Ben Carson

Saturday evening we watched a movie about Ben Carson, MD, the world's most renowned pediatric neurosurgeon.

I am always stirred somehow when I watch a movie.  As John Eldredge likes to say, they often sink deep into our hearts because they are telling a story...our story.  That's why they speak to us so deeply.

Ben Carson was raised in Detroit by a single mother who couldn't read.  She worked hard to provide for he and his older brother.  She challenged them to excell and not just go through life.  Ben was in need of encouragement.  He didn't feel like he was smart enough to do anything.

In a scene of what to some would look like child abuse, Ben's mom limited his and his brother's TV watching...severely.  And she challenged them to read books and write reports to her about what they read.  Ben became a walking encyclopedia.  He tapped his mental resources and excelled.  He discovered the joy of learning.  He applied himself to his passion and found his way into neurosurgery.  As a pioneer in neurosurgery he performed delicate brain operations to restore a somewhat normal life to children with seizures and other neuro-based issues.  He pioneered procedures that were cutting-edge with confidence in his abilities and in the Father who had given the gifts to him.

I was sad when I finished watching the movie.  I wasn't encouraged as I thought I would be but rather felt like I had failed to utilize my mental abilities to their fullest.

What does it take to motivate someone to their best?  What is your best...or my best?  How do we discover that?  I don't have an answer and so I could end this blog right here.

However, as I look back on my life, how I was raised and how I raised my children I think of the passage in Proverbs.  There it says to train up a child in the way he/she should go and they when they are old they will not depart from it.  In the era of my childhood that was to discipline and control the behavior of the child and when they grew up they wouldn't be a irresponsible adult.  They would behave.  I believe that is based in fear...fear of reprisal, fear of discipline, fear of failure, just plain old binding up fear.

As I look at all that I have processed about my life over the years I am more aware of what the fear really did to me and does to many other children who are raised as I was.  The fear is paralyzing.  It makes a monster out of risk.  It makes failure unacceptable.

I remember a picture when I was a child.  We were having a violent storm.  The wind was blowing strongly and the trees were waving in the wind.  My family was down in the basement watching TV when I went upstairs in the dark to look out to see the storm.  We had a beautiful silver maple tree in our front yard.  Uniform bark, nice round ball towering high over the front yard, tight limbs for climbing in...and it was laying on the ground.

After the storm had subsided we went outside to survey the damage.  It had popped off right at the ground.  In the dark we couldn't see why.  The next morning it became evident.  Whoever had planted the tree, took care to get it in the ground.  The burlap bag over the ball of the roots had been left intact.  It had long ago deteriorated but not the copper wire that it was held on with.  That copper wire was intact right around the trunk of the tree still at the size of the tree when it was planted.  The tree had grown around it over the years adding many rings of growth but the tree was really no stronger than the size of the original tree when planted.  And when the weight of the adult tree took the brunt of the storm, the size of the tree when planted wasn't strong enough to resist it.  It fell in all its beautiful glory...choked off at its base from real growth.

I needed to be turned loose when I was a kid.  Would I have gotten into more trouble?  Possibly.  Would I have gone down the "wrong" path?  Possibly.  Would I have turned out differently?  Probably.

Kids need encouragement to excell.  They need involvement from parents to develop their abilities.  They need wise mentors to help them discover their strengths and weaknesses and to be coached how to manage both.  I believe the passage in Proverbs was really talking about discovering how God has created a child with the gifts, strengths and abilities, and gently guiding them in that path in partnership with the Father.  The end result is that the child finds their place in life and excells to achievements that God has placed in their hearts.

As I said earlier, I don't have the answers for a perfect outcome.  I am still depending on my Father to lead me in the direction that I need to go so that the great accomplishments that he has for me to contribute to will still come to pass.  I consider them to be unfinished and still available to be achieved until the day I die.  I have to take it one day at a time, focusing on what can still be rather than looking back on what could have been.

One of my jokes is to say that I still have time.  Colonel Sanders of KFC fame didn't begin his company of finger lickin' good chicken until he was 65.  What does God still have for you to accomplish in the years, months, days or hours ahead?