Joni: Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with quite a story from my friend, Scott. And this guy—at one time athletic and 6’ tall—Scott Coleman played every kind of sport in high school you can think of. In fact, Scott had been water skiing since the age of 5 years old. But just because you’re 17 and athletic, doesn’t make you immune to accidents (I should know) so Scott, thank you for joining us today
Scott: My pleasure.
Joni: You have to tell us what happened that day you went water skiing.
Scott: I had been skiing with friends all weekend and it was winding down on a Sunday afternoon and we were ready to go, everybody except for me, and I asked for one more trip around the lake. Let go of the ski rope, was headed for the bank, and something happened and I took a very deep dive in shallow water and crushed the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae.
Joni: Oh my goodness. You and I are twins! My cervical level was broke at the same point and it left us quadriplegics, huh?
Scott: Yes.
Joni: What was the toughest adjustment you had to make? I know how hard it is to adjust, but what about you?
Scott: You know, it seems like something different every day, but I guess maybe the Lord just hurtled that. I still struggle with today was going from being an independent 17- year- old that enjoyed going 90 miles an hour with my hair on fire to becoming a total dependent person that can only go about one mile an hour on my best day. Asking for help has never been easy for me, so just like you I try to find different ways of using what I’ve got.
Joni: Well, I can appreciate that but I know you agree that learning how to ask others for help teaches us how to ask God for help; how to depend on him, huh?
Scott: Amen!
Joni: As you know, I'm a quadriplegic like you and I do lots of things with my mouth – but you do, too, especially when you were in college, you started to work in sales with your mouth. Explain that.
Scott: Again, I didn’t want to dictate to anyone else so I learned how to write with a pen in my mouth and I took every essay test in college by writing with my mouth. When I was hired in sales, I learned to dial the phone with my tongue and today I actually shoot a shotgun and a rifle with my mouth. The best part about it is no one ever asks to borrow your pen or your phone.
Joni: Have to tell you when I used to drive my van (as a quadriplegic I drove for about 22 years) I took my test at the DMV with my mouth and the supervisor is looking at me and scratching her head, thinking to herself, ‘we’re going to let you on the freeway?’ Well you wrote a book called “Best When Broken”. Tell me why we are best when broken.
Scott: The world doesn’t deal with broken things very well and just this past week I heard a quote that I love. A guy named Alan Redpath who has since passed away, but he wrote, “When God wants to do an impossible task he takes an impossible individual and crushes him.” God’s word is loaded with examples of how broken things lead to blessings. In Psalm 51 David says that God honors a broken spirit and a humble heart. In John 12 he says, a seed can only produce much fruit if it falls to the earth and dies. Seeds have a hard shell around them and so does my heart, so every day my heart needs breaking on some level before it is soft enough for the Holy Spirit to rebuild my priorities and my focus and my passions and redirect them to him alone. And I think the irony of the Christian life is sometimes the journey on the way to an abundantly joyful life begins with the realization that at my best, I’m broken, sinful and helpless in my own strength to do anything about it, but praise God, He’s all sufficient.
Joni: Wow, a great lesson for us today. And friend, I’ve posted a video of Scott at home with his family on my radio page today at joniandfriends.org. We also have a photo there of him working with his mouth. Take a look at this handsome guy in his wheelchair with his family, and I think you, too, will see why we are best when broken. Again, that’s my radio page at joniandfriends.org. Scott, thank you for being with us!
Scott: Thank you for having me.
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