Jillian Benfield’s world came crashing down when she moved out of the limelight and her unborn child was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. At least that’s what she used to think. These unexpected events launched her on a journey that has transformed her and given her a new perspective on disability.

The Gift of the Unexpected is a powerful reflection on the gifts Benfield has received from a challenging journey. She’s refreshingly open about how she moved from being prideful and ignorant to truly humble, authentic, and compassionate.

Transformed Thinking

Benfield used to have a “shiny” life, but her life became less enviable when she moved to a small town, out of the limelight as a news anchor, and became a full-time mom to two, one of whom had Down Syndrome.

That was how she thought before Anderson, when she “defined [her] worth the American way instead of the godly way.” Getting married and having children was the unspoken rule of success. But what would it mean for her son’s future and his worth if he never “achieved” these goals?

Benfield describes – as only one who has been through a deep inner journey can – how she learned that people’s worth is not dependent on their performance. Anderson will love and be loved, and that is enough. But a new understanding of worth is just one of the gifts.

She also discovered new perspective on disability. “I once thought my son with a disability needed healing, but I was the one who needed to be healed,” she writes, referring to some of her faulty beliefs about God and humanity. “I unknowingly believed there was a human hierarchy, that there were the blessed and the unblessed.” Since parenting Anderson, her understanding of disability has shifted from something needing to be “erased,” to part of one’s identity that can and must be embraced.

It’s a journey

Benfield writes with honest vulnerability. These days she cringes at some of the things she used to think and do, or even pray, but her authenticity allows every reader to relate with her at some point on her journey. She voices what most parents of children with disabilities would like the rest of the world to understand, but who may not have the capacity to make known themselves.

The suffering and grief Benfield experienced over the diagnosis of Down Syndrome, as real as they were, were somewhat needless because they were based on a faulty understanding of disability. Through her writing Benfield brings us on the path she has walked from being ignorant and standoffish toward disability, to embracing it as an essential part of one’s identity.

Parenting a child with a disability, including Down Syndrome, is hard. There may be innumerable medical appointments and invasive surgeries. There is the daily confrontation with our society’s ableism (“able-ism”). The inner work of changing our understanding of people’s worth is not easy. There are scary unknowns and a whole lot of the unexpected. But there is also life-changing revelation, deep growth, expanded communities, and new purpose. There is transformation. Who knew so much good could come from life’s challenges and trials?

Many Gifts

Although the unexpected holds many challenges, it also offers many gifts. The chapter titles give a sneak peek into some of these opportunities:

• Inherent Worth – rather than performance-based worth
• Deconstruction – of a faulty faith and false beliefs about God
• Letting go – of questions and the need for certainty
• Becoming Real – even in the presence of grief and difficulties
• A Broadened Perspective – life is complex; there is much injustice in this world
• An Abundant Life – even amidst grief and suffering

The Greatest Gift

One of the greatest gifts we can receive from unexpected challenges is transformation. Benfield was herself transformed. She offers us keys from her journey to do the work of transformation in our own lives.

“The unexpected should strengthen and soften you. It should break you open and free. It should shatter the lens through which you view the world and replace it with a new one. The unexpected should change or fuel your life’s work.”

The unexpected has shaped Benfield’s daily life, values, work, passions, politics, and vision for the better. “Now parenting my child with a disability is my greatest privilege because it woke me from my comfortable slumber.”

As for purpose, Benfield has become passionate about doing away with the segregation of people with disabilities, and instead truly integrating all people in society. She’s on a mission to make the world a little more like heaven, where everyone is seen as God sees us and accepted just as we are. No hierarchies, no margins. A place where inclusivity is the norm.

Structure

I appreciated the predictable structure of each chapter: Scenes from Benfield’s story are followed by a relevant teaching based on Scripture and wrapped up with questions for reflection.

The chapters are not in chronological order, but they make sense grouped by larger themes. There is a good amount of switching back and forth between narrative and illustrations. As I step back and see the bigger picture, I am most grateful for the message of this book and the heart with which it is written. How Benfield has been able to write and publish a book while raising her three children, I’m not sure!

Personally Touching

I was most touched by the following two revelations:

“Beauty and destruction are not always opposites but often intertwine.” Benfield describes Antelope Canyon, which is one canyon among many that were created by massive destruction. Yet it is breathtakingly beautiful. Beauty and destruction exist together. The same can be said of glory and grief, of happiness and hardships in our own lives.

In the story of the Good Samaritan, it was the man on the margins who stopped to help another in need. The Samaritan, who had suffered as a social outcast, saw and willingly entered into the suffering of another. Benfield highlights how “suffering makes us uniquely qualified to help those who suffer.”

Throughout the book are more powerful analogies, but you’ll have to read for yourself what Benfield has to say about blueprints, telescopes, forests, and a theme park.

A Needed Voice

Benfield’s is a voice I would want to have on the boards of schools, communities, and churches. We need to pay attention to what she is saying if we are to grow in our love for those on the margins. She is a gifted communicator. She is also a parent a of a child with a disability, so she gets it.

Above all, Benfield is full of grace. Whether we find ourselves oblivious or avoidant of people with disability, or if we mean well but err out of ignorance, she’s been there. She knows it’s a journey and she’s willing to be our guide if we will listen.

Warning

This book comes with a warning: it will open our eyes to the injustices of the world, and we won’t be able to go back. Once we are aware of the harmful ways our society has treated people with disability in the past, how we still discriminate and segregate, how we measure people’s worth, how we casually write off people, we will be moved to change something – and that something will begin within us.

We can walk past, like the Levite and the priest ignored the beaten man on the road to Jericho (or these days we more likely scroll past on our newsfeed), or we can willingly enter into the suffering of others, truly loving our neighbours – especially the marginalised, the overlooked, and the underestimated.

What about you? What will you do when met with your unexpected? Will you let it transform you? Will you let God transform you through it? Benfield puts it best:

“The unexpected pain may have broken our hearts for a time, but with time, we are broken wide open to possibilities anew, possibilities greater than ourselves.” There are gifts that come with the unexpected, and they are waiting to be discovered.