Richmond, Va., Man Inspired to a Career in Law and to Prosecute Violent Crimes

Often, the deepest, most moving form of inspiration is born out of tragedy. That is certainly the case in the story of Virginia Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Timothy Martin, who was 17 when he watched the man charged with his brother’s attempted murder and the murder of his brother’s girlfriend stand trial more than 17 years ago. Both victims were shot in the head. Martin’s brother survived, but the girlfriend did not.

Martin watched as prosecutor Learned Barry took command of the courtroom as he successfully sought conviction and a death sentence for the shooter. Martin got his law degree and sought out Barry as a mentor. Martin now prosecutes violent cases for the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

Read all the details of this story in the Richmond Times Dispatch: Trial inspired career in court.

Rep. Giffords Shares Special Bond with Veteran Invited to State of the Union

This story about an Iraqi War veteran who helped inspire Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ fight to come back from a devastating brain injury caused in a shooting just over a year ago is worth a read:

By Dustin Volz
Cronkite News
Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012

 
WASHINGTON – Just hours before the State of the Union address Tuesday, Brian Kolfage was in Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office, reflecting on the determination and perseverance of the congresswoman.

“She’s a tough woman,” Kolfage said of Giffords, whose recovery from a 2011 shooting captivated the nation. “I know she’ll overcome it (her injuries) and she’ll be stronger.”

But before Giffords inspired the nation, Kolfage – who lost both legs and an arm in a 2004 mortar attack in Iraq – inspired her.

Read the entire story here: http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/01/giffords-shares-special-bond-with-veteran-invited-to-state-of-the-union/

Tim Tebow – Inspirational or Offensive?

Denver Broncos quarterback, Tim Tebow.
A story on Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow is low-hanging fruit for us. It’s a little too easy to line him up as another athlete with an inspiring story on this website and write an article about the man who to us is such an inspiration and a great story that should make everyone smile, at least just a little, and feel good inside. So we didn’t do our own piece, we waited for the other media to write one. And we waited all season. We waited while the Tebow-bashing and criticizing played out in the mainstream media.

Frankly, it confuses us that anyone could watch this athlete, understand his back story, and come up with the conclusion that his is anything but an inspiring story. Most of the media doesn’t seem to get it. Which just goes to show you how out of touch most of the mainstream media is with mainstream America.

Eighty-five percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. So you’d think that Tebow giving praise to his “Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” very publicly after every game would be no big deal, not news, not a “man bites dog” story, but the opposite. Other football players at every level get on bended knee for a brief moment, bow their heads, cross themselves when they’ve scored a touchdown. Not all of them, of course, but enough to notice. Maybe Tebow, whose kneeling pose in prayer has become known as “Tebowing,” holds his prayer a little longer than the others. Or maybe it’s that he’s been so open about his faith, that when he points his finger to heaven reflecting the cheers and applause that shower down upon him when he scores up to a higher power, everyone knows exactly what the gesture means. Other athletes do it constantly. But maybe there’s some ambiguity in their gestures because they don’t talk about their faith as openly as Tebow does.

A little background on Tim Tebow, just in case you didn’t know (and you might not, because most of the media doesn’t focus on the back story):

• Tim was born to Baptist missionary parents in the Philippines.
• While she was pregnant with Tim, his mother, Pam, suffered a life-threatening infection. She went into a coma. She also suffered from dysentery. She was treated with an array of drugs as a result – drugs that shouldn’t be used on a pregnant woman, because of the danger to the fetus. She pulled through her illness, but doctors warned her to expect her baby to be stillborn. They said if Tim went to term and survived, that he could be severely disabled as a result of the drug treatments she received. They asked her to consider an abortion. Pam refused.
• In a high school game as a sophomore, Tebow hurt his right leg on a play in the first half of a game. His coach told him to toughen up, that it was probably just a bruise. Tebow continued to play and in the fourth quarter, ran for a score-tying 29-yard touchdown. After the game, x-rays showed a broken fibula. And not just a hairline fracture – a “jagged break of his lower leg,” as his coach described it. He didn’t play the rest of the year.

You’ve probably seen this drink commercial, “Appreciate That,” where Tebow outlines the things people have said he couldn’t do:


Overcoming adversity? Yeah, just a little. Inspirational? We think so.

We wanted to highlight this piece of commentary by the Miami Herald’s Linda Robertson: Inspirational or offensive, Tim Tebow’s no phony. Unfortunately, however, her column is no longer accessible through the Miami Herald website, so we’ve had to link to the only place on the web we’ve been able to find it. It’s poorly copied and pasted — there are no paragraphs and some sentences run into the next, but it’s still readable. We hope you enjoy it.

Betty Ford Dies at 93

Betty Ford (White House Photo)
Betty Ford, former First Lady and wife of late former President Gerald Ford died yesterday at the age of 93. She admitted a long-time addiction to alcohol and prescription pain-killers and her recovery from them led her to open the Betty Ford Center to help others similarly addicted. Read the full story.

Some quotes about her:

“She has been an inspiration to so many through her efforts to educate women about breast cancer and her wonderful work at the Betty Ford Center.”

— Former first lady Nancy Reagan

“She was an authentic and genuine hero in the recovery world. … It’s sort of hard to imagine her absence on this earth.”

— Carl Sferrazza Anthony, former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan and author of
“First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents’ Wives & Their Power”

Record-Setting 74-year-old Body Builder Inspires Fellow Athletes

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OR-6y-8-nM&feature=player_embedded]
Now if this woman isn’t inspiring, I don’t know what you would define as inspirational. Meet Ernestine Shepherd, now 74 years old and in the best shape of her life! She’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest female bodybuilder ever. She didn’t even start working out until she was 56 — she got motivated to get healthier after her sister passed away from brain aneurysm.

Here’s a little window into her workout regimen — remember, this is at the age of 74: She wakes up at 3am every day to begin her fitness routine, but first, she takes time out for devotionals; then she gets her day going with a 10-mile run, after which she does weight training. She can bench press 150 pounds.

“Don’t let life pass you by,” she says. “You can be fit. I feel so much better now in my 70s than I did in my 40s.”

Conformity or Inspiration?

“We train kids to deal with teachers in a certain way: Find out what they want, and do that, just barely, because there are other things to work on. Figure out how to say back exactly what they want to hear, with the least amount of effort, and you are a ‘good student.'”

– Seth Godin

Read on to see how this interesting perspective plays out in Seth Godin’s blog: Moving Beyond Teachers and Bosses.

What’s your plan for living an inspired life? By giving your teachers and your bosses what you think they want? Or will you break free of that conformist construct and truly strive to live a life inspired on?