“You've
got to read his book---Gifted Hands,” the pastor said. “His story amazes me, how a young black mother here in America was able to
raise two black boys into fine citizens, one of them in
particular...." I sat in church and listened. I wondered a bit---why
this man's story was a major fixture of the sermon today.
The
day was a sunday, at Salvation Center, and the Preacher was Pastor Doyin Oke.
He'd recently read the book by renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson.
I
thought of the story a while, trying to measure it's weight. I spent a few minutes, and simply left it to lie.
And then I found myself
wandering the isles of the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the
Arboretum here in Austin, and the book showed up, and it beckoned:
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story. Is this not the very book the
pastor talked about? I thought. Yeah, it is. Well, let's see
what's in here.
I
read it a bit---not bad, I thought, after a few pages. But I kept reading, and reading, and
the clock struck 10pm, closing time for the bookstore. I had to
leave. I could not put the book down. Either buy it or put it back on the rack---I had to decide. I bought it, and left.
Here
is an excerpt from his days at the University of Yale...in his own words.
Money
Lack
of money constantly troubled me during my college years. But two
experiences during my studies at Yale reminded me that God cared and
would always provide for my needs.
First,
during my sophomore year I had very little money. And then all of a
sudden, I had absolutely no money---not even enough to ride the bus
back and forth to church. No matter how I viewed the situation, I had
no prospects of anything coming in for at least a couple of weeks.
That
day I walked across the campus alone, bewailing my situation, tired
of never having enough money to buy the everyday things I needed; the
simple things like toothpaste or stamps.”Lord,” I prayed, please
help me. At least give me bus fare to go to church.”
Although
I'd been walking aimlessly, I looked up and realized I was just
outside Battell Chapel on the old campus. As I approached the bike
racks, I looked down. A ten dollar bill lay crumpled on the ground
three feet in front of me.
“Thank
You, God,” I said as I picked it up, hardly able to believe that I
had the money in my hand.
The
following I hit that same low point again---not one cent on me, and
no expectations for getting any. Naturally I walked across campus all
the way to the chapel, searching for a ten dollar bill. I found none.
Lack
of funds wasn't my only worry that day, however. The day before I'd
been informed that the final examination papers in a psychology
class, Perceptions 301, “were inadvertently burned.” I'd taken
the exam two days earlier but, with the other students, would have to
repeat the test.
And
so I, with about 150 other students, went to the designated
auditorium for the repeat exam.
As
soon as we received the tests, the professor walked out of the
classroom. Before I had a chance to read the first question, I heard
a loud groan behind me.
“Are
they kidding?” someone whispered loudly.
As
I stared at the questions, I couldn't believe them either. They were
incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Each of them contained a
thread of what we should have known from the course, but they were so
intricate that I figured a brilliant psychiatrist might have trouble
with some of them.
“Forget
it,” I heard one girl say to another. “Let's go back and study
this. We can say we didn't read the notice. Then when they repeat it,
we'll be ready.” Her friend agreed, and they quietly slipped out of
the auditorium.
Immediately
three others packed away their paper. Others filtered out. Within ten
minutes after the exam started, we were down to roughly one hundred.
Soon half the class was gone, and the exodus continued. Not one
person turned in the examination before leaving.
I
kept working away, thinking all the time, How can they expect us
to know this stuff? Pausing then to look around, I counted seven
students besides me still going over the test.
Within
half an hour from the time the examination began, I was the only
student left in the room. Like the others, I was tempted to walk out,
bu I had read the notice, and I couldn't like and say I hadn't. All
the time I wrote my answers, I prayed to God to help me figure out
what to put down. I paid more no more attention to departing
footsteps.
Suddenly
the door of the classroom opened noisily, disrupting my flow of
thought. As I turned, my gaze met that of the professor. At the same
time I realized no one else was still struggling over the questions.
The professor toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale
Daily News who paused and snapped my picture.
“What's
going on?” I asked.
“A
hoax, a fake,” the teacher said. “We wanted to see who was the
most honest student in the class.” She smiled again. “And that's
you.”
The
professor then did something even better. She handed me a ten-dollar
bill.
