Color Me Blessed
Where can I buy a copy of the book?
Color Me Blessed currently is a work in progress. To read an excerpt from her book click here>>.
When I was a child growing up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, people would turn their heads or cross the streets to avoid me. Today, some fifty years later, I invite you with me to the four corners of the earth, showing eager people how to make their countries friendly to more than 800 million people with disabilities around the world. Share with me the excitement of developing safaris in the jungle, climbing the highest mountains, reaching seemingly impossible sites inside rain forests and jungles where no paralyzed person has been before, and experiencing the underwater world from the beaches which were once thought impossible to maneuver through in a wheelchair.
Only during the polio epidemic in the 1950’s has disability issues been in the news more frequently. We’re at a poignant time in history where accepting each other’s differences is so important.
One of four children, I was raised in a two-room house built by my mother, Gump. If fate had intended to suppress this innocent, seemingly vulnerable little tousle-headed child of the hills, fate would have lost. It could not have foreseen the extraordinary inner strength, will and dauntless self-confidence gained from lessons learned living in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains.
Most people never thought I’d leave those mountains much less follow a miraculous journey to foreign lands meeting dignitaries including Queens, a Prince and a Princess, Presidents and not one but two Popes in the Vatican.
My husband and I, both paralyzed, trained and traveled to compete in some seventeen countries in sports and built much of our home and small farm ourselves with the strength and confidence we obtained through our sports experiences. Faced with other obstacles as austere as my paralysis, I persevered the discrimination and negative attitudes to mold a happy life.
Color Me Blessed tells the story of this Southern woman’s long journey to independence guided by faith in God. A journey which reveals miracles and evidence of a Higher Power and a plan for each of us to find our way in life. For any woman to rise above such poverty, hopelessness and despair and lead a normal life would be in itself a major achievement.
But for a Southern woman paralyzed at the age of three to reach the heights of these accomplishments against many obstacles make it extraordinary.
Sharon at the Monastario Hotel in Cusco, Peru