Title: A Paradox
Dr. Brooks, board of directors, faculty, family, friends and, most importantly, graduates; it is a great honor to share in this momentous occasion with you on the brink of my 30th class reunion in May when Resurrection University celebrates its 100th anniversary.
For you, class of 2013, this is both Commencement and Graduation. A paradox of beginning and ending, all wrapped into one. It is a day where all sorts of polar opposites are happening at the same time.
And it is for me as well.
On one hand, I’m a nobody. Who ever heard of Alice Teisan? Oh and by the way, I am Alice Teisan. On the other hand, Dr. Brooks introduced me as “. . . an Executive Director of an International Ministry living out my life’s dream.” A paradox!
Maybe you’re experiencing a mix of emotions. Amidst today’s paradoxes: you may be filled with excitement and celebration. At the same time, you may be understandably scared, and uncertain of what the future holds.
I am familiar with a stethoscope, as are you. The stethoscope has a powerful paradoxical lesson for us. Simply put, the stethoscope has two ends, and at any given moment, we can find ourselves at one end or the other. At that moment, the wise person learns to expect the unexpected. One day, I was a healthcare professional. A somebody! A person with power, with a stethoscope in my ears exploring the intimacies of a patient’s heart! The next day, I was on the bell end of the scope. A nobody! Someone stripped of all power, having no say in my health. Anxious and wondering what’s happening to me?
What does this mean?
On July 23, 1992, at the age of thirty, four days before heading out on a ten-day, one-thousand-mile bicycle trip from Illinois to Delaware, life as I knew it was about to change forever.
By this time, cycling was firmly woven into the matrix of my life. I had already bicycled ten thousand miles on four continents and from coast to coast across the United States twice. My goal was to bike through all fifty states and on all seven continents. Now I couldn’t wait to once again hit the road cycling
On that warm July day, while tending to my morning routines, I suddenly became violently ill. All alone in my apartment, I slithered to the phone, and notified my boss. “I’m too sick to work today.”
I figured I had the 24 hour flu. Only it was not gone after 24 hours. It stretched beyond a week. And my bedridden days blurred into weeks. I never imagined that one day my health would deteriorate so drastically that I’d have to struggle to care for my daily needs. But that’s precisely what happened. The healthy avid cyclist was practically an invalid—A PARADOX
By April 1993, after 10 months of wandering aimlessly through the medical maze as both the nurse advocate and the desperate patient, I had seen nineteen different health care specialists and wasted thousands of dollars on failed treatment options.
Then the diagnosis came: “You have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also known as CFS).
CFS is like being chained to an invisible 1,000 pound ball while appearing perfectly healthy—a paradox.
You may have already noticed a few of the visible signs of my CFS today.
I have a fan in front of me so I can sit on stage, knowing it would have been impossible without it due to a heat sensitivity.
There is a stool nearby in case I must sit and speak. If my voice sounds weak and crackly and my body is trembling—okay I’ll give a little credit to being nervous, but the problem is magnified by my disability.
My beat red face is my body’s CFS indicator light yelling stop.
And if I exit the auditorium early, it too will be health related. More than likely you will find me outside cooling down.
CFS has impacted every body system, creating an unsolved medical mystery with no diagnostic indicators. Many health care professionals debated whether it was a real problem or whether the problem was “all in my head.” I thought, If I had cancer, the doctors would treat me with respect. They’d follow a protocol that would end my symptoms, or cancer would end my life. But this—An open-ended diagnosis, a label without a definition?
Yet how could I blame the professionals? The foundation of Best Practices in Health Care is based on systematically gathering data, which is a challenge with CFS.
In such a crisis where was I to turn for hope? And where will you turn for hope when crisis strikes and the professionals don’t have the answers?
When sickness struck I still needed a purpose for living. So I made prayer, that of talking to, pleading with, and listening to God my new occupation. I began by pouring out my heart to God—telling him my frustrations, fears, anger and hurt. But I wondered how would prayer fill the void my professional nursing position once filled?
