Two Broken Legs Later.

As a boy, I used to love The Wide World of Sports." It had a catch phrase that always stuck out and it was "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat."

 Here is a little of the back story from Wikipedia.com.   "The Thrill of Victory..."
The melodramatic introduction became a national catchphrase that is often heard to this day. While "the thrill of victory" had several symbols over the decades, ski jumper Vinko Bogataj, whose dreadful misjump and crash during a competition on March 21, 1970 was featured from the early 1970s onward heard over the sentence "...and the agony of defeat", became a hard-luck hero of sorts, and an affectionate icon for stunning failure. Previously, the footage played with that phrase was that of another ski jumper who made a long, almost successful jump, but whose skis lost vertical alignment shortly before landing, leading to a crash.

Twenty five years ago today, Martin Luther King Day, we took our then eight year old son Drew snow skiing for his inaugural trip.  A beautiful fresh powder had fallen.  For several hours we had a blast, then it happened.  He took a fall in front of us and we soon discovered by it's position that he had broken a leg.  In shock, we stood helpless as the Ski Patrol worked with him.  The lead young man looked at me with a glassy, stoic stare, then mumbled the words, I think his other one is broken also!

Two boot top fractures led to nine weeks in casts up to his thighs. Today,  praise the Lord that that eight year old boy healed fine, is thirty three, and now has two boys of his own, nine and soon to be seven.

God taught Renee and I a lot during that period of life.  One lesson was that just as Drew was helpless on that ski slope to do anything to immediately heal himself, men and women are still lost without Christ and unable to fix themselves. As a preacher of the Gospel isGod has called me to faithfully proclaim the Bible.  People need truth, and God's word provides it.

Secondly, if you are raising a child with special needs, you are a special person!  God has chosen you because of how dear you are to Him.  Don't quit, your child needs you more than ever and God can supply your source of strength when you feel as if you cannot go on.

Thank the Lord that as Dottie Rambo wrote, "He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw my Need."