Saturday, July 17, 2010

You can't do that!

Were you ever told as a child, "You can't do that!"?  Typically children will react one of two ways.  They'll either start to believe that or they'll set out to prove the person wrong.  This past Tuesday on the Discovery Channel show After the Catch (where some of the captains on The Deadliest Catch come together to talk about the show), the captains were remembering Capt. Phil Harris who passed away earlier this year.  When Phil first tried crab fishing, he was told by the captain of that boat that he (Phil) wasn't cut out for the job.  He was told he couldn't be a deckhand on a crab boat.  That made Phil more determined than ever!  He not only became a deckhand, but eventually became Captain of the Cornelia Marie.

About a month and a half ago I was told that some people thought we couldn't pull off our plans for Vacation Bible School (VBS).  We picked a very volunteer-heavy curriculum and had a rough start trying to find volunteers.  The comments hurt.  I cried.  I got angry.  I said some words that I will not repeat here.  Like a child who was just put down, at first I wanted to give up at first.  Others in the committee felt the same way.  Then we turned that energy around, more determined than ever to make this a wonderful experience.  After all, why were we doing this?  For the CHILDREN!  A week later we had about half the volunteers we needed including someone to portray Joseph as he would convey to the children the biblical stories of his journey from prison to palace.  Tomorrow night we will invite the children in as we teach them about God's love for them.  We will teach them that God gives us hope, God gives us gifts, God gives us wisdom, God gives us forgiveness, and God gives us family.

I've also been told that there will never be a cure for diabetes.  Yes, there are some cases of Type 2 that could possibly be stopped by helping those people lose weight and eat healthy diets.  However, there will still be Type 1s that long for a cure.  Type 2s that can't be "cured" by weight loss or diet.  Being told that I should concentrate on those that can be "easily" helped and forget about a true cure for diabetes could lead me down one of two paths.  I could agree with them and just teach others about proper nutrition and exercise.  However, I chose to fight with all my might and help find a true cure so that diabetes is distant memory.

How do you react when someone tells you that you can't do that?

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