Adversity is the grindstone of life.  Intended to polish you up, adversity also
          has the ability to grind you down. The impact and ultimate result depend on
          what you do with the difficulties that come your way. Consider the phenomenal
          achievements of people experiencing adversity.

          Beethoven composed his greatest works after becoming deaf. Sir Walter
          Raleigh wrote the History of the World during a thirteen year imprisonment. If
          Columbus had turned back, no one could have blamed him, considering the
          constant adversity he endured. Of course, no one would have remembered him
          either. Abraham Lincoln achieved greatness by his display of wisdom and
          character during the devastation of the Civil War. Luther translated the Bible
          while enduring confinement in the Castle of Wartburg. Under a sentence of
          death and during twenty years in exile, Dante wrote the Divine Comedy. John
          Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in a Bedford jail.

          Finally, consider a more recent example.  Mary Groda-Lewis endured sixteen
          years of illiteracy because of unrecognized dyslexia, was committed to a
          reformatory on two different occasions, and almost died of a stroke while
          bearing a child.  Committed to going to college, she worked at a variety of odd
          jobs to save money, graduated with her high school equivalency at eighteen,
          was named Oregon's outstanding Upward Bound student, and finally entered
          college.  Determined to become a doctor, she faced fifteen medical school
          rejections until Albany Medical College finally accepted her.  In 1984, Dr.
          Mary Groda-Lewis, at thirty-five, graduated with honors to fulfill her dream.

          Adversity - the grindstone of life.  Will it grind you down or polish you up?
 

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