Heartsong by Mattie Stepanek

I have a song, deep in my heart,
and only I can hear it.
If I close my eyes and sit very still
it is so easy to listen to my song
When my eyes are open
and I am so busy and moving and busy,
if I take time and listen very hard,
I can still hear my heartsong.
It makes me feel happy.
Happier than ever.
Happier than everywhere,
and everything and everyone in the world.
Happy like thinking about
Going to Heaven when I die.
My heartsong goes like this-
I love you! I love you!
How happy can you be!
How happy can you make this whole world be!
And sometimes it's other
Tunes and words, too.
But it always sings the same special song.
But do you know what?
All people have a special song
Inside their hearts!
Everyone in the whole world has a special heartsong.
If you believe in magical, musical hearts.
And if you believe you can be happy
Then you, too, will hear your song.

-Mattie J. Stepanek
1992-2004

Mattie Stepanek was a special young man born with a rare form of MD, which is short for Muscular Dystrophy, it robbed him of his mobility and eventually it robbed him of his life, but as you can see from reading his poem, it did not rob him of his love for life and the people in it. He was a very talented young man who actually became a published author and inspired disabled and non-disabled people alike. He caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey and appeared on her show several times. He was a very sweet, creative and loving young man and I thought I'd share one of his poems here on my blog.

Why do we have pain?

When I was younger and I heard people say that there is a reason for everything, I liked that saying, it seemed to ring true to me. I maybe even believed it. Now I'm a little bit older, and I've been through tragedies and illness, I've started to think about that saying again. Is there a reason why an innocent child dies or a loved one gets ill? I mean, if you have a child of yours die and somebody tells you there was a reason for it, you see how it feels. Everyone doesn't understand how God could allow such pain and suffering in the world. He allows it because he gave us a choice, to cause the world and the people in it pain or to bring them joy. Free will. There are some mysteries still left in this life, illnesses, for example. I do believe God can heal sick people and that he has done so before, but I don't believe that he just won't heal some people. Who knows he may have saved their lives already, many times. We really need to look for the miracles and blessings in our lives, I promise you they are there, no matter how bad your life is.

"Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life." -Angelina Jolie