{"id":227886,"date":"2023-10-05T13:51:34","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T17:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/?p=227886"},"modified":"2024-08-13T15:59:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T19:59:07","slug":"say-i-wont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/say-i-wont\/","title":{"rendered":"Say I Won\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew I was going to have to fight hard to figure out what God had planned for me <\/span>from the day He first started to \u201cknit me together in my mother\u2019s womb,\u201d as Psalm 139 <\/span>states. I also realized other promises in God\u2019s Word don\u2019t contain exclusions like \u201cunless <\/span>you\u2019re an amputee.\u201d In Jeremiah 29:11, He said His plans were to \u201cprosper\u201d me and \u201cnot to <\/span>harm\u201d me, to give me \u201ca hope and a future.\u201d I needed to trust that His plan was coming to <\/span>pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

My occupational therapist had me doing exercises like bicep curls by placing an empty <\/span>weight bar inside my arms at the elbows. He would also have me roll a small tennis ball <\/span>covered in rubber spikes between my stumps with the goal of not dropping it. All the while, <\/span>I was pushing and squeezing the ball as hard as I could. This exercise had two purposes: to <\/span>help get my range of motion back in my arms, and to desensitize the ends of my stumps, <\/span>which were still very raw and sensitive. My arms and legs had to be toughened up to stop the <\/span>pain. It\u2019s hard to wrap your brain around the fact that you have to intentionally hurt yourself <\/span>so that you won\u2019t unintentionally hurt yourself later!<\/span><\/p>\n

Because the exercises were so difficult and painful, at first I could only handle about ten <\/span>seconds at a time. By that point, I was down to one pain medication, only for the rehab <\/span>exercises. But towards the end of July, I took my last pain pill, which was a huge step in the <\/span>right direction for me. I refused to become another statistic! <\/span><\/p>\n

How Are You Not Dead?!<\/b><\/p>\n

In August 2020, as school was getting ready to start, my boys started getting ready for <\/span>their sports teams to ramp up again. I had always been their soccer and football coach since Asher was four; now, at age ten, he was beginning to talk about trying out for a competitive <\/span>soccer league. I had never coached at that level, and didn\u2019t have the desire to; I was the dad <\/span>who just wanted to be with my kids and if that meant coaching, then that\u2019s what I would do. <\/span>Sign me up!<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I took Asher to the tryout, I knew that I needed to have a difficult but honest talk <\/span>with him. We sat down and I cautiously asked, \u201cDo you care if I come watch you?\u201d I had no <\/span>idea what he might say.<\/span><\/p>\n

He looked surprised and answered, \u201cWell, of course. Why would you not come watch me?\u201d <\/span>\u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to embarrass you,\u201d I said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want people to tease you <\/span>about the way your dad looks or that your dad\u2019s in a wheelchair or talk behind your back.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Asher\u2019s response warmed my heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t care less, Dad. You have to be out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That moment was a huge motivator for me, because at that time, I was my own worst <\/span>enemy. I was ashamed of how I looked. I was insecure and didn\u2019t want people to see my <\/span>scars. I didn\u2019t want the side-eyes or stares. I didn\u2019t want people to pull their kids in closer to <\/span>them when I passed by in my wheelchair. I had already imagined all those things and more <\/span>were going to happen all the time. I projected my fears onto everyone and assumed they <\/span>would look at me with pity at best\u2014or judgment at worst.<\/span><\/p>\n