It was in the schoolroom of suffering where I learned that living life isn’t a guarantee that life is going to leave me feeling all right. Nor that life will always appear to be heading in the right direction. Each day, I awoke with a choice to either allow my suffering to make me bitter or to hand my suffering over to God through prayer. There I learned what the Lord’s prayer says, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I know that during your years in the classrooms and clinicals at Resurrection University you’ve encountered obstacles and suffering that looked insurmountable. Perhaps it was a difficult assignment, a health challenge, financial aid woes, or other unique circumstances!
Over the next decade I faced three serious relapses. Once able to work full-time, now I could only manage intermittent clerical work. Everything that was previously familiar became a struggle, leaving me reliably unreliable.
Then in December of 2003 the vision for my next bicycle journey came through a pastor and his wife visiting from Tanzania on a student visa. They shared how a bike was an important transportation tool for the nationals in Tanzania. It would allow a pastor, a health care worker or others to travel from one location to another, faster than by foot, which can take several hours.
Afterward I prayed and felt led by God to give $1,200 to buy 10 bikes for Tanzania. The problem was that I was only able to work enough to make $450 per month for the past 10 months. But after grappling with God, I used my savings to purchase the bikes. He won and I did too as I saw God provide the funds to cover the costs.” Also a new bicycle dream was birthed—to give away 100 bicycles in my lifetime.
What is your impossible dream? What risk will it demand of you?
Soon afterwards I saw a picture of a hand pedaled trike made and used in Nigeria. The trikes were for people with lower extremity disabilities that resulted from birth defects, or polio, or for those injured by landmines. A trike provides health, hope and dignified mobility by allowing the people to get up and out of the dirt, where they once used hand blocks or flip flops to crawl along while dragging their legs behind. With a trike they have a means to become participating members within their societies. In 2004 I made my next bike purchase, buying 5 bikes and 5 trikes for use in Nigeria.
Then in 2005 my bicycle dream grew into His Wheels International, a not-for-profit organization. Our goal was to provide bikes and trikes internationally as a tool for expanding God’s Kingdom.
But two months after we began I had another dream! To take a welding class so I could build our own hand-pedaled trikes. Even though my health condition made this impossible, and my nursing education omitted design engineering courses I still longed to fulfil this seemingly impossible dream.
A month later, I met Kevin! Within minutes Kevin said, “I’m a Mechanical Engineer. Can I design, build, and pay for the trike prototyping?”
I could never have imagined that my original bicycling dream would have to die before one equally as good and beyond my wildest imagination could be birthed. AGAIN A PARADOX Death of one thing brought life to another.
Only then would I find my life’s purpose through combining my passions, education and faith into a God sized position within His Wheels International. What joy to have applied my experience and education into creating a culture of innovation where 22 different trike prototypes and a trike manufacturing process have been designed. Nearly 100 His Wheels trikes have been assembled, fabricated, and manufactured on five continents and we have provided 1,700 bikes to people affiliated with 90 countries.
All of us here are ordinary people. What sets us apart as extraordinary is embarking on the transformational process of actualizing our unique God given dreams and desires. As Walt Disney said, “If you can dream it you can do it.”[i] But paradox shouts a retort: Our unique and individualized dreams will encapsulate the most exhilarating life giving experiences along with the scariest most anxiety producing moments. Dreams are a force that must be reckoned with. This is often realized when the depth of our pain, suffering and failures intersect the heights of our joy. Then in a loud crescendo the unimaginable becomes an obtainable reality and our hearts resonate with the words of Scripture. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.”[ii]
At times, you may have wondered if graduation day would ever come. Well congratulations—today your dream has become a reality. Yet as you know, your degree doesn’t guarantee you a promised future. As a matter of fact, which of us here today can say with any certainty where we’ll be in another 4 years, let alone tomorrow?
When my life was turned topsy turvy by CFS, life as I knew it died. It was only because of the hope of the Resurrection that I found purpose and new life—despite my circumstances. One of the greatest gifts Resurrection University leaves with you is the heritage of its name. Jesus said…, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,”[iii] Go from here and dream magnanimously, live audaciously, give generously, love boldly and remember –“Out of death comes new life.” A PARADOX!