I had a senior colleague at high school who recided around my community. She was a quiet beauty who attracted the admiration of her mates. While on her way to school one day, she was hit by a driver and lost one leg. She had to depend on crutches. This was actually my first experience of crutches. I was a little boy in our community and I watched her grow with those crutches and felt so bad that that she just could not do without the wooden and metal crutch. I’m grown now and she still makes use of the crutch.
Crutches are things we depend on to help us do what we should naturally have done without it. It could also mean depending on some person to help us do what we should do naturally by ourselves. Joel Osteen told this story of a young lady who had a boy friend who had told her that she was unable to drive round her city because he thought; the city was too busy for a pretty girl to drive round. He offered to help her with daily driving her to work and back until one day pastor Joel Osteen gave her a pretty good advice “try driving yourself”. At first the young lady thought it was impossible. But she headed to Joels advice and tried driving herself first slowly along the side of the road and then she tried the highway. After 6 months, she did not need any one to guide her. Her boy friend was actually the crutch which she depended upon to help her with her driving needs.
When we think, some person is too important and without them, we will be helpless, those persons are crutches. Nothing should be too important as to control your own capacity to do what you can and should do. When anything makes you live life depending on it, it becomes a crutch. While accident victims require crutches to help them walk, strong and hale person don’t. It would be foolish thinking and detrimental to ones body to use crutches when one can walk straight with the legs.
As a young undergraduate at the university, I had lived with a relation who schooled at another university in my city. I had often looked up to him for advice and direction that he thought I could never do without him. Because I believed his every word, he assured himself and convinced me that I was without personal directions. Though, he had arrived the city long before I came and was quite older, he had assumed that he had rights to control my decisions. I knew he was just another crutch I needed to break away from and the opportunity came when he left the city and I moved away from his area of influence. When he left, he kept calling me on the phone and giving orders. I knew I would’nt have to live this way. I had to remove his crutches by changing my phone number. Once he lost contact with me, I regained my self confidence and reputation and got along with mine.
I had this experience with my dad. My dad was a stern man who I feared while growing up. He had this intimidating mane that I dared not look at his eyes. I hadly spoke to him and I hardly associated with him. Our relationship was a odd type. My dad’s influence lowered my self-confidence. Even when I could help myself and do without him, when he was around I developed cold feet because of his fear. I knew though that somewhere along the road, I would have to push his crutch away and be me. The chance came when I was 16 and I seized it. I told him at his face that I was grown and I was capable of making judgments, which should always be considered too and sometimes ahead of his judgments. Guess what? It worked! From that day, my dad changed his demeanor towards me. He respected me and always asked for my input in issues that involved the family. I had succeeded in taking off his crutch.
That crutch may be a situation that has demeaned your importance like that of my dad and I; you have the capacity to do away with your crutch. Whether you believe it or yes, nobody or situation wants you to be bigger. Those you are under want you to remain there. It is bad situation to accept where we are as the final busstop when we can rise up to greatness. We will have to learn to pull those crutches off our sides and tell them you can do without them
I remember the bible story of young David and Goliath. David had offered to fight Goliath but King Saul thought the crutches of helmet and vest which he wore that could not give him confidence against the giant was what David needed. David knew however that what he needed was to do away with the crutches. The war vests didn’t just suite. He told himself, I just need to pull this off. He was confident about his ability and he had the vests pulled off. Guess what? He moved like a young lion and with what he had, a tenacity and a poise, he defeated the giant Goliath. He did not need the crutches
Don’t let any one force some crutch on you that does not fit you. You need to discover who you really are. You have so much in you that should not be covered by what people think say or observe about you. When you begin to live like you need the advice, confidence and bolstering of others, they become the crutches upon which you think you cannot do without.
I was filled with high hopes after I concluded national service and decided to return home. My father had promised to help me get a job with his firm and I returned believing that I was immediately going to get my life started. I returned home to see my sick father and we had to battle to save his life. He died along the way at the hospital and my hopes were dashed. He was sure a crutch that I depended on. His death affected me that I failed to discover what I had. His death was a crutch. I told myself, I am not going to allow my dad’s death be a crutch. I shook myself off the feeling of this crutch and discovered I could do more than I was doing
Situations could be crutches in our lives that makes us think and act in a weird manner. Whatever the situation is weighing you down; you have much more in you than the situation knows. Don’t push yourself down by accepting crutches when you can walk your way into destiny