He spoke at all 4 or our church services yesterday sharing the faith end of his spectacular (and sad) journey. This week he will speak in 10 schools, both high school and middle school sharing the secular version, tailored to youth and their unique cultural needs. His message? You are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. You alone make the choices that drive your life.
Life does not come with a manual. Each person lives life through the choices they make. Sometimes those choices are driven by others, but ultimately they are our own choices. Nathan learned this very real, very tough lesson after driving drunk, hitting a tree and killing the passenger, Priscilla Owens. He learned this very real, very tough lesson after being sentenced to 15 years in jail. He changed his story then, making sure the girl's death, his derelict story, would motivate others to make better choices, to take off the mask they were wearing and believe in themselves. He wanted to motivate others who bullied, cut, did drugs, stole to support their habit and all the other dark choices that capture people, to CHANGE THEIR WAYS. He wanted them to know that ultimately choices matter and they had control.
Invictus
By William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.