Hondo, Texas doesn’t sound like the birthplace of a winner. It isn’t much of a town now and must have been less 74 years ago when he was born there. What a place to start out, as it is too far from San Antonio to benefit from their jobs and there wasn’t much of a reason for the city folks to come out that way. His birthplace surely didn’t make him a winner!
What about his family? Maybe they are the reason he is a winner? He was born into a big family, where he was given lots of love and support, but they weren’t rich or powerful, so they couldn’t give him much else. He must have been raised right, because both he and his brother turned out good, but that’s not enough to become a winner.
Did I mention he was diagnosed with polio at 11 months old? He spent a lot of time in the hospital where they put a steel rod in his back to help him function. He was considered severely handicapped all his life and they didn’t have the programs to help him like they do now, so he had to struggle to get by. I’m sure he suffered discrimination because of his physical problems, so that certainly didn’t make him a winner.
He is Hispanic and told me they got spanked for speaking Spanish in school and he used to hate white people, so they must have mistreated him when he was growing up. With the discrimination he had to deal with as a young man, I don’t think his race made him a winner.
With all he had going against him, he still graduated from Barber College. It wasn’t the best work for a man with his physical problems, but it enabled him to make a living in a world that seemed to be against him. He married a wonderful woman, raised successful children, who blessed him. The “Southside” of San Antonio, where he lived, wasn’t his secret because that’s a place where statistically trouble thrives. None of those made him a winner.
So, what made him a winner? Roberto Garcia is a winner because “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 KJV) and he accepted JESUS as his personal Savior! From that moment on, Roberto was a winner and the more he obeyed, the more he won!
But he didn’t get miraculously healed, neither he nor his family became rich, he still suffered from discrimination, and he still lived in a small house on the Southside! How can he be called a winner? The LORD said, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9 KJV). GOD took away Roberto’s heart of stone and gave him a heart of flesh, so he could love GOD with his all and love his neighbor as himself (Mat 22:37 and 39) and planted him on the Southside, beside his son, where he let the light of JESUS shine! Roberto is now in the arms of JESUS, who died on the cross to make that poor, broken, Hispanic kid from Hondo Texas a winner forever more and He can also do that for “whosoever believeth” like you!
Wayne Lance (2022) – That’s Good News to Share!