When you read the title of this post, how did you read it? 

Invalid or Invalid?
I was reading something this week about a person who, after surviving an accident, was rendered a quadriplegic, or an invalid. At first, I skimmed right over it, but after a second glance, I saw with fresh eyes that invalid was spelled the same as invalid. I found myself feeling completely incensed over this realization. Certainly, that person, though now without the use of arms and legs, was still valid! 
Here are definitions for the word in both forms:
invalid (adjective): suffering from disease or disability
invalid (adjective): being without foundation; logically inconsequent
Suffering from disease/disability…without foundation or logical consequence. 
Images of people I’ve known and loved in my lifetime come pouring into my mind: an elderly cousin who had both legs amputated, spent a lifetime crafting beautiful quilts, exercised her political muscle by writing countless letters to those in office, and was able to list all the Presidents in order and the capitols of every state, well into her late years; a beautiful woman who, though ravaged by Alzheimer’s, could amazingly still play Scrabble, tell stories about the log cabin built by she and her husband of 70+ years during their first years of marriage and showed, through example, the meaning of tenderness and unconditional love; a cousin, only in his 50’s, stricken with a disorder that left him basically home-bound and even chair-bound, still positively affected the life of his young grandson and others whom he discipled from home; an uncle, though dying of lung-cancer and chained to his chair and his oxygen tank, always had a ready joke and a smile that would lift any one’s droopy spirits. These people and, I’m sure, many that have come to mind from your own life, were all dealing with disease or disability, but they were very foundational and of great consequence. Invalids, yes; but still very VALID.
You know, though most of us get around pretty well and are, for the most part, blessed to be healthy, we have in us a disease with the potential to render us completely incapacitated. Many of us have experienced being so bound up by this disease that, while we might be able to move our bodies around, our hearts and souls have been suffering to the point of being disabled, useless; invalids inside our functioning skin.  
Fortunately, God saw to it that our invalid hearts didn’t have to be doomed to be invalid. He sent His Son to conquer the disease of sin that disables our hearts, so that, no matter the condition of our bodies, our hearts are FREE. They are set solidly on a strong FOUNDATION, and if constantly and properly tended, they can be of GREAT, IMPORTANT CONSEQUENCE. 
I’m not at all sure that invalid is the term I want to use for the sick and disabled from this point forward. Certainly the sweet ones bearing this label, that have graced my life, have been among the most valid people I know. 
Perhaps that has much more to do with the state of the heart than the state of the body.