About being brain damaged
By Keith Williamson Special to the Sentinel

I've been writing this article for three years now, but I'm not a pastor. Most often I write from the perspective of someone who has been through a lot of pain. An accident gave me a head injury almost 18 years ago.

For years my speech showed my brain damage to the world. The words I wanted to say were not the words coming out of my mouth. My lack of short-term memory made it even more obvious my brain was sick.

Those days are over now. You would never know I ever had a problem unless I told you.

However, the effects of living part of my life with a defective brain will never be forgotten. I don't take speaking properly for granted or being able to remember simple things I am told. And I don't forget the help God gave me in coping with my brain damage.

How would you like to pull up in the parking lot of where you work and know you couldn't do a good job no matter how hard you tried. Getting to work on time wasn't the big issue. How to cope with the criticism, embarrassment, and ridicule your day would bring was the question for the day.

This is how I coped. I would get to work about an hour before I needed to be there. Then I would pray and read my Bible until time to go to work. For my problem that was the only medicine available.

Think of what I was facing. I was just working in a warehouse and trying to follow simple instructions while moving boxes. The job was simple enough, but shockingly difficult when your brain doesn't work and you can't remember what you're told.

The work is complicated by the thoughts that go through your head. "Being high school valedictorian prepared me for this? This is what I get for six years of going to college while working and keeping a 3.5 GPA?" Perhaps this was the thought that hurt the most, "My classmates in high school didn't have this job in mind when they elected me Most Likely to Succeed."

Thoughts like that can make you sick. I know. I also know focusing on and relating to God can help your heart and clean your mind. It will change your life.

Have you helped your heart and cleaned your mind by going to God in Jesus' name? If you haven't and won't do it, you are more brain-damaged than I ever was!