"Two Hard Incontrovertible Facts"

One of our favorite movies to watch in the Fall is "Rudy", the true story of Rudy Ruettiger, a football player from South Bend, Indiana, whose determined spirit landed him a spot on the Notre Dame football team.  There’s a point in the movie when he’s about to give up because he keeps getting rejections from admissions and he asks one of the priests what else he can do.  The priest says, “Son in 35 years of religious studies, I’ve come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts: There is a God and I’m not Him.”  

As parents, it’s so hard when our children fail…to let them fail. When my daughters came home with frowns and felt defeated for losing class elections, or not making a sport team,  I reminded them about all of the people who they were following in the footsteps of.   Here is a short (but impressive) list:

1.     Walt Disney – We all have enjoyed the fruits of his success, but did you know that before creating the family fun phenomenon, he was fired from a newspaper for lacking creativity?  He also had to face several business failures including a bankrupt animation studio. 

2.     Oprah Winfrey- She faced a challenging childhood and was fired from her first television job for being “too emotionally invested” in her stories.  She is now one of the most influential women in the world with a net worth of approximately 3 billion (and p.s. she is known for her compassionate, caring ways).

3.     J.K. Rowling- Before creating the beloved Harry Potter series, she faced numerous rejections from publishers and lived on welfare. 

4.     Steven Speilberg- Multiple rejections by University of Southern California’s school of cinematic arts paved the way for one of the most successful directors of film history of all time (Would we be the same without Jaws or E.T.?)

5.     Thomas Edison- This incredible inventor of 1,000 patents, including the light bulb, was told by his teachers that he was “too stupid to learn anything”. 

6.     Michael Jordon- This basketball legend was cut from his high school basketball team.    

I’m sure they all had many doubts and couldn’t understand why things happened the way they did.  I’m sure they doubted that they were on the right path.  I’m sure they doubted that a higher power was guiding them. 

Whenever I have those same doubts in my life, I remind myself of those "two, hard incontrovertible facts:  There is a God and I’m not Him.”