Opposition
Cripple
him and you have a
Sir Walter Scott.
Lock
him in a prison cell and you have a
John Bunyon.
Bury
him in the snows of
George Washington.
Raise
him in poverty and you have an
Abraham Lincoln.
Subject
him to bitter religious strife, and you have a
Franklin Delanore Roosevelt, the only
Burn
him so severely in a school house fire that doctors say he will never walk
again and you have a
Glenn Cunningham, who
set the world record in 1934 for running the mile in 4 minutes and 6.7 seconds.
Deafen
a genius composer and you have a
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Drag
him more dead than alive from a rice paddy, and you
have a
Rocky Blyer, running back for the great 1970 decade Pittsburgh
Steelers.
Have
them born into a society filled with racial prejudice and hatred, and you have
a
Booker T. Washington,
Harriet Tubman, or Martin Luther King, Jr.
Have
him born into a Nazi concentration camp, paralyze him from the waist down at
the age of four, and you have an
Eastman Pearlman, the incomparable pianist.
Call
him retarded and write him off as uneducated, and you have an
Albert Einstein.
Amputate
the cancer-ridden leg of a young Canadian, and you have a
Terry Fox, who ran
halfway across
Take
both legs away from him and you have a
Douglas Bader, an RAF fighter pilot who was captured three times by the Germans
and who escaped three times on artificial limbs.
Label
him too stupid to learn and you have a
Thomas Edison.
Blind
him at the age of 44, and you have a
John Milton, who 16
years later wrote the great novel, "Paradise Lost."
Call
him dull, hopeless, and flunk him out of school in the sixth grade, and you
have the famous statesman
Winston Churchill.
Tell a
boy who loves to draw that he has no talent, and you have a
Walt Disney.
Take a
man who did nothing wrong to anyone, and spit on Him, mock Him, humiliate Him,
be His trusted friend and then completely turn your back on Him, accept His
loving kindness and service for years and then crucify Him, and after all this,
have Him still forgive you, and you will have a
Jesus of Nazareth, the
Christ.