Blessed Are the Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole
By Micha Boyett (Brazos Press)
Blessed Are the Rest of Us offers a fresh reading of the Beatitudes through the eyes of a mom of a nonverbal autistic child with Down syndrome.
Jesus challenged his followers to exercise their spiritual imaginations, envisioning a way of living that prioritizes the vulnerable with all their vulnerabilities. Micha Boyett challenges readers to reconsider human flourishing—blessedness—as based on innate worth rather than achievement. She provides a painfully beautiful and honest look at life as it is, with more than occasional glimpses of life lived according to “God’s dream” for humanity.
Boyett invites readers inside her home, transparently displaying her family’s strengths and struggles. She describes how she and her husband Chris dealt with the prenatal tests that revealed their third child, Ace, would be born with an extra chromosome and all its accompanying physical and developmental challenges. She describes painfully enduring the loss of an imagined child who never existed and joyfully embracing the reality of Ace as he is. She tells how a God-given hunger for justice led her and her husband to advocate for their son in the school system.
Some readers may be tempted to dismiss Blessed Are the Rest of Us when they get to the chapter on peacemaking, but that would be a mistake. Boyett describes how her church’s pastor and its board of elders—of which she was part—led their congregation to reconsider its traditional views about sexual orientation and gender identity. She acknowledges mistakes in how the discussion surrounding LGBTQ inclusion was handled by church leaders—herself included—while continuing to defend their decision.
But the real heroes of the chapter are Leah and Jared—a couple in their church who were the Boyetts’ closest friends and whose son shared a birthday with Ace. Leah and Jared continue to hold to a traditional understanding of what the Bible teaches regarding sexuality and gender, but they refuse to quit loving Micha and Chris Boyett when they end up on different sides of a divisive issue.
Blessed Are the Rest of Us steers clear of easy answers and sentimental platitudes. Instead, it reframes the blessed life and offers an honest-to-God look at grace-filled living.
Ken Camp, managing editor
Baptist Standard
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