WHY THE PHOTO ABOVE?
I am the man that I am today because of so many people who invested into my life.
I hope to make the same kinds of investment into my own children and the many children that I am blessed to serve each day.
SO WHY THE PHOTO? WELL READ THE STORY BELOW TO FIND OUT
A MAN’S CHARACTER IS HIS STRENGTH
This true story shows just what a “real man” is made of—strength, character,
love and devotion.
Bruce Smith smoked for over 40 years!
He smoked three packs a day and most of those years
he smoked unfiltered Camel cigarettes.
One day he went to the doctor and his physician asked
“Bruce, don’t you have a new grandbaby?”
He replied to the doctor “Yes I do, a grandson, just
a year old”. The doctor then said, “Bruce, if you want to see that boy become a
man, you will stop smoking”.
Bruce Smith went home that day and took a half pack of
cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and laid them on the open carton of
cigarettes that were on his dresser and he NEVER SMOKED AGAIN.
He quit “cold turkey”.
No nicotine gum; no patches; nothing—he just quit!
The cigarettes lay on that dresser until his grandson grew
old enough to reach them at which time they were moved into a drawer in that
same dresser.
The cigarettes remained in that drawer for the next 34
years.
Bruce rarely spoke about his smoking habit.
The few times I heard him talk about it he said
things like:
·
I wanted a cigarette so bad I could hardly stand it; so I
just worked and worked hard to keep from smoking.
(I heard a friend of his say one time that the guys at the plant where they
worked wished Bruce would stop smoking everyday—because he did everybody’s work)
·
He said the urge never really went away and that even 30
plus years later he knew if he ever smoked one cigarette he would smoke three
packs before the day ended.
·
He said he kept those cigarettes because every time he wanted to smoke he would
look at that pack and say “I am a Man- I am bigger than that cigarette”. They
were a constant reminder that he was a bigger man than a habit and that he could
overcome this obstacle.
What drives a man to this kind of inner strength?
I believe it is the thing that Bruce Smith lived out and
never had to say.
A deep love and devotion for one’s family, an inner
character that causes a man to do what is right even when he does not have too.
Bruce Smith was my grandfather, I called him Pappy, He was
the strongest man that I have ever known.
He had physical strength well beyond many men; but
more than that he had Strength of Character unlike any that I have ever known.
My life was richly enhanced because my grandfather
loved me enough to stop smoking when I was
a year old.
On Christmas day of the year I turned thirty five my
grandfather died and I removed that pack of cigarettes and the lighter from the
dresser and placed them here as a reminder to me to ALWAYS BE A MAN OF
CHARCTER.
A man devoted to God and to my family.
My prayer is that I can be just a fragment of the
man he was.
By: Dr. Jeffrey D. Eddie