I knew I was going to have to fight hard to figure out what God had planned for me from the day He first started to “knit me together in my mother’s womb,” as Psalm 139 states. I also realized other promises in God’s Word don’t contain exclusions like “unless you’re an amputee.” In Jeremiah 29:11, He said His plans were to “prosper” me and “not to harm” me, to give me “a hope and a future.” I needed to trust that His plan was coming to pass.

My occupational therapist had me doing exercises like bicep curls by placing an empty weight bar inside my arms at the elbows. He would also have me roll a small tennis ball covered in rubber spikes between my stumps with the goal of not dropping it. All the while, I was pushing and squeezing the ball as hard as I could. This exercise had two purposes: to help get my range of motion back in my arms, and to desensitize the ends of my stumps, which were still very raw and sensitive. My arms and legs had to be toughened up to stop the pain. It’s hard to wrap your brain around the fact that you have to intentionally hurt yourself so that you won’t unintentionally hurt yourself later!

Because the exercises were so difficult and painful, at first I could only handle about ten seconds at a time. By that point, I was down to one pain medication, only for the rehab exercises. But towards the end of July, I took my last pain pill, which was a huge step in the right direction for me. I refused to become another statistic!

How Are You Not Dead?!

In August 2020, as school was getting ready to start, my boys started getting ready for their sports teams to ramp up again. I had always been their soccer and football coach since Asher was four; now, at age ten, he was beginning to talk about trying out for a competitive soccer league. I had never coached at that level, and didn’t have the desire to; I was the dad who just wanted to be with my kids and if that meant coaching, then that’s what I would do. Sign me up!

Before I took Asher to the tryout, I knew that I needed to have a difficult but honest talk with him. We sat down and I cautiously asked, “Do you care if I come watch you?” I had no idea what he might say.

He looked surprised and answered, “Well, of course. Why would you not come watch me?” “Well, I don’t want to embarrass you,” I said. “I wouldn’t want people to tease you about the way your dad looks or that your dad’s in a wheelchair or talk behind your back.”

Asher’s response warmed my heart.

“I couldn’t care less, Dad. You have to be out there.”

That moment was a huge motivator for me, because at that time, I was my own worst enemy. I was ashamed of how I looked. I was insecure and didn’t want people to see my scars. I didn’t want the side-eyes or stares. I didn’t want people to pull their kids in closer to them when I passed by in my wheelchair. I had already imagined all those things and more were going to happen all the time. I projected my fears onto everyone and assumed they would look at me with pity at best—or judgment at worst.

Look at that last paragraph again. Do you see how many sentences start with “I?” That was the first problem with my mindset. At Asher’s practices, just as we had discussed, I was “out there.” And I hated every second of it, because I was dealing with so many toxic thoughts about myself and fears about all the other parents. For the first time in my life, I hated watching my son play sports because I was nervous about what people were thinking and saying about me.

But that became yet another line-in-the-sand moment, as I was forced to confront myself. Alright, Gary, what’s it going to be? Are you going to keep faking and pretending or are you going to just own it? I had to come to grips with the cold, hard fact that there was absolutely nothing I could do about how I looked. This was my life now, and I had to choose to live it like the old hymn says, “Just As I Am.”

While this may sound incredibly cheesy to some folks, one of the biggest motivators I found to press on came when I watched The Greatest Showman, the musical about the legendary circus icon P.T. Barnum—specifically, when the circus performers sang “This is Me.” Somehow, watching a scene about people that society considered “freaks” unapologetically celebrating their uniqueness gave me a shot of courage. (Yes, I love musicals, okay? I always have. I don’t know why. And now I have gone public with that guilty pleasure.)

I decided I was not going to hide my appearance anymore. I would let anyone, anywhere stare at me anytime they wanted. I was going to go for it. So on all my social media, I posted a full-body picture of me without my bandages that showed all my open wounds and every scar. Everything. All of it. This is me. I also quoted some of the brilliant lyrics from the song.

Ironically, after that post, the seven degrees of separation principle kicked in. One of my childhood friends had moved to Los Angeles and by that point had been an animator for Disney for years. Along the way, he had become friends with Keala Settle, the actress who played the bearded lady and sang the lead on “This is Me” in the movie. She commented on my Instagram post, and we chatted there for a bit. Then we set up a FaceTime call because Keala wanted to encourage me. That was an unexpected, huge blessing I never imagined might happen. The entire experience was a major confidence booster at the perfect time.

Through a GoFundMe page we had set up at the time, I was able to purchase a minivan that could accommodate a wheelchair. That allowed me to go to every one of Asher’s soccer practices and all the games. When the competitive season ended, recreational season started with “rec soccer” and “rec flag football.” I had coached both sports in that league previously. Our community has a massive youth sports complex for baseball, soccer, and football, with multiple fields for each sport. Every field is covered in extremely expensive Astroturf, and as a result, the complex has a lot of rules like “no lawn chairs” and “no pets”—nothing that might damage the turf. Knowing this, I assumed there was no way they were going to allow my two- hundred-pound body on my four-hundred-pound wheelchair to get anywhere near those fields.

But with my new shot of confidence still in play, I decided to give it a go. I emailed the commissioner, who knew me, and told him about my dilemma. He responded that he didn’t know the solution, but would take it to the board of directors. To my surprise, the board approved my request—but had to get permission from the city because it’s a municipal facility. Soon, I got a phone call giving me access to the fields. So, still brimming with confidence, I took it a step further and reached out to the soccer league and football league to ask if any coaching spots were still open. The Space Coast United Soccer League president said, “Hey, Gary, we definitely want you back. But also, we want to subsidize your kids to play soccer here. Keep us informed about their sizes for cleats, uniforms, jerseys, balls, anything you need, and we’ll take care of it.”

Gary Miracle is a Christian advocate and motivational speaker, born in Michigan and raised in Florida by a close-knit family. Today, when Gary isn’t at home with his family in central Florida, he is on the road at churches, conferences, and conventions sharing how he discovered the life God always had for him, in spite of personal tragedy and trauma. His new book, No More Bad Days, will be available for purchase nationwide October 10, 2023