Award-winning author Dr. Stuart D. Jones is a retired higher-education executive and former church minister who now teaches college courses part-time and writes with a passion shaped as much by life as by books. Over the years, he has spoken at many universities, churches, conferences, seminars, workshops, and leadership events around the world on a variety of topics. A devoted advocate for disability rights, he believes every life has purpose and worth since each life is one of God's wonderful creations.
Yet no credential has shaped his faith more deeply than being Steve's brother.
Dr. Jones holds advanced degrees in both education and theology and has been published in several academic forums. For the Love of Stephen: The Story of a Boy Who Was Never Broken is his first work of narrative nonfiction—and by far, his most personal.
Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.
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God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.
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Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.
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Praise God for you, Dr. Jones, Dr. Stuart Jones.
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It's a great pleasure to connect with you.
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What part of the world are you in today?
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I'm in good old United States, in a state kind of in the Midwest called Indiana, near Michigan.
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I'd love to understand where love actually got cultivated for you.
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Love got cultivated, quite honestly.
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I learned about love through church.
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We began to become church believers, Christian believers, Christ believers.
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When we started going to church, I was only 10 years old.
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My father recovered from alcoholism, and it was a very difficult, turbulent growing up era because he was an abusive alcoholic.
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I didn't understand love.
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I didn't always feel loved except by my mother.
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But love came through the church and through understanding how much God loved me in Christ and how other people showed love for me.
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That's where I found love.
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How many siblings did you have?
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There was four of us, counting me, my brother Stephen, who the book is about, is our oldest, and I'm the youngest.
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There's four of us all together, another brother and another sister in the middle.
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I should give a small caveat at the end.
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My father became a transformed person in Christ after we went to church.
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Then I did feel loved from him.
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He was a born-again Christian as we all were, and love became a permanent part of our family once we found Christ.
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Did you ever have any challenges with alcohol?
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No, no, I have not.
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My brother and I have talked about that before.
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Sometimes, as psychologists say, you can either follow family patterns or you can break them.
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My brother Scott and I said, we are purposefully, and my sister Susan said, we are not following the family pattern of alcohol abuse.
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We will not do that.
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So alcohol, drugs, any kind of addiction, fortunately, has never been a part of my life or my siblings' lives.
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Your oldest brother, tell me about him, Stephen.
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Stephen was born in an interesting time in our nation's history of the United States, back in 1954.
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He was born to my parents who were just 18 years old, but he was born with an intellectual and developmental disability.
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Back in that day, they called it mental retardation.
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My parents heard a lot of euphemisms, as did I over the years, that Steve was slow, retarded.
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They used ugly terms sometimes.
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He was dumb.
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He was an imbecile.
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He was an idiot.
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None of those things were true.
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He simply was born with a disability.
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He was a special needs child.
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I didn't realize growing up with Stephen how remarkable he was.
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It wasn't until later in life when I really determined, through God's inspiration to write this book, I recognized how remarkable Stephen and my parents were in raising him.
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My parents could have made unfortunate choices after he was born.
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Many advised them to put him in a home, an institution, forget about him.
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Many families did that back in the 1950s.
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My parents also could have just hidden him away with shame in their own home for no one to see and be blessed by.
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My parents made a radical choice called love of a child with special needs.
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They raised him in the family.
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They treated him no differently than me or my other brother or special needs sibling.
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It wasn't until later I realized how brave, resilient, remarkably kind and forgiving and loving Stephen was.
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He wasn't famous.
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He didn't write a book or create.
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He wasn't a great singer.
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He went on a magazine cover.
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He was remarkable in the sense of Christ shown through him, through the kindness and love that I talked about, his spirit of accepting everybody.
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And my parents just wanted everyone to see Stephen and recognize that whether born with a disability or not, everyone is created by God.
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Everyone.
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And Psalm 139, verse 14, David is praising God that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
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And that includes people like Stephen, anyone born with a disability.
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It wasn't a mistake.
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One of the chapters of my book says, God don't make no junk.
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Stephen was not junk.
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He was not a deficit.
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He was not effective.
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He was a full human being.
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And I'm challenging everyone to see those with disabilities as beautiful people God did create and who can bless our lives.
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It will just open our hearts and be kind.
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How did that impact your life?
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Having that perspective of opening up your heart to other people?
