“I can’t!” my son called out from behind his facemask as he plopped to his knees in the snow. How to convince a six-year-old that he has the will to carry his sled up the last of the hill?
How to convince him that with faith in his ability he will make it to the top, once again, on his own?
I could have shouted the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, “Believe that you can, and you are halfway there.” Yet, I fear that this bit of encouragement might have been lost on my son or perhaps swept away by the frigid wind passing through.
Faith, hard work, hope: These three concepts travel through my mind often, especially in my role as mother to three. How do I best teach these invaluable elements of life to my children?
Through example, sure. Through explanations, possibly (when they are willing to listen J). Or through their own trials and errors, attempts, successes and failures. Or, most likely, a combination of the three.
Blessedly, my children have not been faced with challenges that have put them to a life-transforming test, but I would be naive to think such times will not come for them.
I can only hope that it is in these years when we are together as a family under one roof that the foundational elements of faith, hard work and hope are being laid for each of them.
How about Austin Hatch–a survivor of two plane crashes and a proud player on the University of Michigan basketball team? Austin lost his entire family in those crashes yet he puts faith, hard work and hope at the forefront of everything he does.
He has set aside any self-pity for the profound loss and trauma he has experienced in order to live his life to its ultimate potential.
Pastor E.W. Kenyon wrote, “Faith will lead you where you cannot walk. Reason has never been a mountain climber.”
For Austin, trying to find the reasons why he is now without his family is wasted time and energy. He chooses to use faith, hard work and the hope both provide, to help him climb the mountains before him.
As my grandfather Dr. Norman Vincent Peale said, ”Faith can take the limitations from you and set you free from fear.”
Grandpa would have been an enormous fan of Austin Hatch’s, on and off the court. In his short life thus far, Austin has been tested–physically, emotionally and spiritually. His words and actions show that he has triumphed in these tests.
I don’t know what Austin’s parents used as a formula in their parenting, but whatever their recipe, it helped to bring this young man through the unimaginable, allowing him to live a full and noble life, while inspiring others to keep faith, hard work and hope at the forefront of every action and encounter that comes their way.
That sledding hill was no mountain, but it sure felt like it to my six-year-old son. As his life progresses, may he find inspiration in others who, like Austin, live out faith, hard work and hope, day in and day out.
