Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Man in the Wheelchair

A disabled man had been refined to a wheelchair since birth. One day, a woman who had just lost her job was standing nearby him wailed, "I have lost my job! Now what will I do?" Then seeing him refined to his electric wheelchair, she said, "But I see the state that you are in, and I realize that things could be so much worse."

Being unable to speak, he typed into a computer these words, that were then spoken in an electronic voice.

"Ha!" the electronic voice said, as he typed. "Why do you pity me? When I was a small child, I received a wheelchair. 'I have legs!' I said to myself. Then when I was older, I received this machine that speaks for me. 'I have a voice!' I said to myself. Then when I was even older, I took my first ride on an airplane. 'I have wings!' I said to myself.

"Each day I wonder what new and wonderful gift God will give me.

"But you. You have real legs, but you don't use them. Instead of moving forward with your life, you stand there complaining. You have a real voice, but rather than using it to lift people up, you whine about your small problems. And you ignore the freedom that wings can give to you, to go anywhere and do anything is not a challenge to you. But you are ignorant of this.

"You stand there pitying me, but it is you whom I feel pity for. Because I have something you do not. I have eyes to see the blessings that God has given me throughout my life. But you are blind to all of your own."

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