Jennifer Rothschild is a recording artist, the author of several books, and a nationally known inspirational speaker. Not long ago, Connected editor Bert Williams sat down for a visit with Jennifer in her home in Springfield, Missouri.

BW: Jennifer, you were on ABC’s “Good Morning, America” a little while back. How did that come about?

JR: Well, I had become acquainted with the program’s co-host Robin Roberts when we were both speaking at the same conference. She had started reading my books, and we developed a little bit of a relationship. Then when the governor of New York stepped down (in March 2008), and David Paterson became governor—and he was legally blind—the media became more alert, and there were a lot of questions: How does he do this? How many blind people are there? How capable are they? So this came together and prompted Robin to schedule an interview. My role on GMA was to be a voice of hope to people who have lost their sight, and to say, “You can do this!”

BW: And perhaps for other people who have disabilities—not just people who are blind.

JR: Absolutely, and that includes self-imposed disabilities.

BW: What do you mean by that?

JR: I think some of us choose our own disabilities. When life doesn’t turn out like we had hoped, some of us choose to get angry, and we debilitate ourselves more by the bitterness, or unforgiveness, or just the unwillingness to give it one more try. To me, those disabilities are worse than the kind of disabilities you don’t choose, like blindness.

BW: Jennifer, when did you become blind?

JR: I became legally blind when I was 15 years old. I had a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which is degenerative. I now have just a very minimal amount of light perception.

BW: I mentioned to a friend that I was going to be interviewing you, and it obviously felt to her like, if you lost your vision, life would just be over. How could you go on? I know a lot of blind people and that’s obviously not the case for them, but that was Marilyn’s first reaction to blindness.

JR: I can understand why she would have that response. It’s one of those things people are deeply afraid of because we so rely on our sight. I remember early on, when I received my diagnosis, I was 15 . . .

BW: . . . And as a teenager you’re dealing with so much stuff already, that must have been a terrible challenge.

JR: It was a huge challenge, and it created more questions than answers.

BW: Practical questions of course: How am I going to do this? how am I going to do that? Will boys like me?

JR: Yeah, the more important question there (laughter). Will boys want to date me? Will someone marry me?

BW: And I just met Phil a few minutes ago, and he’s a delightful guy, so obviously some boy liked you. But did you also have questions about God, and “Why Me?”

JR: I never had the “why-me?” question, but I have had the “why?” question, and to me there’s a difference.

BW: Explain that.

JR: To ask, “Why me?” presupposes an entitlement—that somehow faith in God protects you from difficulty in life, and I’ve never been of that belief.

BW: A lot of people are.

JR: Yes, and unfortunately it’s a myth.

BW: But there may be some Bible texts that suggest something like that—that God will deliver us, that kind of idea—and He didn’t deliver you from blindness.

JR: He didn’t deliver me from blindness, but he used blindness to deliver me into something deeper. We have to constantly challenge our perspective. God is faithful to His character and to His word, and I guess that’s why I could never ask, “Why me?” But I am going to ask “Why?”—not out of anger or a sense of entitlement, but because I want to find out the deeper purpose. That doesn’t mean I haven’t dealt with frustration or sadness. I mean, I’m a mom. I have two boys. I’ve never seen their faces. One’s about to graduate from high school. I will not see him receive his diploma. Of course there’s a sadness there, and a loss that I don’t dismiss. But I think there is something deeper to be found within the loss, and I’m determined not to let blindness get the best of me by just sitting down and being bitter and sad about it. I’m going to find something better and deeper, not in spite of it, but because of it.

BW: In the forward to your latest book, Self Talk, Soul Talk, Robin McGraw says you have chosen “to make blindness your friend.” Do you consider blindness your friend?

JR: Just like any relationship, it has its ups and downs (laughter). With that disclaimer, yeah, I do consider blindness my friend, and here’s why: I learned a long time ago that if I choose to look at blindness as an enemy, then I’ll fight it, and I’ll lose. I’ll be depleted by it and I will never gain anything from it except bitterness and resentment. That’s not practical. So I have to make it my friend. I have an abiding belief about God—that He is good. If He has chosen not to remove my blindness, then I’m going to learn everything I can from it. When I choose for it to be a friendship, then blindness becomes a companion. It teaches me about myself. It teaches me about people. It allows me to connect and empathize. It introduces me to parts of the character of God that I may not ever have been introduced to.

BW: Are there ways in which you are a better person because you are blind?

JR: I would hope so. I never want to idealize blindness because it’s not ideal. It stinks (laughter).

BW: So you have a stinky friend.

JR: I have a stinky friend at times (more laughter). I know there are many people who are in pain over their blindness, and I understand that. I deeply understand that.

BW: If you could choose, you would regain your sight.

JR: (long pause).

BW: Oh, you’re not sure. That’s interesting.

JR: I . . . I have to trust God. I see the protective nature of blindness in my life. I’m pretty strong-willed, and I can see how blindness has protected me from weaknesses. That’s why I wouldn’t willingly say, “Yeah, lose the blindness, and let’s go buy a Camaro and learn to drive!” I do want to see. Absolutely, I would want to see, not only for me, but for my parents. My loss didn’t just affect me. It has affected my parents, my children, my husband. But I have learned that God’s grace is totally sufficient for all.

