Do you ever feel stupid? You know—dumb, unintelligent, not qualified, uneducated, and inadequate? All my life I’ve been dyslexic, so I know the feeling. Yet, many years ago I came across Psalm 119:99, “I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes” (NIV). It changed my life and the way I view myself and my disability.

That Scripture promise of having more insight than all my teachers depends on the condition that I meditate on God’s Word, and I have daily done so since I first grabbed hold of the promise and refused to let go. I have a long way to go in gaining insight, but I know that I am further along than I was during my school years. I’m sure my high school teachers would agree.

Two of my children struggled through homeschooling with this same disability, yet have done very well with their lives. Both model insight in a culture greatly lacking in wisdom. I prayed this promise over them throughout their years of homeschooling and taught them the Scriptures along with math and English. God is faithful.

Here’s a list of famous men and women who never graduated from grade school. It would be interesting to find out how many of them found the practice of meditating in God’s Word to be a major factor in their success.

1. Andrew Carnegie, U.S. industrialist and philanthropist
2. Charles Chaplin, British actor and film director
3. William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, American scout and showman
4. Noel Coward, British actor, playwright, and composer
5. Charles Dickens, British novelist
6. Thomas Edison, U.S. inventor
7. Samuel Gompers, U.S. labor leader
8. Maxim Gorky, Russian writer
9. Claude Monet, French painter
10. Sean O’Casey, Irish playwright
11. Alfred E. Smith, U.S. politician
12. John Philip Sousa, U.S. bandleader and composer
13. Henry M. Stanley, British explorer
14. Mark Twain, U.S. humorist and writer

What disability are you overcoming with the help of the One who created you? I’d love to hear your story.

In Him together, Susan Gaddis