Franklin D. Roosevelt - strength of spirit

A couple of weeks ago, I was channel surfing, and landed on the History Channel. It was airing the tail end of a documentary on Pearl Harbour, and I lingered because the story has always fascinated me. But the next programme was what got me hooked. It was about Franklin Delano Roosevelt - then President of the United States - at the time of the Pearl Harbour bombing.

Before watching the programme, I didn't know anything about FDR. After watching it, I was really taken by him, and felt that I needed to study more about his life. Throughout it all, I felt God was saying something to me - about how to develop a strong spirit.

But first, here are some nuggets about FDR, and why I consider him to have incredible strength of character:

1. He was president of the United States from 1933-1945, which meant he was leading the nation through one of its most difficult periods of history (The Great Depression, and World War II). The people were frightened, the nation was in an unprecedented and very troubled time, and he gave them leadership and hope.

2. At the age of 39, he was diagnosed with polio, which left him paralysed from the waist down. In the book "Character Above All" (Edited by Robert A Wilson), it is written: "The actor Gregory Peck recalled waiting at a harbor when he was a boy to catch his first glimpse of the President. Like most Americans, Peck had no idea that Roosevelt was a paraplegic. While he knew that Roosevelt had had polio when he was younger, he had no understanding of the full extent of his disability, no idea that he had to call for his valet every morning to help him get out of bed. Because there was an unspoken code of honor on the part of the press never to photograph the President looking crippled, never to show him helpless, never to show him on his crutches or in his wheelchair, most people simply assumed that the polio had left him a bit lame but that he could still walk on his own power.

"So when the young Gregory Peck stood on the dock that day and saw Roosevelt being carried off the boat like a child, he was so stunned that he started to cry. But then, Peck recalled, Roosevelt instantly put everyone at ease. As soon as he was placed in his chair, he put his hat on his head, placed his cigarette holder in his mouth, waved to the crowd, and smiled his dazzling smile, and suddenly Peck said, 'I started clapping and everything was fine. He seemed with every gesture to be saying, 'I'm not pitying myself, so why should you worry about me?"

His wife Eleanor Roosevelt called the polio "his trial by fire". "I think probably the thing that took most courage in his life was his mastery and meeting of polio. I never heard him complain. He just accepted it as one of those things that was given you as discipline in life." After his struggle with polio, he seemed less arrogant, less smug, less superficial, more focused, more complex, more interesting. "There had been a plowing up of his nature" Frances Perkins commented. "The man emerged completely warm-hearted, with new humility of spirit, and a firmer understanding of philosophical concepts."

When he died, the nation mourned greatly for him, which underlines just what a strong, well-loved leader he was in a time when the US was in the crucible of fire (and despite he having to deal with his own disability). The New York Times editorialised that "men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now... that FDR was in the White House."

All this was fascinating to me. What gave FDR so much strength, that he could not only carry himself but an entire nation through a troubled time; and give himself and them hope to overcome? It is said that one of the most significant achievements of his presidency is "the renewal of courage and hope and faith of the American people".

In an essay of FDR by author Doris Kearns Goodwin, she says the strength came from "an inner well of serenity ... which proved to be an unending source of spiritual refreshment for Roosevelt".

An inner well of serenity. Those words jumped out at me. It is a stillness, a calmness, an inner peace in spite of the outer turmoil, an unshakeable confidence. It is about having an anchor for the soul.

The verse that keeps coming back to me is:
"I have set the Lord always before me,
Because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved (shaken)." (Psalm 16:8)

I am definitely not there yet. But I know this is a quality that God wants to cultivate in His people. We cannot be spiritual warriors unless our hearts are still even when there is trouble all around.

This is an old song by Don Moen that I started to sing tonight - God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Amen.