Happy Friday Friends:
I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day and a great week coming to a close for you.
Do you like to watch American Idol? My Beautiful Bride and Tender Warriors do...me, not so much. Last night however I got home from running my 13-year old to football practice and then to baseball practice (Blessed! I get to do these things; not have to do these things!) and we all gathered on the living room floor, ate dinner and watched American Idol. I am really glad we did.
The last contestant of the night was a young man named Lazaro Arbos. Lazaro has a severe stutter. They did a small segment about him, about his life, before he sang. In the interview with him he said, "Speaking with a stutter is really hard, the things that normal people would think would be so easy become so hard for me." Later, as tears filled his eyes and you could literally see brokenness crease his face he said, "No one wanted to hang out with me at school and I had no friends to go out with so I would be home. Since I was small I have always wanted to sing." My heart broke, my eyes watered. We think that the little things we say and do don't matter...this is a 21-year old man recounting his youth and the brokenness is so, so real. All because he doesn't speak like I do.
As he began to sing - his voice is absolutely incredible! When he sings he does not stutter. I am reminded that we are all abled and we are all disabled...just in different areas! - my spirit was just screaming, "What is normal?!" What is normal to me may or may not be normal to you. If I gathered 1,000 people together who stutter Lazaro would be "normal", I doubt very seriously he would be rejected and I would be the abnormal one. I want to say that they would reject me however my heart tells me they would not. I have found that those whose disabilities are readily apparent are more loving and accepting of others. The rest of us spend all of our time trying to hide our disabilities, pretending as though they don't exist, labeling others and then choosing our friends accordingly.
Why do we do this? We label people as fat, skinny, smart, dumb, geek, jock...the list goes on and on. If we fit within one of the labels then everyone within that label is "normal" and everyone else is weird, scary, different or whatever other derogatory term we might come up with just because they aren't just like us. It strikes me; to some I am fat, to some I am skinny, to some I am smart, to some I am dumb, to some I am a geek, and to some I am a jock. It all depends on our physical attributes, talents, gifts, abilities, disabilities and where they rest along a continuum. So I ask you Friends, who is normal?
I realize that I am not going to write one little message and change the world... I get that. What I do want to respectfully ask is that we all stop and really think about this for a moment; What will our influence be in the lives of people who are different from us? Every single life we cross paths with today has value, has meaning, has purpose and yes, there are both abilities & disabilities within that precious spirit. What will your influence be? Will the person who we won't look at, much less speak to, some day stand there with tears in their eyes, a broken spirit because we are another one in a long list of people that wanted nothing to do with them because they were different than us? I pray not. I pray there would never be another story like Lazaro's. I pray that nobody would feel rejected because of their disability. I pray that you and I are not rejected because of ours.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your families. I will always be willing to help you any way I can.
Have a great day, a wonderful weekend and please cherish your precious families & friends.
Kev
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