From crosses to crowns

You can look at suffering and trials in your life as God’s purpose and plan for some greater reward for your life or just sink yourself into permanent melancholy and depression.

The story of a skinny, 100-pound student named Eugene Orowitz is amazing.

While at Collingswood School in New Jersey, the gymcoach led the students to the playground to teach them javelin throwing.

The longest distance the students could throw the javelin was thirty yards.When
the coach asked the weaklooking Orowitz “Do you like to try too?”Orowitz accepted,
even as his fellow-mates mocked at him.

Astrange feeling came over him. He imagined himself as a young warrior about to battle the enemy.

And there it went to touch fifty yards, almost twice far than all his companions, the
force being so strong, the javelin’smetal tip had broken.

The coach instead of congratulating him, said “Look you have broken the metal tip, you can take this broken javelin home, it is no good for the school anymore” Orowitz practised many hours for several days near a field close to his home and shocked everyone at the end of his schooling years when he touched a shocking two hundred and eleven feet.

He won a scholarship from the University of California and began to dream playing in the Olympics, but tragedy struck.

He tore his shoulder ligaments, could play no more and so ended up with a job in a
warehouse.

God can turn suffering and tragedy into reward when we trust in Him. Spiritual writer
Thomas Kempis wrote that “…in the face of changing situations in our life a wiseman
who is well taught in spiritual labor will stand unshaken in all such things, and heeds little to from what side the wind of instability blows”

Later Orowitz met an actor who sought his help to write some dialogues he was struggling with.

Showing interest in acting, he joined an acting school and soon was picked to
act in a serial “Bonanza” which ran 14- years. More offers came pouring in for him.
Eugene Orowitz later came to be knownby the name Michael Landon America’s famous actor, writer, director, and producer.

When Jesus informed his disciples of the suffering. He was going to undergo in Jerusalem. He also told them how they can find new life when they accept suffering
with faith.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their
cross and followme. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life formewill find it”.

(Mathew 16:21-27)
Crosses often turn to crowns and incredible pains into incredible blessings for
those who have faith in God.