Hello, my friends and welcome to the Live Inspired podcast Monday Morning Moments,

the week of Soul on Fires inaugural week with John O'Leary.

I record these each week so that you and I can begin our days and this time are weeks in awe.

And with Souls on Fire with a burst of inspiration, let's roll family. Come on.

35 years ago, I left school on a Friday afternoon in January as an athletic, popular, mischievous fourth grade kid.

Fourteen months later, I returned to school seated in a wheelchair without my fingers, scars covered my entire body, and scared about how others might perceive me.

The fire changed everything, and I dreaded going back to school.

I wondered if I would still have friends, how I would get from class to class,

or how I'd get my books out of my backpack in the first place.

Ultimately, deep down, I wondered, did I belong?

As mom turned into our school, my heart sank and anxiety soared until I heard the shouts

and the screams.

Hundreds of little students lined both sides of the street.

Mom slowed down our Mercury Station wagon and we crawled toward the school.

As we did, kids on both sides shouted their welcomes.

They waved their signs.

They smiled excitedly at me.

As we rolled into the parking lot, the chairs got louder. My mother got out.

She opened the door, helped me get out of it into a wheelchair, and being a cool fifth grader,

I'm not even sure I looked up and waved or acknowledged the chairs coming from all around me.

But my friends listened to me. I heard them. I was moved by them, and I will never,

ever forget them. As our principal propped open the door into our school, my classmates were

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