I am a huge Orlando Magic Basketball fan. Of course I am a little down because of the result of last nights game, but I am also encouraged by a story my Mom told me about yesterday. According to abcnews.com, 4 year old Ryan Rodriguez, who suffered from an anxiety disorder called selective mutism, had never spoken more than a word or two. But that changed one night when Ryan caught a Magic game on television and started pointing, and saying "Me, me, play, play."
As a father, Izzy Rodriguez said he would do whatever to took to get his son to talk. So instead of paying the house payment, he payed $641 dollars for two premium seats to a Magic game. He says his son talked the whole time, the whole way home, and is still talking up a storm.
When Magic executives heard about Ryan, they gave he and his father tickets to every remaining playoff game, including the finals. Ryan's speech ability has continued to grow with each game.
This got me to thinking; I wonder how many speech therapists would have said, "If you take him to a Basketball game, he will be cured." Not likely. Yet whenever we face struggles in life or in our faith, we tend to go to the same supposed "cures."
Sometimes, we need to think outside of the box. Not that we need to give up on proven methods of dealing with life's challenges, but sometimes we need to take risks. Many fathers would have heard those words from little Ryan and said, "He talked a little, were getting somewhere, call the therapist." But Izzy wanted to know how far it could get so he took the risk and it paid off.
The moral of the story: Be willing to go outside of the box and take risks as you fight life's battles! And oh yea, Go Magic!!!
To read more or watch a video about Ryan, here are a couple of links.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=7753723&page=1
http://www.wftv.com/video/19657779/index.html
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