How many times in a day, in a week, or in your life have you asked “Why Me, Lord?” Three times, ten times, fifty times? Do you ask “Why Me, Lord?” after a bad performance on the field, after having a fight with your girl or boy friend, after a very difficult loss or defeat, or after doing poorly on an exam?
I have asked “Why Me, Lord?” and many other questions. Why God, was I born with the handicap of cerebral palsy? Why would God allow this to happen to me? Is the Lord listening to my prayers? When difficult times occur in our lives we automatically put the blame on God.
For years I wanted the Lord to heal me of my cerebral palsy. I was very upset and I was placing the blame on God. Then I came across a book entitled What Color is Your Parachute? that really changed my perspective.
“Let’s try this: imagine that you have, in your dining room, a fine wooden chair, which one day has its back broken off completely – I mean, into smithereens—by someone in the house. You run down the street, to call a carpenter who lives nearby. He comes and examines the chair. He pronounces the chair unrepairable. But, he says, I think I could make a fine wooden stool out of it as a remainder of the chair. And so he spends much time, shaping, polishing and sanding it, and fashioning out of the former chair a fine stool, more resplendent than anything you have ever dreamed. He inlays it with gold, and soon it is the treasure in your home.”
Let me underline a couple of key points in this parable. First of all, the carpenter didn’t break the chair. Someone else did that. But the carpenter came quickly, and with all his art and powers, to see if he could not only repair it, but made of it something even finer than it had been before. And he labored mightily, to that end.”
Throughout my life I had a longing desire to be put back together like the chair in the parable but God, our Carpenter, was beginning to transform my brokenness into a beautiful new creation created in the image of God.
After many years of prayer and study I began to realize more than ever that I needed to trust and rely on the Lord to answer life’s toughest questions. Life is not always fair. Should we ask “Why Me, Lord?” All we need to do is look at the life of Jesus. He walked this earth healing the sick, feeding the hungry, resisting the evil one, delivering a message of love and forgiveness, and then was whipped, scarred and hung on a cross. I ask you, is God unfair?
The Lord has a plan for each of our lives. When I stopped asking “Why Me, Lord?” and allowed the Lord to begin to work in my life. He started to do some amazing things. Intellectually it is hard to understand Paul’s words about “my power is made perfect in weakness” but I can tell you first hand it is very true.
I began to realize that we all have some kind of handicap to overcome. The only difference is that you can see mine. I have found the answer to hurdling handicaps . . . Jesus Christ. He helped me hurdle my handicaps, and He can help you do the same with yours.
Quoted from my book, More Than An Average Guy by Janet Kastner, I say, “Lord, if you can use me more being handicapped than not, if I can win more people for You, so be it.”
When I allow the Lord to fill me with His grace and allow Him to use me, His power and light shines bright through my weakness or handicap. In 1985, I felt God leading me to begin Hurdling Handicaps Speaking Ministries. The ministry has taken me across theUnited States sharing and encouraging others to hurdle life’s handicaps. By being open to the Lord’s calling, He is now impacting His kingdom and other’s lives through me.
“Larry and Hurdling Handicaps Speaking Ministry played a key role in the success of our new FCA golf camps in Missouri and Illinois this summer. His “hurdling of handicaps” in order to physically play golf, along with his powerful testimony of his faith in Christ, helped impact many campers and staff. Particularly 3 campers in Missouri shared during open MIC how watching Larry attempt to play golf made them realize how insignificant some of their minor problems were and how important it was to be a person of faith. Mike Connell of Naperville, IL said ‘…speakers like Larry really hit me in a way you wouldn’t believe … (he) really touched me’!”
Dean Bouzeus, Director of the FCA Golf Ministry
“Larry’s message is communicated with passion, clarity, and boldness – straight from the heart and he holds nothing back. His sincerity to see young people walk with the Lord is vibrantly apparent and received. God uses Larry to help young people to understand that God loves them.”
Dan Britton, FCAState Director ofVirginia
The Lord is using my brokenness for a greater glory and good. It is okay to ask the Lord the difficult questions “Why Me, Lord?” but we need to be prepared and open to hear His answers. His answers are not always the answers we want to hear. The Lord that I know is bigger than the any problem we might have. “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue” — Engene O’Neil.