BW: You’re an independent person in many ways. I know a lot of blind people who strive for independence. I met a guy last week, whom I’d seen walking past my house. He walks all over town.

JR: Good for him! That’s hard!

BW: Yeah, he’s very independent. I think we all value our independence, and yet there’s a sense in which we need to be dependent on God. Is there dissonance between seeking independence and the need to depend on God?

JR: I think there’s a constant tension, and I don’t think it’s exclusive to blind people. That’s part of our fallen nature, to want to be independent of God, but our deepest need is to be dependent on Him. I think blindness, on the surface of life, did strip away my independence—I couldn’t drive a car, I had to hold on to someone’s arm, somebody had to read me things, I couldn’t see what I looked like, the list goes on. That became a metaphor of what faith is like. That’s part of the reason blindness is my friend. It has introduced me to a deeper dependence on God that is so liberating!

BW: In your book Lessons I learned in the Dark, you talk about Jesus “despising the shame of the cross” (Hebrews 12). He didn’t allow the cross to make Him ashamed. This question is kind of veering off from that idea. Has your blindness made you ashamed? I know of people, for example, who don’t want to use a long cane because they don’t want people to know they are blind.

JR: I definitely went through that. Carrying a cane was this statement to the world: “Please don’t relate to me. I’m not normal.” You know, that’s what I felt like.

BW: And was that just in your mind, or do you think that is, in fact, true? Do a lot of people think: I don’t want anything to do with this person?

JR: I think it’s both, but I don’t think it’s out of malice. It’s out of awkwardness.

BW: So what would you say to sighted people about relating to a blind person?

JR: I think they should know that blindness is a handicap that is extremely visible to the rest of the world, but their handicap (of relating awkwardly) is there, too; it’s just less visible. I think that if we recognize, when we come into a relationship with another person, that we step onto neutral ground, I think that helps to tear down some walls. I recommend that any sighted person wanting to engage a blind person is just honest. You know: “Hey, I’ve never met a blind person. Anything I should know?” I also say to my comrades in the dark—to other blind people—that we need to take responsibility for helping those walls come down. When I meet someone, I don’t just stand there and wait for them to figure out how to shake my hand. I immediately put my hand out. That says: “Hey, I’m taking the initiative here to help you not feel awkward.” I think that’s part of just being responsible in relating to another person.

BW: Another thing you did, Jennifer, when you came to the door this morning, was to look me in the eye.

JR: Hopefully (laughter).

BW: Have you worked at that skill?

JR: Yes. As a teenager, this was one of the things I was most concerned about. I wanted to do the best I could at keeping eye contact, and trying to maintain muscle control in my eyes. It’s just a discipline. I listen to the voice. When I can hear a person’s voice, I know the eyes are a few inches above, and I “look” there.
Now, I don’t ever want a blind person to think, “Man, not only am I blind but now I’m responsible for the awkwardness of every sighted person that ever lived” (laughter). I don’t think the burden should be excessive, but it just helps you to be empowered, and not to be victimized twice by someone else’s awkwardness.

BW: You mentioned that your blindness complicates the lives of your friends. If they’re going to go shopping with you, for example, they’re going to have to help you shop. Do you feel that blindness complicates the making and maintaining of friendships?

JR: I think this is one of the hard things about blindness. One of the most liberating things in life is to become less self-aware, and blindness invites more self-awareness. When you have to be constantly saying, “Can you put my pen on the line so I can sign this?” “Will you read me the menu?” “Will you help me find the food on my plate?” There’s this greater self-awareness where I start to feel like, “Ugh, I’m just a burden.” And to be honest, I still struggle with that. But I learned something from Joni Eareckson Tada. She has been paralyzed since she was a teenager and is very dependent. I’ve heard her say that she used to feel awkward, and just hated it when she’d have to say, “Can you open that door for me?” But now she looks at it differently. She looks at it as an opportunity for someone else to feel good about themselves. When they help her, it increases their self-esteem and their sense of value. That has helped my perspective—to realize that I’m not really taking from other people as much as I am giving them an opportunity to give.

BW: You write in Lessons I Learned in the Dark, “Humility is the key to a healthy self-image.” That statement is curious. It seems almost contradictory.

JR: Yes. I think there’s this great liberty that happens when we allow ourselves to become smaller in our own eyes, and we realize that God takes us seriously, so we don’t have to take ourselves so seriously. When we start to recognized that there’s a difference between who we are and what we struggle with, then we start to get on the path to a good sense of identity.

BW: I’m not sure I understand that exactly.

JR: Well, let’s say we struggle with, oh, anger, for example. Or a lot of women have this image issue—you know, I’m fat, or whatever. We look at our struggles, and we begin to define our lives by our struggles. When we do so, that’s not being humble. That’s being self-debasing. It’s taking ourselves way to seriously. It has become all about us. It’s an inverted pride. When we begin to define ourselves less about what we struggle with and more about who we are—which is what God says in Scripture that we are—then we’re freed up to have an incredible sense of identity and a right rendering of who we are. This is humility. And that’s what leads to good self-esteem.

Coming next month in Connected: the conversation with Jennifer Rothschild continues, focusing especially on thoughts from her latest book, Self Talk, Soul Talk.