Category: Uncategorized

Power of prayer

The power of prayer can be truly amazing. I’ve talked many times in the past about my Aunt Shell and how her never give up attitude and her belief in God helped her in her battle with cancer. She inspires me to pray ever night and have belief that God will be there to help me with whatever I need. Listen to Freddie and me talk about our experience with prayer and how it has helped us in our lives. 

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New Years Resolutions

It’s 2017 everybody, and I think it’s going to be a great year! With the start of a new year we all start our New Years Resolutions to try to better ourselves in different ways. The New Years resolution that I think is most popular is dieting and losing the weight that people put on during the holidays. This resolution doesn’t work out as well for me because I should actually be trying to find the weight that everyone else is losing. I don’t take this as a way out of having a New Years Resolution though because there is more stuff to work on than just weight. My New Years resolutions usually revolve around me bettering myself. This year my plan is to get physically stronger. Check out this video of Freddie and me talking about our New Years Resolutions.

Who’s ready for Christmas?

We have been preparing for it since before Halloween and it’s almost here.  Yes that’s right, I’m talking about Christmas. It is crazy what the Christmas holiday has become and how we have come to overlook the true message the holiday is made to represent.  First we have Black Friday, an event that the autocorrect on my computer just capitalized because it’s so important.  This day truly shocks me because the day after we give thanks for everything that God has blessed us with we go  out and bruise and fight each other to save $10 on a pair of shoes.  Even as we move passed Black Friday into the Christmas season the behavior of people just gets worse when it comes to shopping.  I was in a store with my dad the other day and two ladies in front of us started arguing about who was in line first.  After a little while one lady stormed off angry about something so pointless.  These ladies were so stressed out by the holidays that they let it effect their attitudes and outlook on the day. 

Later on that day me and my dad were in a different store buying a few presents for my mom and sister.  Being that we are two men out trying to make sense of women’s fashion, we were looking for all the help that we could get.  As me and my dad we discussing color options, John, a fellow shopper and man who obviously saw our confusion said, “I’d go with your first choice.”  We started to talk to John and I began telling him about my recent graduation from Saint Mary’s College and my goals to become an inspirational speaker.  He was impressed by this this and wanted to show my blog to his son to get him motivated towards his goals. John, I hope my blog helps and that you keep up your positive attitude and pass it along to your son as well. Merry Christmas!  To finish my post for today, I want to remind everybody that Christmas isn’t about gifts or santa but it’s about the celebration of Jesus’ birth. That is the best gift we could possibly receive. 

This is Life

Since high school I have been using the motto, “Impossible is Nothing” to drive me through challenges in my life. The motto really caught on because my goals of graduating high school and college with my specific disabilities was seen as impossible. Now that I have done the “impossible” I feel like it’s time to change up my motto. After talking with my family we decided to go with, “This is Life.” This new motto fits with the way I live my life because no matter what challenges are thrown my way, I realize that it’s the way my life is going to be and I do my best to figure out a way to make it work. Everybody has their own struggles that make up their life and figuring out ways around those struggles are what makes our life interesting. It’s important to remember that life is what we make it and if we never give up on our goals, we can make it great. 

The Brotherhood

A few nights ago I was given the opportunity to speak at my old high school. Coach Alumbaugh, the head coach of the De La Salle football team heard about my goal to become an inspirational speaker and thought that his team could use some inspiration before their big game. As I always do with my speaking opportunities, I prepared a speech that I feel relates to my audience, practiced it adding a few changes and delivered it the night of the event. The story of my life usually leaves people with questions so I give time at the end to answer any question the audience has. After finishing the question portion of my speech something amazing happened; every boy on the team lined up at shake my hand and tell me, “thank you.” One of the boys even stopped to talk about a member of his family and a struggle that he was dealing with at home. I went to their game the next night to cheer them on. I noticed that these young men in high school took every word I said to heart and worked as a team to win a very tough game. I am so proud of my Spartan brothers; not only because they won the game, but because they relied on each other to do it. They made sure that the brotherhood that I experienced during my time at De La Salle stayed alive and continues to be a big part of the school. 

A World of Good People 

Before leaving for my trip across Europe my parents and I were worried about getting around with my wheelchair because not every country is as wheelchair friendly as the United States. My parents decided to adopt my motto of “impossible is nothing” and face the obstacles head on as they came along our journey. The first leg of our journey was to Paris, France. After my brother and his wife Raney surprised me by showing up across the world on our first night, they proceeded to be our travel guides, setting up reservations at great restaurants and planning our days. One of the first restaurants they took us to had us scheduled to sit upstairs. We figured that we’d break down my wheelchair and carry it up the steps but the manager of the restaurant wouldn’t hear of it. He spoke to one of the tables in front of the restaurant to see if they’d move upstairs so me and my family could sit. Before he even finished talking, in French so I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, the men were up moving a chair for my wheelchair and heading upstairs. The people in Paris continued to impress me with their generosity. 

On the second leg of our journey in Venice my parents and I were again worried about getting around. For those of you who have never been to Venice, it is all on the water with stair bridges connecting each island. We traveled all over Venice from island to island and just about every time we had to cross a bridge, my mom would grab me and some random person was there to help my dad get the wheelchair. The journey and the people were amazing but we still had one more stop to make before heading home. 

The last stop was in Rome! We weren’t as worried about this trip because we had “reinforcements” coming in to help. The Sitov family, a family that we have known for pretty much my entire life, met us and were ready to help in whatever way they could. On one of the days in Rome we got a tour guide to give us more information about this historic city. He got a little tiring throughout the days because he knew so much information, I couldn’t take it all in. However he was a blessing in disguise because he made sure that I had the best views and was able to see and learn about everything I wanted. He would move people our of our way so we could get through and see what he was talking about and we never asked a question that he couldn’t answer. After having such a great experience with people around the world I can’t wait to keep traveling and connecting with the people of the world around me.