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The Importance
of Perseverance The stars of TLC's 'Little
People, Big World' on why we should never give up. By Amy and Matt Roloff with
Tracy Sumner
Amy, the mom Winston Churchill, the famous World War II–era British prime minister, gave his
most famous—and shortest—speech at a
college graduation ceremony, telling the soon-to-be graduates: "Never give
up. Let me continue by saying:
Never, never give up! And in conclusion I say to you: Never, never,
never give up!" Not only was that great advice,
but it also defines one of the family values in the Roloff household:
perseverance. And while none of us Roloffs have ever had to lead a nation
through the darkest days of a terrible world war, we have had opportunity to
learn what perseverance is all about as—we've endured our own difficulties and
challenges. Perseverance means that you keep
going, even when things are difficult—especially
when things are difficult. It means getting up every single day without asking,
"Why me?" or saying, "I can't go on!" but instead saying,
"What can I do to make today a great one, despite all that is going on in
my life now?" and "Thank you, God, for thinking enough of me to allow
me to have to endure the pain and difficulty I'm going through now." And
it means knowing that there is a purpose in what you're enduring and making
sure you keep your eyes open to find it. Being little people, Matt and I
have had more to persevere through than most people. We have had to deal daily
with our physical limitations, Matt has had to go through surgeries and other
painful medical procedures, and we've both had to take being "looked down
on" because we are smaller and because we are "different." However, this isn't all bad news.
We have learned that there are, in a very real way, advantages in what we've
gone through when it comes to learning to persevere through difficult times. Now, most average-sized people
might look at us and ask, "How in the world can you say there's an
advantage to being little?" The answer to that is simple: When you are a
little person in a big world—or when there is anything about you that makes you
"different" to the point where people can't help but notice or that
limits you in some area—that difference tends to make you stronger mentally and
give you "muscles" of perseverance and resiliency that most people
don't have because they've not had to endure any real difficulties—at least not
on the level that we have. Someone who has lived what looks
like a "perfect" life—someone who is tall and handsome, with a
perfectly healthy body that has never been sick one day, and who came from a
loving family in which the parents are still together—will probably find the
going a little tougher if something bad or difficult were to happen in his
life. If everything is going well for someone like that, and suddenly he loses
his job or his wife gets sick, then he's going to have a tough time and maybe
spend a lot of his energy feeling sorry for himself. In our family, however, we have
the attitude that we don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves. Do we ever
wish some of the situations we face could be different from what they are? Yes!
Do we ever pray that God will give us relief from some difficulty we're
enduring? Absolutely! But one thing we don't do is allow ourselves the luxury
of self-pity. Instead we allow the difficulties to make us stronger. Matt, the dad There is an old saying that goes,
"Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I think that is why I'm
where I am today. When I was a child, I went through many surgeries and
countless hours of rehabilitation and other treatment, and even then God was
using that suffering to make me stronger. Even back then, I never had a sense
of "poor me!" and today I am reaping the benefits of persevering and
overcoming that adversity. Now when
tough or negative things happen, I don't spend a lot of time moaning and crying
about it. I'm able to absorb them and keep a positive attitude, knowing that
because of what I've been through already, I'll have the strength to persevere
and overcome whatever happens to me and to my family. If that means that Amy or
I or one of the kids is sick and needs medical attention, we don't go into
self-pity mode but just get it taken care of. If that means I lose a job I
needed to support my family, I say, "It might be rough for a while, but
something better is going to come along," then get out there looking for a
new opportunity. Perseverance is yet another value
we have tried to instill in our children, and we do that by both encouraging
and challenging them when they are going through difficult times at school or
with their friends. For example, there have been times
when Zachary has struggled with the way kids treat him as a little person. We
do give him some sympathy, but more important we give him a message very
similar to the ones my parents gave me when I came home from school complaining
and crying about the way the other kids treated me, and it's essentially this:
"You've got to toughen up. You're not the only one to go through tough
times, and it will get better." In other words, Never give up! From 'Little People, Big
Values' by the Roloff Family with Tracy Sumner. Copyright © 2007 by R6
Productions, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Fireside, an Imprint of Simon
& Schuster, Inc. http://www.beliefnet.com/story/218/story_21877.html |
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