Look at that last paragraph again. Do you see how many sentences start with \u201cI?\u201d That <\/span>was the first problem with my mindset. <\/span>At Asher\u2019s practices, just as we had discussed, I was \u201cout there.\u201d And I hated every <\/span>second of it, because I was dealing with so many toxic thoughts about myself and fears about all the other parents. For the first time in my life, I hated watching my son play sports <\/span>because I was nervous about what people were thinking and saying about me.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that became yet another line-in-the-sand moment, as I was forced to confront <\/span>myself. Alright, Gary, what\u2019s it going to be? Are you going to keep faking and pretending or are you going to just own it? I had to come to grips with the cold, hard fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do about how I looked. This was my life now, and I had to choose to live it like the old hymn says, \u201cJust As I Am.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While this may sound incredibly cheesy to some folks, one of the biggest motivators I <\/span>found to press on came when I watched The Greatest Showman, the musical about the <\/span>legendary circus icon P.T. Barnum\u2014specifically, when the circus performers sang \u201cThis is <\/span>Me.\u201d Somehow, watching a scene about people that society considered \u201cfreaks\u201d <\/span>unapologetically celebrating their uniqueness gave me a shot of courage. (Yes, I love <\/span>musicals, okay? I always have. I don\u2019t know why. And now I have gone public with that guilty pleasure.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I decided I was not going to hide my appearance anymore. I would let anyone, anywhere <\/span>stare at me anytime they wanted. I was going to go for it. So on all my social media, I posted <\/span>a full-body picture of me without my bandages that showed all my open wounds and every <\/span>scar. Everything. All of it. This is me. I also quoted some of the brilliant lyrics from the song.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically, after that post, the seven degrees of separation principle kicked in. <\/span>One of my childhood friends had moved to Los Angeles and by that point had been an <\/span>animator for Disney for years. Along the way, he had become friends with Keala Settle, the <\/span>actress who played the bearded lady and sang the lead on \u201cThis is Me\u201d in the movie. She <\/span>commented on my Instagram post, and we chatted there for a bit. Then we set up a <\/span>FaceTime call because Keala wanted to encourage me. That was an unexpected, huge <\/span>blessing I never imagined might happen. The entire experience was a major confidence <\/span>booster at the perfect time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through a GoFundMe page we had set up at the time, I was able to purchase a minivan <\/span>that could accommodate a wheelchair. That allowed me to go to every one of Asher\u2019s soccer <\/span>practices and all the games. <\/span>When the competitive season ended, recreational season started with \u201crec soccer\u201d and <\/span>\u201crec flag football.\u201d I had coached both sports in that league previously. Our community has <\/span>a massive youth sports complex for baseball, soccer, and football, with multiple fields for <\/span>each sport. Every field is covered in extremely expensive Astroturf, and as a result, the <\/span>complex has a lot of rules like \u201cno lawn chairs\u201d and \u201cno pets\u201d\u2014nothing that might damage <\/span>the turf. Knowing this, I assumed there was no way they were going to allow my two- <\/span>hundred-pound body on my four-hundred-pound wheelchair to get anywhere near those <\/span>fields.<\/span><\/p>\n

But with my new shot of confidence still in play, I decided to give it a go. <\/span>I emailed the commissioner, who knew me, and told him about my dilemma. He <\/span>responded that he didn\u2019t know the solution, but would take it to the board of directors. <\/span>To my surprise, the board approved my request\u2014but had to get permission from the <\/span>city be<\/span>cause it\u2019s a municipal facility. Soon, I got a phone call giving me access to the fields. <\/span>So, still brimming with confidence, I took it a step further and reached out to the soccer <\/span>league and football league to ask if any coaching spots were still open. The Space Coast <\/span>United Soccer League president said, \u201cHey, Gary, we definitely want you back. But also, we <\/span>want to subsidize your kids to play soccer here. Keep us informed about their sizes for cleats, <\/span>uniforms, jerseys, balls, anything you need, and we\u2019ll take care of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary Miracle is a Christian advocate and motivational speaker, born in Michigan and raised in Florida by a close-knit family. Today, when Gary isn\u2019t at home with his family in central Florida, he is on the road at churches, conferences, and conventions sharing how he discovered the life God always had for him, in spite of personal tragedy and trauma. His new book, <\/span>No More Bad Days<\/span>, will be available for purchase nationwide October 10, 2023<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew I was going to have to fight hard to figure out what God had planned for me from the day He first started to \u201cknit me together in my mother\u2019s womb,\u201d as Psalm 139 states. I also realized other promises in God\u2019s Word don\u2019t contain exclusions like \u201cunless you\u2019re an amputee.\u201d In Jeremiah\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":227887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,412,414,452,34,437],"tags":[],"coauthors":[363],"class_list":["post-227886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-future","category-disabilities","category-eating-disorders-body-image","category-identity","category-perspective","category-purpose-calling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227888,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227886\/revisions\/227888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227886"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liveoriginal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=227886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}