Hi 

 

 

In 2009 ESPN aired a story about Dartanyon Crockett and Leroy Sutton, two high school students in inner city Cleveland. Crockett and Sutton were teammates on Lincoln West High School's wrestling team. Crockett, who is legally blind, was often filmed carrying Sutton, a double leg amputee, on his back.

 

The show was produced by Lisa Fenn, an ESPN veteran who had done stories about famous athletes like Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter. But when she finished the piece about Crockett and Sutton she couldn't leave their lives. Fenn took it upon herself to help "the one with no legs, being carried by the one who could not see" get to college. She raised donations from around the world, coordinated college visits, and ensured that the boys were well fed every day. Thanks to her efforts, Crockett became a bronze medalist in judo at the Paralympic Games in London; Sutton will become the first member of his family to graduate from college.

 

After the media hoopla died down, Leroy Sutton quietly asked her, "Why did you stay?" She said, "I love you." Sutton pressed, "That's what I thought you'd say. But ... why ... why did you stick around and do everything you did?" Lisa Fenn wrote:

 

I grew up on the other side of Cleveland. The white side .... My parents scrounged up the money for private school to protect me from the public schools and "those people" .... But Dartanyon and Leroy eased me in graciously .... They opened up about their struggles-Dartanyon with great eagerness, as I think he had waited his entire life for someone to want to know him, to truly see him. Leroy's revelations emerged more reluctantly. He had been emotionally abandoned too many times before .... But both began to believe that, perhaps, I genuinely cared.

 

I stayed because I would not be next on the list of people who walked out and over their trust .... I stayed because we get only one life, and we don't truly live it until we give it away. I stayed because we can change the world only when we enter into another's world. I stayed because I love you.

 

This story illustrates the power of love to bind wounds, to bring understanding, and to aid in helping people to understand one another.  Today, let me nudge you to open up the scriptures to 1 Corinthians 13.  God's ideal for what "real love" looks like can challenge us.  

 

Lord, give me the kind of"divine love" that transcends anything that this world has to offer...and especially give me that love towards other people.  In Jesus name, amen!

 

 

Have a great day and God bless!

 

 

 

Pastor Mike / The Open Word