Kraig.Cummings@f34.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Kraig Cummings) (07/24/90)
Index Number: 9435
Dear Fellow Abled Persons,
I am new to this echo and really appreciate Floyd P. Garrett for
putting it on his board.
Anyone that is on this echo, I am convinced, has the inner grit
to fight back against adversity. Otherwise you simply wouldn't
BE here! I respect all of you tremendously for that.
In the hopes (perhaps naive) of inspiring others, I would like to
relate my story to you since I have successfully battled back
from the initially devastating effects of a traumatic brain
injury, 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 42% of my body and grand
mal seizures resultant from the head injury. At the time of my
injury I was a USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam war. I was
a trained killer. I was a hard headed, wilful person with no
particular religious belief.
I was a varsity athlete (football, wrestling and crew) in high
school and as a fighter pilot I considered myself to be in
excellent physical, psychological and emotional health. In a
millisecond that all changed. After awaking from three weeks of
amnesia I found that I was in constant severe pain (burns) and
couldn't use my left arm or leg (paralysis from brain injury).
Boy was I angry! But, something that I don't understand (maybe
it's the survival instinct) made me fight back.
After the burns healed, the doctors told me that my brain injury
was permanent and that I'd never walk again. Just what a fighter
pilot and former "jock" needed to hear. After crying and feeling
sorry for myself for a day and telling the chaplain where to go,
I figured I had two options either I could be a" vege" and ward
of the state or I could fight back with all my will and make the
best I could of the rest of my life. I chose the latter.
However, I was a very bitter, brash, angry at the world, person
(ever been there before?). There was constant turmoil in me. My
wife left taking the kids and there I was!
I started looking back at my life, doing a lot of introspection
and self analysis trying to answer unanswerable questions. It
finally came down to this. God had other plans for me. Being
rather hard headed he had to take drastic steps to get my
attention and cut me down to size so that I was humbled before
the Lord. I certainly did not know it at the time, because all
of my energies were devoted to recovering what use of my body
that I could, but the Lord already knew where he planned on using
me.
Through 3 years of work with various therapists and a lot of
personal determination to not let my medical condition interfere
with my life with Gods help I overcame many of my disabilities.
God was now ready to mold me to his, as opposed to my, purposes.
He led me to the Church where I was able to serve him by being a
Deacon then an Elder and finally Chairman of the Board. During
this time I also served him as Chairman of the Worship Committee,
member of the Stewardship Committee, Planning Committee and
Pulpit Committee. I mention this not to brag but rather to show
how the Lord has used me in ways I never would have thought when
I was in the USAF. I have turned my life over to Christ and He
has fulfilled me beyond my wildest dreams.
I know that each of our lives are in Christ's hands. It is
natural to wonder "why me, Lord" at times like these. Only God
can answer that and we can only surmise His purposes in
hindsight. Please rest assured that God has a purpose, as yet
unknown, for each of us and that He expects us to fight back
from your adversity with all the physical, mental, emotional and
religious strength we each have.
Remember, even in our lowest, self pitying moments, and we all
have them, God is with us and will listen to our prayers.
I don't know the "whys" but I do know that God helps those that
help themselves. Helping yourself, in my case, often involved
swallowing my pride and asking for help not only from the Lord
but also from friends. It is easier to shut oneself out at a
time like this rather than put forth the effort to "get on with
one's life.
