Lanyards Overcoming Handicaps
Robert Lewis Stevenson was handicapped from youth by poor health, he struggled all his life against tuberculosis. Despite this, he graduated from law school and then devoted his entire life to writing. He said that there was never a day that he felt well enough to work, but he said that if he had not overcome that feeling, nothing would have been accomplished.
Fortunately, not all of us suffer from such poor health all of our life. Those who do, usually learn to live with their disabilities. The rest of us may have a time in our life where our health fails us and we feel helpless and depressed. Depression leads to inactivity and as Stevenson said, nothing is accomplished.
The other day, my wife and I went to our granddaughter's wedding. There, I saw a young man struggling on those arm crutches we see vets using too often. He said, "Don' t you remember me? I helped you move from Arizona."
I did remember him as a healthy young missionary. In fact, I had delivered some of his personal effects to his family when we got to Idaho. He and his companion had helped move our furniture into the moving trucks.
I learned from his family members that he had been in an automobile accident. He was told that he would never walk again. But this young man was tough, had heart and he had faith. Mix that together and you have a young man who can walk-although it takes every fiber of his being to do it. As the moves, the perspiration pours down his face. His face grimaces from the physical torture. He walks!
I was told that he has made great progress, that he is doing much better now than a year ago. At the wedding reception, later in the day, he told me that he had just graduated from college and was applying to medical school.
When I was in college, and again five years later when I was in graduate school, a fellow student who had never graduated because of his cerebral palsy was still there trying to finish his degree. He was in terrible straits but he refused to give up. As his situation deteriorated, he struggled harder. It was a pitiful sight of extreme courage.
My sister suffered from polio. She was crippled from age three and passed away at age nineteen. She became an "adult" when she was very young because of her health problems. When I was a boy, I use to help her with her iron and leather braces which were always falling apart. Finally, her thirteenth surgery allowed her to walk with a special shoe. She was a good writer so we know her thoughts. Her body was weak but her brain and will was strong.
So many suffer under so many different conditions. We all should be concerned and try to do our part to buoy up those that should have our encouragement. They may not want our sympathy but they will welcome our love and support.
Each of us is handicapped in some way. I love music but have no talent for music-but I have instilled the love for music in my children who are musically talented and they have done the same for their children. Two of us tone deaf men at church are looking for two more tone deaf men so that we can start a quartet. I can't overcome this deficiency. I look for other ways to make something valuable for this human race.
Maybe that is the answer. If we can't do what we would like to do, maybe we can find something that we can do despite our handicaps. We need to be persistent at what we want to do and have faith in ourselves to be able to do it. We may still fail and have to try something else. But we will die trying.
I'm handicapped too because I'm over weight. Let's see. I would like to be much thinner.
O.K.
I'll be hungry instead of fat.
Fly Old Glory!
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