Based on a true story.
In 2006, there was an American football match for college students and Inky Johnson was playing for the university of Tennessee. For most players it was just another game, for Inky Johnson it was one out of eight games he was left with to get drafted into the NFL. It was his dream come true. It was what he had trained for years and now here was his path cleared for him. Here was a protégé straight from college, just waiting to sign off a huge contract that would change not only his life but his family’s life too. Coming from a humble background, inky was motivated to lift his family out of poverty with this new golden opportunity. However, the events of that fateful day would change his life forever and not in the way he expected, not in a way anyone expected.
Minutes to the end of the game, with his team on the lead, inky spotted one of the opponents making his way to their goal line. It was just another attempt at goal, one he had defended hundreds of times before, a text book tackle he could make with his eyes closed. So he went in for the tackle and as soon as he collided with the other player, he knew something was wrong. When he landed on the ground, he immediately lost consciousness for a few seconds then came back to life. With a slight dizziness and disorientation, he could see the dull sky through the frame of his helmet and then slowly focused on the faces of his teammates above him urging him to get up and finish the game. But that was the problem, he couldn’t get up. In fact, he couldn’t feel or move his entire body. He was paralyzed from his neck down to his toes.
As the team of paramedics hoisted him away in a stretcher, he could still here his home fans up on their feet and cheering him on. His teammates stood upright in salute, according him the honor of a war veteran. Since this was American football arguably the roughest sport in the world, such an incident didn’t cause him much panic. That is until he made it to the hospital only to be told he had raptured his subclavian artery in his chest, was bleeding internally and could die if he wasn’t taken for immediate surgery. There he was, a rising star with a bright future now staring at the merciless eyes of the grim ripper. That is all it took, a split second for a star athlete to not only, kiss his career good bye, but to find himself on a hospital bed in an operating room fighting for his life.
He survived surgery but his right arm was left permanently paralyzed and just like that, an amazing career at the NFL was ended before it even took flight. This sport wasn’t just a hobby or livelihood, football was a way of life, a part of his soul, his identity and yet he had to let it go. This is not a story where the main character is weathered by adversity but trains hard and makes a comeback. This is story of a man who played his cards right as best he could but still fate had the final say. It wasn’t his fault, wasn’t anyone’s fault it just happened.
There are many people who have hit a wall in pursuit of their passions and ambitions and inky represents every one of them. Whether it’s a sport, business, an art or career, some people have come to a point where they see no way out. Sometimes the trauma is so strong it infects every part of their lives. However, where many may recommend that you continue pushing through, sometimes you have to have the strength to let go of a dream. Much as people have a certain level of control over their fates, one can’t ignore the influence of a more powerful entity, some call it the universe, some call it karma, but it’s all God. There are reasons why God sometimes closes that door.
Sometimes the dreams you have are too small and yet he has bigger plans a head for you. When asked if he could go back in time and change what happened to him if he had the ability, Inky, without skipping a beat testified that he wouldn’t change a thing, in fact he could relieve his life that same way ten times over. Why, because before his intension was to change the lives of people around him and inspire them after making it to the NFL. However, his ability to live through such dispiriting moment and still get back on his feet inspired more people, far more deeply than his success in NFL could ever do. “if only you knew the works God has done on people around me” Inky Johnson. Many people started giving their lives to Christ, it also rekindled faith in others who had once lost it.
Sometimes your desires and dreams are backed by the wrong intentions. In life, why you do whatever you do is even more important than what you do. It determines how satisfying your goals will feel when you reach them, it determines how much you will be willing to sacrifice to get to your goals. As much as some ill motivations can be really energizing, the wrong motivations can sour all the fruits of your labor, it can make achievements of your goals very unfulfilling. For instance, being motivated by a fear of failure can make you work hard but it can push you only so far, it soon back fires and inhibits you from taking necessary risks later on in life. Being motivated by unhealthy competition soon makes you envious, unhappy and unfulfilled, being motivated to succeed because you seek validation and cheap fame makes you needy for attention and unfulfilled in the long run. The God who knows you inside out knows this, that is why he goes through great lengths to protect you, even from yourself.
In some instances, your intentions are misguided and illegitimate. Much as people think they actually know what they desire, chances are that they actually don’t. most cases people’s desires are biased by so many things like peer pressure and social pressure along with other factors. You think you want to be a musician yet what you crave is fame and popularity, you think you want that career path but in actual sense you took it because everybody else says it’s cool, you think you want that relationship to work out but in actual sense, you just want to prove to everyone else that you can do it, you want their validation. This is where the God who knows our desires better than we do comes in, that is why he denies you some dreams. They are not genuine.
Sometimes God uses your life to touch someone else’s life. He turns your story into a testimony like no other. Fast forward a few years after, Inky is a motivational speaker touching millions of lives with his speeches. Inky’s life became a living testimony of how God can use a horrendous event to point you to your destiny. He is a living example that out of a tough situation a new dream can be made possible, that out of the rubble of the collapsed dreams, something beautiful can grow. “some people don’t need to hear you preaching a summon, they need to see you living one.” Inky Johnson. Inky had people testify to him, “I have decided to give my life to Christ, not because of what happened to me, but because of what I have seen happening to you.”
Those are a few reasons God sometimes shuts the door to a dream. The realization that we are not entirely in control of our fates shouldn’t be a tragedy, it’s a relief of the burden and anxiety of concerning oneself with one’s future. It’s permission to live in the present moment as best you can and leaving the rest to the superior life form that we can be sure has our best interest at heart. Once you can gather the strength to see beyond whatever hardship you’re going through, you soon realize that God always has your best interests at heart. It’s not only in times when everything when everything is flowing smoothly, but also in times when things go south and everything seems to be falling apart. It’s only when your able to let go and walk away from that door can another be opened, it’s only when you gather the strength to see beyond your misfortune can you see the miracle. And perhaps one of the most profound lessons I have learnt from inky, is that you can’t control what happens to you, but you can only control how you respond to that situation. “Between stimulus and response is a gap, in this gap is where you have the ability to choose how you will react to a situation.” Victor Frankl in his book, ‘Man’s search for meaning’. It’s not what happens that matters, it’s how you react to it that matters.