# Origin: Atlanta Medical Forum -- (404) 351-9757 (8:7301/204)
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Uucp: ..!{decvax,oliveb}!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!34!Kraig.Cummings
Internet: Kraig.Cummings@f34.n129.z1.fidonet.orgera@ncar.ucar.edu (Ed Arnold) (08/09/90)
Index Number: 9602 In article <13061@bunker.UUCP> Kraig.Cummings@f34.n129.z1.fidonet.org writes: >Index Number: 9435 > >In the hopes (perhaps naive) of inspiring others, I would like to >relate my story to you since I have successfully battled back >from the initially devastating effects of a traumatic brain >injury, 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 42% of my body and grand >mal seizures resultant from the head injury. At the time of my >injury I was a USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam war. I was >a trained killer. I was a hard headed, wilful person with no >particular religious belief. > >However, I was a very bitter, brash, angry at the world, person >(ever been there before?). There was constant turmoil in me. My >wife left taking the kids and there I was! > >I started looking back at my life, doing a lot of introspection >and self analysis trying to answer unanswerable questions. It >finally came down to this. God had other plans for me. Being >rather hard headed he had to take drastic steps to get my >attention and cut me down to size so that I was humbled before >the Lord. > >God was now ready to mold me to his, as opposed to my, purposes. >I don't know the "whys" but I do know that God helps those that >help themselves. Helping yourself, in my case, often involved >swallowing my pride and asking for help not only from the Lord >but also from friends. It is easier to shut oneself out at a >time like this rather than put forth the effort to "get on with >one's life. OK, I'll bite on this one; am feeling surly today. :-) Kraig, it was an interesting story. However, you should think a little harder about what you said. You said, "... [God] had to take drastic steps to get my attention and cut me down to size." What you have said here, is that God does nasty things to people to "get their attention." Each year, there are thousands of children born who have spina bifida, or CP, or Tay-Sachs, or dozens of other developmental disabilities. I think you would agree that these children are perfectly innocent. Then, is God doing this to them? Should we buy into this theory of "I was a bad person, so God punished me" for them too? Remember, it's being done to the child, not the parents or anyone else. (In fact, sociologists tell us that something like 70% of the fathers of severely handicapped children don't stick around very long, so it's no skin off their rears.) To presume that God would do these things to innocent children to teach someone *else* a lesson, stretches the argument so thin that it no longer works, and esp. not in the face of medical knowledge that explains why these things happen and how they can be prevented. Therein lies the fallacy of your argument. There are many people who consider themselves every bit as Christian as yourself, who don't buy into the "God did it to teach me a lesson" theory, because the facts don't fit into the theory. Your argument becomes what I like to label the "insurance company mentality." Without spending too much time on this, you also need to consider that this sort of religious philosophy can result in political consequences which have nothing to do with the compassion that Christians are supposed to have learned from Jesus. This kind of religious philosophy can be distorted into the sort of logic embodied in a statement made by Eileen Marie Gardner, who was a special assistant to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan era. I've posted this comment before on the Usenet side of this conference, and will repeat it again for your benefit: Eileen Marie Gardner wrote of persons with disabilities, "They falsely assume that the lottery of life has penalized them at random. This is not so. Nothing comes to an individual that he has not, at some point in his development, summoned. Each of us is responsible for his life situation ... There is no injustice in the universe. As unfair as it may seem, a person's external circumstances do fit his level of inner spiritual development ... Those of the handicapped constituency who seek to have others bear their burdens and eliminate their challenges are seeking to avoid the central issue of their lives." The practical consequences of this sort of thinking, which prevailed during the Reagan era, were circumstances such as the "Reagan Broke My Wheelchair" article which I posted a while back. As a pilot in time of war, you deliberately (or perhaps not, if you were drafted, but that would be unusual for a pilot) put yourself at *extreme* risk, caused by the *free-will* of other persons. Your plane being shot down (or whatever happened) was due to the deliberate action of another person. Claiming that God did this to cut you down to size, when 58,000 other men lost everything in that war, and many were even more seriously injured than you (some of whom were undoubtedly much better persons than either you or I), trivializes those 58,000 deaths. -- Ed Arnold * NCAR * POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000 * 303-497-1253(voice) 303-497-1137(fax) * era@ncar.ucar.edu [128.117.64.4] * era@ncario.BITNET era@ncar.UUCP * Edward.Arnold@f809.n104.z1.FIDONET.ORG