By Jeremy Whittaker
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed, we are perplexed but not in despair;" 2 Corinthians 4:7-8 (KJV)
Would you believe that the world’s best neurosurgeon came from a home ran exclusively by a severely troubled, helpless, illiterate and underprivileged, divorced mother? If someone of this caliber could come from such a distressing environment then maybe greatness is inside all of us.
I recall reading the book ‘Think Big’ by Dr. Benjamin Carson, arguably the most famous neurosurgeon to ever live. If you’ve never heard of him, then you probably have never suffered an ailment which required a neurosurgeon; and the ailment was not bad enough to demand the best in the business. Dr. Carson is highly sought after. He has been so successful that he has been given the moniker of having ‘Gifted hands’ (also a title of one of his books). Within his highly successful career, even colleagues and contemporaries view him as a miracle worker; patients don him their only and last hope. He has made a career of taking cases that are deemed impossible, curing the patient and giving them a new lease on life. The most notorious of which was the first ever successful separation of Siamese twins; before him, no one had ever separated Siamese twins and kept both of the twins alive.
Yet for all of Ben Carson’s achievements, it was the character of his mother that captivated me in his book and stuck with me forever. Ben’s early childhood was a polar opposite to his professional career; as a professional he was intelligent and was extremely well-read, actually his constant reading fueled his ingenuity; while as a young child he was a failing student. Ben Carson was literally dead last in each of his classes, at a very poor and under-performing school. I hope that painted a picture of how unlikely it was for Ben Carson to even become a doctor, let alone the world’s leading neurosurgeon. A bigger threat to his potential was the fact that his mother was raising him and his brother alone, while she herself was illiterate.
Her story would cause the hairs on anyone to stand up. Married by thirteen to a preacher that she later found out was a drug pusher, and philander with another secret family, Sonya Carson found herself divorced with two sons in the streets. She admitted to having to check into mental institutions with regularity when the pressure got too much and to attempting suicide. She expressed the doubt, fears and uneasiness in her heart as she raised two boys on a maid’s salary, only to have the boy’s failing in every subject in every class. This brought her the greatest dissatisfaction in her life, that her two sons could very well be good-for-nothing because of her lack of knowledge and resources. Her account of her life, though summarized, revealed great personal trials and setbacks. However when faced with raising two boys on her own she declared “I have no idea (how to raise these boys on my own), but I can learn”. Sonya ended up raising the two boys into fine men, one into a brilliant engineer, and the other into the world’s best neurosurgeon.
Life, along with its challenges has a way of birthing questions into our minds and spirits that cause persons to devalue themselves, question their resolve and doubt their ability. Hardships can often cause persons to say things like ‘I’m done with that, it wasn’t working out how I envisioned it’, ‘I’m not sure if that was my calling’, ‘maybe I’m just not as good at that as I thought I was’, and ‘maybe my energy is better spent elsewhere’.
I loved reading the story of how Sonya Carson raised her boys. She details how Ben brought a report in the fifth grade that was full from top to bottom with fails, she threw her hands in the air because she realized her efforts of daily encouraging her boys to do their best and that they were smart were futile. She got to a point where she told the boys themselves, “I just don’t know what to do with you two.” While lost she turned to God who gave her the plan that did the job and changed her boys’ lives forever; she instituted a permanent ban from the television except for two pre-selected programs each week, and the mandate to read two books each week and submit to her a book report on each book. At this point, she was still illiterate also.
Anyone looking at Sonya Carson and her boys would have seen an ‘apple’ by Dr. Myles Munroe’s estimation. Munroe in his book ‘Releasing Your Potential’ asks the reader what do they see when they look at an apple, to which the reader responds that they see an apple. Munroe then explains what God sees when he sees an apple. Yes, He made a delicious fruit, but He implanted within that fruit all of the mechanisms needed to carry on the next generation in the small seed that people view as collateral. That is why Dr. Munroe says whenever you hold an apple in your hand, you hold an entire orchard. People in that underprivileged school saw Ben Carson as the boy who was nothing more than a sure dead last in every subject, his mother saw potential.
Munroe states that we are all filled with great potential. He quotes the book of Genesis 1 when God looks at each of his creation and calls it good. This, he explains, is proof that God set about to create everything for a purpose and gave each thing the ability or potential to reach that purpose. Munroe explains that each creation is made by a creator who makes it for a purpose and the resources and features that the creator gives it, helps the creation to reach that purpose. For instance look at a screw driver, it can’t carry out its purpose without the creator making the head a particular way to fit the screw. Munroe warns that everything may not achieve its purpose, because our creator God will not intrude in our lives if we don’t want Him to be a part of it. But Munroe encourages us to seek our father for that purpose and the ability to carry that out. As for Sonya Carson, she long since has learned to read herself and converted from an angry lost soul to fully devout Christian. It is evident from her life and the trials that came on her family, that they were all set up for failure, she nor her sons had any advantages in this life. They were playing catch up from the start. Her story is evidence to the fact that it is very possible and likely to tap into the unharnessed potential that lies within as 1 Corinthians 4:7 likens what is in us to ‘treasure in earthen vessels’. We can thus attain to our purpose, even that of changing the world, or changing a soul for the glory of God.
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