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Yeah, it was Stephen who I mean, we often thought we were teaching Steve a lot of things, you know, because he had the mind of a child and we were always teaching him things.
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But what really occurred was he taught us by his actions and his grace.
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He was teaching us.
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And it profoundly impacted me more so as an adult.
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When I looked back on Stephen's life, I realized, my goodness, he was truly an example of Christianity.
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Being Christian, the term is Greek.
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It means Christ-like.
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Well, Stephen was far more Christ-like than most people I've met.
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And faith was important to him.
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And he always served in the church and he gave of himself willingly and freely to help anyone.
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And sometimes that backfired.
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There were mean, evil people that took advantage of him.
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But Stephen certainly taught me a lot about resiliency and perseverance and forgiveness and how to stop judging others and see every person as someone for whom God made and Christ died.
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So in that regard, Stephen taught me so much and it changed my life.
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He also taught me to be a little oversensitive about cruel people, because we saw so many people who bullied Stephen, people who literally took advantage, stole from him, beat him up physically.
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And it allowed me to grow up with a defensive mechanism that I'm quick to defend those that can't defend themselves.
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And I will stick up for those that can't speak for themselves.
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And so I kind of have that sensitivity to me as well.
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Is Stephen still alive?
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I'm sorry, he's not.
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20 years ago, he died.
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He was killed by a motorist who didn't see him.
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Stephen was not able to drive a motorized vehicle.
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He just didn't have the mental capacity to handle that.
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We think driving is easy, but for someone like Stephen, it was more challenging.
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And the irony of Stephen's story that I share in the book, he fought his whole life to be seen and included and belong.
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And ultimately, it was a driver who didn't see him on one cold, dark morning as Stephen was riding his bike to work, who didn't see him and hit him with his car, knocked him to the ground.
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Stephen hit his head on the curb and was almost killed instantly.
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He lived for a couple more days, long enough for all of us to say goodbye.
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But Stephen is no longer with us.
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But the lessons of his life continue to live.
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And this book is important to me because the lessons that Stephen lived and taught us, I have shared with many, many people now.
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Where were you when you heard the news of what had happened?
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I was at a conference.
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I worked in higher education for 30 years.
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Previous to that, I was a pastor.
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Now I've returned to being a minister.
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I was at a conference in Chicago when my wife called me and the news was just shocking to me.
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You know how we all take life for granted and we think we're going to live a long time and our loved ones are going to live.
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And then when you receive a phone call that your brother has been critically injured and that I needed to come home immediately, that was a long drive from Chicago to where I was living in Indiana at the time, a long two and a half, three hour drive.
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I just couldn't get to the hospital fast enough so I could see my brother, who was my best friend growing up, my favorite playmate because he always played with me no matter what.
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I wanted to see him and share my love with him, for him one last time before God took him to be home in his eternal kingdom.
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So I was blessed, very fortunate to get that opportunity.
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Do situations occur today that sometimes remind you or feel as though it's him giving you a wink or a reminder of something he taught you before?
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Every time I see a person with an intellectual disability, which is sometimes fairly often because I'm in advocacy groups and I do public speaking in various places and I'm always blessed to have somebody coming to see me.
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Just this last week I was at a bookstore and that person with an intellectual disability was there.
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I see Stephen in them.
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I see Stephen when they smile and when they greet me as not a stranger, although I am, but they greet me as a person that they want to get to know and sometimes they just want to come up and hug me and I love that and Stephen was that way.
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So when I meet people with intellectual disabilities or I see them even on TV being portrayed in movies, I certainly remember Stephen in profound ways.
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All right, message in a bottle.
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You have the opportunity to listen to this conversation five years from today.
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You would have heard the evolution of your life.
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You would have told the story of Stephen.
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What's a message you'd leave for future you?
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Continue to seek God's will and guidance for my life.
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God has never led me wrong.
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I've led myself wrong by not listening and following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
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I've made mistakes.
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That's for another episode, but when I've listened to God and followed God's leading and I will continue to remind myself of that because I am human and sinful and sometimes very imperfect.
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That message in the bottle needs to remind me, listen, seek the faith of God, follow God's leading, and I won't go wrong.
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Hey Dr. Stratton, this has been a great honor, a pleasure, a treasure.
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Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 Minute Contours.
