I don’t have time to read a lot of books, and I definitely do not finish most of the books I start.

So completing TWO books before the year’s end is pretty much a miracle.

The first book I’m going to touch on today is Interabled: True Stories About Love and Disability, by Shane and Hannah Burcaw (AKA, Squirmy and Grubs) and Other Interabled Couples.

Interabled captured my attention from start to finish. The book features personal stories from Shane and Hannah’s life and stories from interabled couples around the country. Some of the couples talk about how they met; others, the struggles they’ve faced; and others, a random snippet from their love story.

At no point is it ever posited that the “regularly abled” person is some superhero while the disabled person has been pitied and rescued. The equality of value between both people in the couple touched a hurting place in my heart that wonders if my disabled self will ever find love again. However, they do talk about other people who assume the one without a visible disability is a knight (or knightess?) in shining armor.

Many of the couples have two people who are both disabled, and they talk about the challenges they sometimes face in their daily lives when their needs overlap.

But mostly, it’s mushy, it’s real, it’s embarrassing at times, it’s funny, and it gives me hope. Interabled shows that all of us are just humans who have needs and desires and want to be loved, and most importantly, that we all deserve to be loved.

Disclaimer: Hey, this is a Christian blog, so trigger warning for my disclaimer. 😉 Try not to be offended. There are several queer couples, and I just skipped their stories and moved on with my life.

I could hardly put the book down, so I highly recommend Interabled. It’s a “first of its kind” (love and disabilities and community voices), and a much-needed resource for both awareness and encouragement.

The second book is Losing My Voice to Find It: How a Rockstar Discovered His Greatest Purpose, by Mark Stuart, former lead singer of Audio Adrenaline. If you listened to Christian music in the ’90s and early 2000s, you know the band. They were huge.

I bought this book three years ago and finally got around to reading it (I’ll just go ahead and use ADHD or autism or some combo as a scapegoat).

I can’t tell you how much I loved this book. It stirred something in my heart that is still in a state of unrest.

In a piece-by-piece writing style, Mark reflects on his past and what brought him to rockstardom. He was born and raised in the Midwest (heyoooo), his dad was a pastor (who eventually became a missionary in Haiti), and he started a band with a bunch of ragtag guys in college. Their beginnings were anything but glamorous (he shares that at one point, their beat-up touring van was giving them carbon monoxide poisoning). They eventually reached “the top”, selling out stadiums, winning two Grammys, and releasing several albums that went gold.

Because Mark’s family were missionaries in Haiti (starting when he was in college), he had a love for the country, and his band started the Hands and Feet Project, a non-profit that began as a children’s village near Jacmel, Haiti.

Eventually, Mark began to have issues with his voice. He adapted as best he could, the band gained another member to sing half the vocals, and he started getting steroid shots from his doctor. The steroids couldn’t keep up. After seeing a number of specialists, he finally received his diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia. (SD is now known as laryngeal dystonia — hey, I have that! :))

When Mark couldn’t hide his dysphonia anymore, the group disbanded in 2007, and, grappling with a failed marriage on top of it, Mark faced an identity crisis.

Mark always asked the audience at their concerts if they would go where God was leading them. Mark came face-to-face with that question in his own life, once singing was a viable career choice no more. When Mark was no longer the voice of Audio Adrenaline, he became a voice of children in Haiti. He wanted those children to be lifted up, for people to see their value as God’s creation. “Boys become kings, girls will be queens, wrapped in Your majesty.”

Losing My Voice to Find It has me questioning if I’m going where God has called me, or if I’m merely seeking recognition and comfort. Any book that challenges me in a hopeful, gracious way is a win.

Disability doesn’t have to be the end of the story. And these two books show us just that. There is still plenty of life and love ahead.