Ann Sullivan contracted a disease that made her nearly blind at the age of 5. Her mom died when she was 8 and her dad gave her and her little brother up to an orphanage.
The orphanage was overcrowded, underfunded, and later investigated for abuse. Her brother died within 4 months. She went to school for the blind, and, after multiple failed eye surgeries, was sent back to the abusive orphanage.
Ann eventually went to college, and during her VALEDICTORIAN speech she said, “every obstacle we overcome, (and) every success we achieve tends to bring man closer to God and make life more as He would have it.”
Ann didn’t see life as happening to her but for her, and for a greater cause.
She found purpose in her pain and became the teacher for disabled children—and ended up investing her time in one particularly difficult case: a deaf, blind and speechless girl whose parents had all but given up on her. Because of the struggles she lived through, Ann knew just how to teach Hellen Keller.
Our suffering doesn’t only help us to help others; it widens our hearts and makes us compassionate. And if that’s the cost of being able to help someone else out, as they say: bring it.
Saturday was All Saints Day: the day we commemorate all of those who made it to heaven. If they all have one thing in common, it’s that their trials didn’t make them bitter, but better.
When you’re facing a trial in your life, marriage, business, or (insert your trial here), don’t get deflated. Look up. Ask God “how are you using this to chisel me into a blessing?”
God bless you, Chris Stefanick
- Republished with permission from Real Life Catholic
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