Are you waiting for someone to save you? Do you think perhaps that your faith in Jesus Christ is all you need? While I believe the Lord is essential in building a meaningful life – no one saves us without our own help. We choose our path. We are responsible for the paths we walk.
There are many people who have chosen to change their lives or who, when handed difficult circumstances, have made those choices which enabled them to overcome their obstacles. The Lord is both an essential and critical component but we are the ones in the driver’s seat.
If you are waiting around to win the lottery or for your knight in shining armor to show up – you might want to start the new year with a reality check. Perhaps the time has come for you to take charge and build the life you have always dreamed of!
In that light, I want to share a story today about a man who has chosen to create a meaningful life despite obstacles and difficulties! I hope you enjoy!:
Albert Frantz is a world-class pianist from Pennsylvania who started playing at the extraordinarily late age of 17. His early piano teacher told his mother to throw her money in the garbage rather than spend it on piano lessons for Albert.
He discovered his love for classical music while in high school and his passion made him accomplish seemingly impossible things. He was the first pianist in nearly a decade to win a Fulbright scholarship to study in Vienna just a few years after starting out. This led him to study at the official conservatory of the city of Vienna in Austria, the home country of many of his musical idols.
Even before he could finish his education, he started suffering from scoliosis, first discovered in his adolescence, that virtually incapacitated his piano playing for more than six years. Desperately looking for a therapy that would promise any amount of relief, he found relief through Bikram yoga.
No sooner did he recover from his back pain when he broke his left wrist upon getting hit in the face by a tram on a cold and icy Thanksgiving weekend. Breaking a wrist is a nightmare for a pianist. For Albert, it turned out positively in the end, as the injury led him to play pieces by Charles-Valentin Alkan, a 19th-century French virtuoso and one of the only composers to write music for the right hand alone. His music was considered unplayable for over a century and is regarded as the most athletically challenging music ever written for the piano. Albert took it as a challenge, which led to his critically acclaimed debut CD dedicated to Alkan’s music. His debut album was an official jury nomination for the prestigious German Record Critics Award, designed to recognize the “most rigorous standards for supreme achievement and quality” in the field of music recording.
Besides turning his interest to the works of Alkan and Liszt, his back pain also led him to pursue an IRONMAN triathlon. This is especially notable, as there were two situations in which he almost drowned during his childhood. Swimming in open water made Albert panic throughout his adult life. After a change of perspective, Albert found himself training for one of the most challenging sports competitions in the world. He finished his first IRONMAN triathlon – 3.8 km swimming, 180 km cycling and a 42.2 km marathon – on June 28, 2015.
Source: http://www.dreama.tv/2015/10/alb…
Shared from the following website: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-inspirational-short-stories-that-can-change-a-persons-life