in a myriad of different circumstances. He invites readers to recognize how their lives are worth living no matter what life might throw their way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781387631322

Book preview

reflections

of A Life Worth Living

by Matthew Shea

A journey means not knowing what’s going to happen. When I started college, I felt like I was lost because I had no idea what that would be like. I felt that way even until the end when I graduated and got that paper in my hand. It looked good, even official. To tell you why I felt like I might not belong there then and for most of my life, it is important to start way back, the time when I began, when I was born.

Copyright © 2022 by Matthew Shea

Second Edition, Editing by Barbara E. Irgens, Mike Madden, David A. Libby, and Joshua L. Hawk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical review and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. 

Printed in the United States of America 

The first edition of Reflections of a Life Worth Living was printed in 2015.

Cover photo courtesy of Sean Hudgins 

Published by Lulu Press, Inc 

Imprint: Lulu.com

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Contents

Forward

Sotos Sydrome

My Family

Discovering The Syndrome

The Slide

Special Ed

Not Really Very Normal

Cancer

Changes Beyond My Control

More Changes

Patrick’s Death

College

A Landing Place

No Going Back

Dr. Weeter

Dr. Mike

Dr. Piper

Graduation

Homecoming

Reflecting

Don’t Simply Accept It

Acknowledgements

Forward

The Church is often notorious for talking about groups of people, instead of talking with and hearing from these same folks. Groups of white Christians will gather to talk about racism without thinking to reach out to their Black brothers and sisters. Male Christians gather to talk about women in ministry. Straight Christians discuss LGBTQ Christians without their presence. While this oversight is not necessarily malicious, it is nevertheless problematic. 

When people are talked about instead of listened to, the Body of Christ is deprived of their experiences and ideas as a result.

Often, when the church discusses disability, we talk about disabled people considerably more often than we listen to them. As a pastor, I have been exceptionally guilty of this. Rarely have I offered our church’s pulpit to someone with disabilities, and because of this, our church has been deprived of the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of a significant part of God’s kingdom. 

In his remarkable book The Bible, Disability, and the Church, Amos Yong says that a Pauline theology of weakness and of disability invites us to be alert to the possibility that the Spirit is capable of accomplishing much more through the lives of people with disabilities - physical and intellectual - than we might otherwise perceive or have been ready to receive. In recent years, I have been convicted of the lack of time that I’ve spent listening to and learning from my disabled siblings in Christ. I have missed out on a significant amount of wisdom and experience from which I could benefit, and I have deprived our church of this wisdom as well.

I have had the opportunity over the past two years to minister alongside Matt Shea. Matt is a pastor at our church, and brings a depth of spirituality and a focus on prayer that few Christians possess. His impact on the spiritual life of our church has been immense, and we all are stronger Christians because of his leadership.

In these pages, Matt Shea describes how he has experienced life, faith, and God as a disabled person. I hope and pray that we will take this opportunity to learn from his experiences, in his own words. We have done our best to leave this manuscript in Matt’s own voice. Therefore, we have predominantly left Matt’s words and phrasing alone while editing this book. We added punctuation where needed, but changed little about his style and phrasing, in order to leave his presentation relatively untouched.

I hope and pray that you absorb the words, stories, and experiences in this book. I expect that they will stretch and challenge you.

They certainly did for me.

David Libby

Pastor, St. Johns Church

Sotos Sydrome

Sotos Syndrome, or cerebral gigantism, as defined by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke "is a rare genetic disorder caused by mutation in the NSD1 gene on chromosome 5. It is characterized