God Is My Guide

A few years ago, when my family attended First Baptist in Cartersville, a sweet family in the church sent out an urgent message to pray for their teenage son who was involved in a serious car accident. Garrett Geros was headed home from his friend's house when he dozed off and crashed his truck into a tree. The accident didn't take his life, but it left him with a broken leg, and his other leg required amputation.

Garrett, who played football for the Cartersville HS Hurricanes, was determined to stand beside his teammates the following year. It would have been understandable for him to become depressed upon realizing his dreams of again playing football or other competitive sports was unlikely, but this young man did the exact opposite.

After resetting his expectations, Garrett stood beside his teammates on the football field the following year while preparing for the next chapter in his life. At 18, he decided to take up snowboarding. Today, four years later, he has a silver medal from the Beijing Paralympic Winter Games. It is quite an accomplishment to be a medalist after only four years in a sport, but in addition to learning to adapt after losing his leg, Garrett also suffers from Tourette's syndrome.

The Bible is full of heroes who accomplished great things while suffering from physical setbacks:

• Moses received the Ten Commandments, led the Israelites out of Egypt, and was considered the most important prophet in Judaism — even though he suffered from a severe stutter.
• Samson was considered the strongest man in the Bible, yet he was born with a limp and was blind by the time he died.
• Ehud was an Israelite hero who was born with a shriveled right hand, but he was able to kill Moabite King Eglon with a sword. He then organized an Ephraim tribe that killed roughly 10,000 Moabite soldiers, restoring peace to the land.

"Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go," (Joshua 1:9).