Focus

 

I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. 

(2 Corinthians 12:9–10, TM)

At twenty-two, Christopher Nolan was already hailed as a literary genius. With Britain’s coveted Whitbread Prize for his autobiography, Under the Eye of the Clock, his work has been compared to that of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats. Yet it takes Christopher Nolan a quarter of an hour to write one word. Born with severe cerebral palsy, he spends much of his life strapped in a wheelchair, his face and limbs subject to uncontrollable spasms. He can’t speak, but he can type. As a child, he cried bitterly that he was not like other children until his mother said, “Listen here, you can see, you can hear, you can understand, and you’re loved by me and your dad just as you are.” 

Gradually, he looked at his limbs and decided that he liked himself! What a decision! He shifted his attention away from his limitations and focused on what was possible—what he could do with his life.

He says, “My mind is like a spin-dryer at full speed; millions of beautiful words cascade into my lap. Images gunfire across my consciousness, and while trying to discipline them, I jump in awe at the soul-filled beauty of the mind’s expanse.” Don’t you wish you could write like that? Let go of the if only’s, the comparisons and the judgments.

Gass, B. (1998). A Fresh Word For Today: 365 Insights For Daily Living (p. 270). Bridge-Logos Publishers.