I have just met a little man. I mean, a really little man. But with a big heart. I’ve seen him around at church before, but never spoken to him until today. I felt big and clumsy in his presence, and even more so after talking with him.
“How do you feel with people looking over the top of you all the time?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “It’s like this, I have to look up to them while they look down on me! I figure it’s better for me to look up than for them to have to look down!”
What an amazing attitude to have! He went on, “It doesn’t bother me. It’s how God made me and it’s how He wants me to be. I can do most things that other people can do, and I’m happy with that.”
Suddenly, all my grumps and complaints seemed pointless in the face of this handicap.

I suddenly thought of another man we knew years ago who was born with no arms or hands. Yet he had a successful legal business, doing it all sitting on the floor and flicking papers over with his feet as well as writing that way too. Not only that, but he built himself a sizeable yacht too, to go sailing in. How did he expect to manage sails with no hands or arms? But he did somehow. I met him again a couple of years ago in what he called his “boatavan”. This was a boat patterned on the long boats of the canals in Britain. He took it around the countryside on its trailer and was able to sleep in it as the “van” part of it, and when he came to a harbour or bay, he could launch it off the boat ramp and chug off along the on the water, the “boat” part of it!
I went over to investigate it when I saw it parked in a bay one day. He was sitting in the cockpit having his lunch with his wife . After chatting for a bit about his craft, I noticed his empty shirt sleeves, and said, “You’ve got no arms….did you have an accident?”
He said, “No, I was born this way”
“Oh,” I said, “I knew a man years ago like that….he built a boat”.
“Was he a lawyer?” he asked.
“I believe he was”, I replied.
“Well, that was me,” he said.
So we were able to catch up on the intervening years. He had had an extremely interesting and successful life, becoming a judge in the end. Now he was retired and still enjoying himself.
What a lesson we who are “whole” can learn from these people! It’s not a question of being whole on the outside that counts, it is a question of whether we are whole on the inside that counts for the most. The only One Who we can count on for that is Jesus Christ who looks at the inside of the man and not the outside!