Burden

Like many people that first meet each other will introduce them self by saying "hello my name is..." and for me that sentence has been one of the scariest sentences I have ever had to say. I'm sure many of you when you read that thought "are you kidding me how is that a hard thing to do all you have to say is your name" and that is what scares me the most about it. Since the age of 10 I have had a slight stutter and over time it has slowly grew worse and worse. I am 18 now and I  can not say my own name about 75% of the time. If someone was to ask me my name I probably would not be able to say it. I can't tell you how stupid that makes me feel I mean really who can't say there own NAME! Over the years I slowly allowed myself to believe that I really was stupid and started to become more quiet due to the fact of my stutter. So instead of trying to be social and just have a good time with friends and accept my stutter I would just sit there and said nothing. I started to loose my friends because of this and many of them started to really pick on me and make fun of me because of my stutter. When people tried to talk to me (which wasn't often) I would think to myself "just don't say anything and then you won't stutter and look like a retard" but then after ignoring the person I would think to myself "WoW! you just made yourself look even more stupid because you didn't talk. Way to go Austin...!" I soon became very depressed and anti-social. I would hardly ever leave my room and had really lost sight in God. I really then moved on to just hating life. That was until I started going to the Catholic Church.

 Let me back up for a minute and give you some background information. My parents had a divorce when I was four. My mom was not catholic so after the divorce we went to a Baptist church. Further down the road my oldest sister was Baptized in the church and really started to enjoy the Baptist church. During this time I would spend many of my weekends over at a family friends house and I always seemed to be there Sunday and every Sunday they would go to mass this was the first step to me falling on love with the Catholic Church. By the time I started to really enjoy and understand more about the Catholic Church my mom remarried. The man she married was a very religious man he was Greek Orthodox and because of this my mom "converted" from Baptist to Greek Orthodox and our family was divided because of our different religions.  (Back to where I was)

My aunt played a major role in me becoming catholic she taught me a lot about the church and she made sure to take me to church every Sunday and because of this it really helped me with my depression and coping with my stuttering but I would not really start to cope with it until after a amazing summer camp that really helped me to see the good in it. At this camp I was a counselor in training(CIT) and the first week we learned what it takes to be a great counselor and then the second week we were put with a group of kids. One of my boys had a stuttering problem and i know God put him there for that reason. I was able to bond so well with him and really was able to understand what he was going through. I was able to see just how small of a problem my stuttering was compared to his and he embraced his stuttering. He said it set him apart for other people and he liked that he also got to miss some class to go work on his speech. He always had a positive attitude and was just happy with life. He really helped me to cope with my stuttering and really see some good in it by him just being himself. Also I had two amazing guys I meet while I was there and they really helped me with my stuttering and gave me another perspective about how it was my cross to carry. To show people that even thought I struggle with this I still can see the good in it and because of this burden I have grown closer in my faith as well. 

I know we all have struggles that we wish we did not have and things about us that we wish we could change, but these are things God has given us for a reason to help us grow stronger in our faith, and even though today you may still not know why you have this it will become clear one day. These are your crosses to carry don't pray for them to go away but pray for a stronger back to be able to carry your cross. 

God Bless,

Austin