They Called Him the Ghost Boy: A Case of Judging Wrongly

They called him the "Ghost Boy." Martin Pistorius was born in South Africa in 1975, but suddenly at the age of 12 he fell ill. It started with a sore throat, but then he stopped eating, started sleeping almost constantly, and stopped communicating. No one could figure out what was wrong. Martin lost control of his body. The doctors told his parents to take him. They said that his brain was the brain of a baby. They said he would die.

Martin did live on, but he was locked into a body that could not communicate. He was placed in daycare, where he was abused. He was trapped in his own world while others perceived him as a vegetable and useless. "For so many years, I was like a ghost. I could hear and see everything, but it was like I wasn't there. I was invisible," Pistorius told NBC News in an interview in his hometown in Essex County, England. This was his first U.S. television appearance.

"It was terrifying at times," he recalled. "What really got to me was the complete and utter powerlessness. Every single aspect of your life is controlled and determined by someone else. They decided where you are, what you eat, whether you sit or lie down, in what position you lie in, everything."

But that changed. A worker at the care center began to talk with Martin and realized that he was responding with his eyes. She urged his parents to have him tested, and sure enough they found out that he was there! With a lot of help he was trained to use a computer to communicate. The more he learned to communicate through the computer, the stronger his body became. He is now happily married.

This story made me think about how we look at others and what they're going through. People judged Martin as brain dead and treated him accordingly. It took a caring person to take the time to spend time with him and notice there was something there inside his body.

While this is an extreme case, how many times do we judge others, not knowing what they have dealt with in their background, in their past? We judge them according to our standards and our own backgrounds, not according to what God is doing miraculously in their lives. While we may be strong in one area, our brother or sister may be weak in that area. We must realize that it is God who sees into all our hearts.

God is the Master Potter, who works with us according to our backgrounds, personalities and potential. "Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand" (Isaiah 64:8).

Martin summed it up this way: "Treat everyone with kindness, dignity, compassion and respect irrespective of whether you think they understand or not. God similarly sums up what he expects of us: "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32).

Let's be gentle in how we deal with others, for we have not walked in their shoes. Some walk very tough paths, like Martin did.

Read more about Martin's incredible story