Strength for anything: you have it; now kindle your will!

I recently received a letter from a writer and dear friend of mine, who had recently suffered a stroke and was suffering from Aphasia.  He told me he would write no more and had lost all confidence in himself.  This so troubled me that I had to write him of my thoughts and personal trials.  

I thought it of value to post this, for it may help some in a similar place and fate.

PLEA FOR THE kindle OF CONFIDENCE & SELF-BELIEF

In one of the Psalms, the poet advises to 'bash the heads of the babies of Babylon’, meaning to kill bad thoughts before they grow.  This is EXACTLY WHAT YOU MUST DO WITH: 

NOT BELIEVING IN YOURSELF!  

As long as one is breathing, he can trust in himself; for God gave us a resiliency to get back into the fray!  

In 2006, when I was coming out of a 4 week comma from legionnaires' disease, I could hardly breath and the thought of running again, of playing my beloved music, having enough breath to play my clarinet, of doing anything I’d loved, showing love and wit to my wife, daughter, ----all was so distant: at this time I was on Oxygen 24/7 and could not walk, literally could not sit up in bed without assistance and had to have a nurse administer the bed pan.  

But ya' know what?  I looked up that long hill and thought of Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus.  

I then yelled at myself and said I will do this and show all around that this would not defeat me; nothing was going to take away that for which I'd worked all my life.  And it took months, 2 months before I could walk, and only then with 2 hiking poles.  It was 4 months until I gathered enough courage to pick up my Clarinet and find how much I'd regressed (the findings being grim).  At 3 months I began to slow run 50 yards and then walk for a recovery for 50 more. 

But I yelled at myself again, saying: "Dammit, I will not let fate defeat me!"  

I now, at 6 years distance from that disease and hospital experience, am playing much better than I ever dreamed I would, and so much better than I played before the legionnaires' disease: The

set-back made my resolve intensify.

(Here now addressing my friend)

Now, you have the same mind and thoughts as ever, but you must use them in a new way; you may discover your 'subconscious pool' contains deeper emotions than you had previously found.

Go get a Blackwing pencil and write.

Here is a poem of mine, which I composed 3 years ago, when we had to have our beloved Brittany Spaniel, Tangy,   put down.

All my love, brother,

And get to writing!!!!!

Errol

Thank you for connecting.

Please give me feed back and comments.

Sincerely,

Errol Weiss Schlabach