The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. He expressed that dream in terms of race, but I suspect he could have expressed it on behalf of individuals with disabilities as well. He said,

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these ...

Two friends recently asked me for advice. Both are in their first trimester of pregnancy. Both of their doctors have suggested prenatal screening for Down syndrome between 11 and 13 weeks. Both women are Christians, and both of them would "keep" a baby with Down syndrome. And both of them asked me for ...

Some people still think that it is sad that Penny has Down syndrome, and that as her parents we have simply "come to terms" with her diagnosis. I'd say instead that while Down syndrome brings with it plenty of challenges, the fact that our daughter was born with it has also opened our eyes, and our ...

I can't resist passing along a few articles worth reading, spanning topics of faith, family, and disability:

I'm probably just more aware of it than ever before (thanks again, Penny, for opening my eyes to a whole new world), but I feel as though every day I'm reading or hearing about people who are ...

Philip Ney has an essay discussing A Good and Perfect Gift in the current issue of Comment Magazine: "Whoever Welcomes This Child." (It's an essay about two books, including Amy Laura Hall's Conceiving Parenthood, and the whole piece is worth reading, but just so you know the Good and Perfect Gift part ...

Penny has had an aversion to, and fascination with, Santa Claus for years now. Four years, to be precise. It began with shyness, almost as if she were a baby again, cuddling against my chest. Then screams of terror. Last year, with her dad in the Santa suit, sobs. (I tried to tell her that Santa wasn't ...

My sister-in-law and I tried to make Christmas a little simpler this year. At first, we thought we'd give family presents, but then we realized that it's awfully hard to buy gifts that make everyone from a 10-month old to a 5-year old happy. So we settle on books. They're relatively inexpensive. They ...

I have a new essay in the December issue of Christianity Today (and if you're a subscriber, be sure to read it in the magazine because it includes two adorable photos of Penny that don't appear online!) "My Perfect Child." In my dad's words, the article is a very abbreviated (he might have used the ...

Bonnie Rochman has a new article at Time.com called "Are Kids With Down Syndrome on the Road to Extinction?" which features a picture of Penny and me and (on the second page) a few comments from a conversation we had a few weeks back. Although the new prenatal tests for Down syndrome have been covered ...

I read Kathryn Soper's The Year My Son and I Were Born when it was published a few years ago. I reread it recently because I was invited to interview her about her book/experience as the mother of a child with Down syndrome, and I was struck on rereading with the beauty of her prose. I think when I ...

Penny had a playdate yesterday. Her second of the year, actually. Long term readers of this blog know that playdates have not always been easy in our household. I used to invite other kids over only to find Penny by herself, or, more likely, in the lap of the other kids' mom. And the other kid was playing ...

I have three upcoming events this week that might be of interest to some of you:

First, today I'll be talking to Stephanie Riggs of 94.7 FM, KRKS in Denver, CO. The show airs at 2:00 p.m. Denver time (4:00 EST), and it lasts for an hour and takes caller questions. So please join us if you're able!

Second, ...

I was having dinner with friends a few weeks back. They have an adult daughter with autism, and their daughter has also been diagnosed with a rare syndrome. My friend described her conversation with a new social worker: "So the social worker asked the name of K's syndrome. I told her what it was, but ...

My friend and colleague Karen Swallow Prior interviewed me about A Good and Perfect Gift for her.meneutics, the women's blog of Christianity Today (Perfection Obsession: What It Looks Like to Accept God-Given Limitations). Among other things, our conversation touches upon comparisons, limitations, idolizing ...

I can't really believe that I'm about to write this, but I just found out that A Good and Perfect Gift has been named one of the "Top Ten Religion Books of 2011" by Publisher's Weekly. They write:

Unexamined faith is not worth having, and Becker asks the right heartfelt questions after her first daughter ...

Last Thursday night, I was invited to share my thoughts on the meaning of perfection in our culture at the City Church Forum in Richmond, VA. I tried to address three questions:

How does our culture understand perfection?

How have I—and in turn, you—unintentionally or inadvertently appropriated that cultural ...

For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know that Penny started kindergarten two months ago, and you know that we couldn't be more pleased with her situation. With that said, as I've also mentioned, Penny has had a tough time "controlling her hands" and following directions in school. Her ...

It's a question William asked me a long time ago, and I've been thinking about the answer ever since. I wrote it up for Lisa Belkin's new blog, Parentlode, at the Huffington Post "Explaining Down Syndrome to My Daughter, and to Myself." My post begins:

A few months back, I mentioned to our daughter Penny ...

This post is an excuse to a) show you what Penny did at her babysitter's wedding shower this past weekend, which is to say, spend an hour trying on different hats and "walk down the aisle" (her words), stop, twirl, and wait for the applause of the forty or so women in the room (photos below, in which ...

I can understand why lots of people assume that I wrote A Good and Perfect Gift with an audience of parents of children with Down syndrome in mind. It certainly speaks directly to our shared situation, and many parents have written me to say that they went through a similar pattern of shock and fear ...