Disability Cannot Stop Us from Overcoming

Blanche Rudolph rubbed her daughter's, Wilma's, legs at home for two years and took her to twice-weekly appointments 50-miles-away-from-home to teach Wilma how to walk at the Meharry Hospital, the black medical college of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Blanche and her husband, Ed, could barely afford the medical treatment. They were very poor. Ed was a railroad worker. Blanche provided domestic help to wealthy, white women. Wilma was the 20th of their 22 children, and she was a sickly child who had contracted polio at the age of four paralyzing her legs and requiring leg braces on her left leg and foot and an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot. Wilma also had other illnesses, such as measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and double pneumonia.

Blanche, Ed, Wilma and other members of the Rudolph family kept the faith that inspired them to make the sacrifices to overcome Wilma's illness. Hebrews 11:1 Amplified Bible says, "Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]."

God honored the Rudolph's faith. Wilma came out of braces at age 11 and joined the basketball team. It wasn't long before her talent for sports manifested. In high school Ed Temple, the coach for the famous Tigerbells, the women's track team at Tennessee State University, recognized and developed Wilma's track and field talent.

Having an illness and/or disability does not have to always prevent one from participating in sports. In the 1960s Wilma became the fastest runner in the world! In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field during a single Olympic Games. Wilma elevated women's track to a major presence in the United States. As member of the black community, she is also regarded as a civil rights and women's rights pioneer. The Italians nicknamed her, La Gazzella Negra, (The Black Gazelle). The French nicknamed her, La Perle Noire, (The Black Pearl.) In 1977 a made-for-TV docudrama aired titled Wilma.

God can do miracles like He did for the Rudolph's completely removing polio from Wilma. God can also do miracles leaving illness and/or disability in a person's life, yet still giving them a good and enjoyable life. In the mid-2000s discus thrower Carl Brown had a sponsorship from Nike and was training for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Then one morning he woke up and couldn't walk. A friend drove Carl to the hospital where doctors performed tests and found that Carl had rheumatoid arthritis which robs about one percent of the world's population of flexibility in their joints.

Carl experienced fear, worry and depression regarding how he was going to support his six daughters financially. Carl went through a divorce, food stamps and disability before today building a personal-training business, Xtreem Training, in Georgia. Turning his life around was not overnight. Pasos cortos, vista larga, (Short steps, long view.)

Polio and rheumatoid arthritis threatened to ruin the lives of Wilma and Carl, but God. God says in Jeremiah 29:11 Amplified Bible, "For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome."

Please share a comment of plans for welfare and peace that God has manifested in your life, your family's life and/or a friend's life.