Information Related to "Events Mold the Character of a Future President"
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Events
Mold the Character of a Future President
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Theodore
Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, was strengthened by his
suffering. He was blessed with a quick and able mind, but he had a sickly body.
He
suffered from debilitating asthma.
When Theodore was about 12 his father said to him: "Theodore, you have
the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind
cannot go as far as it should ... You must make your own body ... It is hard
drudgery to make one's body ... but I know you will do it" (David McCullough,
Mornings on Horseback, 1981, p. 112).
Teddy, as Americans would come to affectionately call him, later related to
a friend the impact his father's admonition had on him. From his father's remarks
he saw himself as a weak human specimen, so he had to make himself strong.
He began an immediate program of physical development, working out at a gymnasium
with weights and punching bags. Teddy was religious in his devotion to improve
his health. His determination paid off; he developed a powerful body no longer
disabled by asthma.
Later in his life Teddy Roosevelt would suffer an even greater trial when his
mother and his young wife died on the same day. His wife had given birth to
a daughter just two days before. He was at a loss to explain such a tragedy.
He said he knew of no answers save "God's will" or "strange and
terrible fate" (ibid., p. 285).
Although some biographers say he never completely recovered from this calamity,
he did respond to its challenge and triumphed over the depression that enveloped
him.
Though the death of his wife at age 22 was crushing, he bounced back and went
on to national greatness. Some have observed that had he not suffered in this
way he might never have become president of the United States. Theodore Roosevelt,
as have many others, responded to trials and suffering by accomplishing more
than he would have achieved had those tests never happened.
© 2001 United Church of God, an International Association
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