I’ll be blunt.
I hate January.
I hate the cold, the 14 hours of daily darkness, the ice, the subzero windchills, the dismantling of Christmas lights, back to school and return to work.
Yep, I despise January. It’s a big challenge. However, for 62 Januarys, I have met the challenge and fought through the 31 days of misery.
How?
Well, like being gripped with a case of the flu, God reminds me that this, too, shall pass.
And it does.
The frustrating challenges of my life have included learning how to tie my shoelaces (I can still hear my dad asking me if I planned to have my wife tie my shoes everyday), learning how to ride a bike, write in cursive, multiplication of fractions, fighting acne, battling depression as a freshman and sophomore in high school, homesickness, employment aggravations, the death of grandparents and then parents.
You probably have fought similar battles. The pain, aggravation and darkness eventually pass.
If you viewed this past Sunday’s edition of “60 Minutes” on CBS, it should give us pause. The long running news magazine offered an inspiring story on quarterback Alex Smith of the Washington football team.
Smith, the first player chosen in the 2005 NFL Draft, has donned jerseys for San Francisco, Kansas City and Washington. He has fired the football around NFL stadiums to the tune of 35,650 yards.
On Nov. 18, 2018, he suffered a spiral and compound fracture to the tibia and fibula of his right leg. Smith developed life-threating necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) that resulted in sepsis (injury to the body’s tissues and organs). Surgery was required 17 times over a nine-month period. Doctors contemplated amputation. Smith refused.
After thousands of hours of rehab, Smith returned to the football field this past October and led Washington to several victories and the playoffs.
Physical therapists related Smith’s rehab to that of military personnel who had lost limbs in combat.
Smith is an incredible inspiration for those who have been wounded in body, heart and spirit. Facing death, amputation and – the least of his worries – never returning to the football field, he refused to be defused.
To the Alex Smiths of the Times-Herald community who have battled injuries sustained in car accidents, had to bury a spouse or child or are fighting a terminal illness, by the grace of God may your January become 35,650 — or better yet — an eternity of Mays, Junes, and Octobers.