Last Night

So last night, I had the opportunity to listen to a motivational speech by Matt Roloff. You know, the guy from "Little People, Big World" on TLC. The show is filmed on the Roloff farm in Oregon and shows the Roloff family... Matt, Amy, Jeremy, Zachary, Molly, and Jacob.. and how they live their lives as little people in a big world. The interesting part of the show is that Matt and Amy are little people.. where as all of their children are regular sized except for Zachary. Zachary and Jeremy are even twins! The only difference is, Zachary is a little person. Anyway, I had the opportunity to listen to him talk and then meet him afterwards.

Talk about an amazing man. Talk about a person who overcomes obstacles every single day of his life. Talk about someone with a dream, passion.. hope.

As a little person, this man has been teased, bullied, overlooked by employers, and down right ridiculed for his short stature. But boy has he overcome it. Every day of his life is an obstacle. He even said it himself, "This world was not designed with little people in mind". He must overcome challenges that many of us take for granted. Such as, getting into a hotel bed, taking a shower in a hotel bathroom, even walking and getting out of bed in the morning.

He rose above. He can't change the fact that he is little. He chose to rise above, he chose to live his life and not hide from the world. He took what God gave him, and saw it as a gift rather than a disability.

His confidence and pride as he was speaking was overwhelmingly obvious. To me, he seemed 6ft tall in the room. You don't notice his height much when the man opens his mouth and talks. He has so much to say. He is proud of his life and what he has accomplished. He told us never to let any obstacle get in our way. He taught us the importance of overcoming. He taught us not to get beaten down... but to rise above. Have hope. Believe in a better tomorrow. Which, is interesting because I blogged about "tomorrow's" yesterday.

So what was the take home message from this?

Fight. When your tired, keep fighting. When you think you don't have any more strength, keep fighting.

But I think for me, what stuck out the most was...

if Matt Roloff's dreams can come true, so can mine.

Til next time,

Karla =)