Find Ways To Discover Advantages To Your Disadvantages

You and I constantly bump into people submerged in self-pity. They are hopelessly lost in the swamp of discontent. All they can tell you is how wrong this was, how unfair she was, how someone's promise was broken, and on and on.

We usually can do very little to change our lot. We can only change our reaction to our lot. We cannot change our past, for example. I don't care how brilliant we are, our past stands in concrete. We cannot delete it. But we can learn to see our past from God's perspective, and use the disadvantages of yesterday in our life, today and forever.

I want to share a story with you about a man by the name of Tom Sullivan. He was addressing five thousand men and women in Dallas, as he spoke to the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table of the insurance companies around the world.

Sullivan has been on the "Good Morning America" show. He's also done guest television apperances on "M-A-S-H" and "Fame." He was in the film Airport '77. He's a world-class athlete, with two national championship records in wrestling. He was on the 1958 Olympic wrestling team. He earned a degree at Harvard in clinical psychology. He's a musician. He's an author. He runs six miles a day on the beach. He swims. He sky dives and has thirty-seven jumps to his credit. I should also tell you that Tom Sullivan is blind.

Five thousand successful insurance people were on the edge of their seats applauding, enjoying, laughing, and learning as they listened to a man who couldn't even see the podium in front of him, to say nothing of seeing the smiles on their faces.

He had one major point in his talk: "You've got a disadvantage? Take advantage of it! People don't buy similarity. They buy differences." The disadvantage is what makes you distinct and different. The similarities are no big deal.

What's your story? Everybody has a story. And sure, it's got some injustice in it. The message I want to leave with you is simply this: Disadvantages need not disqualify. Imagine the lives you could touch and strengthen simply by being all you can be.

God knows the end from the beginning, and He knows you and your needs far better than even you do. Don't ask, "Why is this happening to me?" Rather, ask the question, "How should I respond?'" Otherwise, you'll miss the beneficial role suffering plays in life.

Blessings,
Dalinda