"To the world, I may seem broken. To my Creator, I am whole."

This truth anchored Sophie’s heart as she navigated another day at the office. She rolled into the room in her wheelchair, her movements seamless, confident, though she could feel the eyes upon her. They always lingered, assessing, judging, maybe even pitying. Sophie had grown used to the stares, but that didn’t make them easier to endure.

The workplace buzzed with the energy of a new project kickoff. Teams gathered, voices overlapping, ideas bouncing off the walls like an orchestra warming up. Sophie looked for her group, only to find that once again, they had huddled around a table far too high for her to reach comfortably. No one seemed to notice. They never did.

It wasn’t malice, she knew. It was the quiet kind of ignorance, the kind that doesn’t intend harm but wounds all the same. As her coworkers discussed plans, Sophie’s voice was lost in the din. When she spoke up, the conversation would pause briefly—politeness rather than engagement. She saw the polite nods, the quick glances exchanged, as if her ideas carried less weight simply because she delivered them from a seated position.

What they didn’t see was the depth of her knowledge, the sharpness of her mind honed through years of perseverance. They didn’t see the nights she stayed up late, poring over research to refine her proposals. They didn’t see how much harder she had to work just to be taken seriously.

There was one coworker, though—Lena—who had begun to notice. A quiet observer by nature, Lena had seen the way Sophie was excluded in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. She had seen the way Sophie’s ideas were either dismissed or later claimed by others, how meetings were scheduled in rooms with stairs and how Sophie was never the one invited to after-work gatherings.

Lena decided it was time to listen.

“Sophie,” she said during a coffee break, “I’d really love to hear more about your thoughts on the new project. You mentioned something about a systems overhaul, and it sounded promising.”

Sophie blinked, startled. It wasn’t often that someone sought her out. “Oh, uh, sure. It’s just an idea I’ve been playing around with—tying the user interface to a predictive analytics tool. It could save the team hours of manual input.”

Lena’s eyes lit up. “That’s brilliant. Why didn’t you bring it up in the meeting?”

Sophie hesitated. “I did.”

Lena frowned. “Wait, you did? I must have missed it.”

“Everyone missed it.” Sophie’s tone was even, but there was an edge of weariness. “It happens a lot. You get used to it.”

The words hung in the air, and Lena felt a pang of shame. She hadn’t meant to ignore Sophie, but her silence had been complicity all the same.

That day, Lena made it her mission to not just listen but to advocate. In the next meeting, when Sophie presented her idea again, Lena spoke up: “I think Sophie’s suggestion is exactly what we need to move forward.”

This time, the room paid attention.

Sophie knew that not everyone was like Lena. There would always be those who saw her as “less than,” who assumed that her disability defined her entirely. But she had also come to realize that change begins with small ripples.

For Sophie, the words of Psalm 119 were a lifeline on the hardest days:

"Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands… May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant."

She wasn’t broken. She wasn’t someone to be “fixed.” She was whole, just as God had made her. The struggles she faced weren’t signs of God’s absence but of His refinement, drawing her closer to Him.

Yes, there were days when the stares, the dismissals, the whispers behind her back stung more than she could bear. But she had learned to rise above them—not through anger, but through grace. She understood that ignorance often came from a lack of exposure, a failure to see beyond the surface.

What Sophie longed for wasn’t pity or coddling. It was respect. A seat at the table. A chance to show the world that she was more than her wheelchair, more than her diagnosis, more than the assumptions others made about her.

“Before you judge me,” Sophie often thought, “walk a mile in my shoes—or roll a mile in my chair.” It was a silent reminder that life’s circumstances could change in an instant. Disability wasn’t a punishment or a failure; it was simply a different way of being.

And if others couldn’t see her worth, that was on them—not her.

The story of Sophie and Lena became a small beacon of hope in their office. Slowly, changes were made. Tables that were once inaccessible were replaced with adjustable ones. Meetings were more inclusive. And Lena, inspired by Sophie’s quiet strength, began to educate others about the importance of accessibility—not just physical, but emotional and social.

Through it all, Sophie remained steadfast, her faith unshaken.

She wasn’t defined by what she couldn’t do, but by what she could.

And she knew, deep in her soul, that she mattered.