Welp, if you were able to watch that without tearing up a little bit… I don’t understand you at all. Love this so much.
Here’s how the The Tennessean describes it…
At 13, Jared is physically equivalent to a 6 month old, his dad said. Intellectually, he’s very close to his age level. And socially, he hits it out of the park.
Jared practices with the Sunset wrestling team every day, and is often a vocal leader, says wrestling coach Clay Mayes. After Mayes learned that Jared wanted to have a match, he called his longtime friend and Freedom coach Randy Stevens (no relation). “It wasn’t about weight class,” says Mayes. “I told him to point me toward the kid who has the kindest heart.”
Easy. That’s Freedom seventh-grader Justin Kievit. “He’s always stopping to help someone else,” says Coach Stevens. “You just want to take him home.”
“It’s what — a minute, minute and a half maybe?” says Jared’s dad, Phil Stevens. “But it’s the echoes of it that make the difference.”
“It’s the bigger message,” says Stevens. “It’s about all the people who had to give to make it happen.”
I love this, “it’s the echoes of it that make the difference” – isn’t that the truth? Time for all of us to learn a lesson from both of these kids. From Jared, never stop chasing your dreams, regardless of whatever is holding you back… from Justin, put others first and watch how your life will be blessed by selfless acts of love.
-bp
[lobbed by @JoshSneed]