Rich Dixon is being inspirational, but not the way we think.

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I don’t see myself as the center of an inspirational story.

It seems like other folks have a different opinion. This weekend I met a woman who was reading RELENTLESS GRACE. Turns out, her daughter was one of my students back in the day.

I wanted to hear about what her daughter was up to. All she wanted to talk about was how inspiring my story was.

Since she had some time, I asked her what was so inspiring. She said it was what I’ve been able to accomplish despite a catastrophic injury. And that got me thinking about this quote:

Your story isn’t told on the pages where life knocked you down.

It’s written in the chapters where you decided to rise up.

The injury is just back story. The real story, the part that matters, is how God works for good even within tragic circumstances. So, any inspiration is found, not in the tragedy, but in the decision to choose hope, even when things seem hopeless.

HOPE: A confident expectation based on faith that God keeps his promises.

I found hope on a two-block handcycle ride in 1999. And hope changed everything. Hence, our tagline:

HOPE CHANGES WHAT’S POSSIBLE

I sincerely hope you haven’t experienced a catastrophic injury, but experience tells me everyone gets knocked down at some point. I know, from difficult experience, how tempting it is to believe the knockdown is the story.

It’s not.

The story is the choice to choose hope, to move forward when moving forward doesn’t seem possible. Because HOPE changes what’s possible.

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Of course, I think about the 22 kids at the Home of Hope. They’ve experienced tragedy on a level none of us can comprehend. The FREEDOM TOUR cycles to provide HOPE & FREEDOM to these precious children.

Our prayer is that they will look beyond the knockdown and, with Jesus’ help, find the courage to choose hope.