I like to read and I read a lot. Recently I have been reading The Librarian of Saint-Malo. Set in France in the early 1940’s, the main character is suffering from tuberculosis. Early in the book, she makes the statement, “Staying home tended to make me feel useless and invalid.” I stopped and read that sentence several times. Was she saying that staying in made her feel like an invalid or was she saying it made her feel invalid, as in unnecessary? Perhaps the author intended it to be a play on the word, giving it a double meaning. It was this sentence that led me to ask the somewhat nebulous, but thought-provoking question:

Is an invalid invalid?

The word ‘invalid’ has two different pronunciations and more than one meaning. As a noun it refers to one who is sickly or severely disabled. But as an adjective it refers to something that is ‘not valid’, meaning it is without legitimacy and is of no consequence. If something is invalid it has no purpose and is useless, no longer needed. So is an invalid invalid? Do they have purpose and do they have value?

I was twelve years old when I was admitted to the PA State Hospital for Crippled Children. (This hospital no longer exists and it was okay to use the term ‘crippled’ back then.) I was placed in a ward that held about thirty girls with varying degrees of disabilities. My bed was next to a girl who was not only physically disabled, but she was severely mentally challenged as well. She could not walk or talk, so she sat in her bed, rocking back and forth while making disturbing sounds of groaning and whining. She also had the habit of biting herself. I was warned that she might try to bite me. She was a big girl and I was afraid. Did this girl have any value?

One might think a girl like that would be forsaken and forgotten, but she wasn’t. Her family came to visit her and they loved her. They gave her value. She was also a child of God, created by Him and for a purpose. It might be hard for us to see any purpose in a life like that, but as disabled as she was, her existence was a valid one. I think maybe part of her purpose was to affect me. My fear turned to concern and compassion. My heart became more tender because of her.

Is the elderly mother with dementia who has forgotten the names of her children and thinks her son is her husband no longer a person of value? Is the man who fought many battles and was considered a hero, but is now too weak to crawl out of bed simply to be forgotten and neglected? Does that person who has grown into an adult, but mentally is still a little child have no worth? Has society labeled them:

God doesn’t see people like we do. He views things from another perspective. His value system is different than ours. Jesus told His disciples that the first would be last. He instructed them that if they wanted to be the greatest then they needed to be the least. In 1 Corinthians we are told that God uses the foolish to confound the wise. And God told Moses that He was the One who created the blind and the deaf and the dumb. We place our value and validation on our abilities, our appearance, our intelligence. God doesn’t. The people we disdain, mock or neglect may actually be some of God’s greatest treasures.

All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others. –J.R.R. Tolkein

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