Hope Through Heartsongs (unabridged)

The celebrated child Mattie J.T. Stepanek continues his internationally inspiring poetry with Hope Through Heartsongs. For those who haven't followed Stepanek's rise to fame, this young phenomenon writes poetry that is wise beyond his years and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live. Indeed, as Gary Zukav marvels in the book's foreword, Stepanek's wisdom seems to extend beyond what most human beings master in a lifetime. "A heartsong is something deep inside each of us," Mattie Stepanek explains in his introduction. "It's our sense of why we are here and how we can keep going. It's like a purpose. It may be to live as a mommy or a daddy, or a firefighter or a delivery person, or a child with a disability who teaches others about patience and love and acceptance."As a child living with muscular dystrophy who has lost all three of his siblings to the same disease, Stepanek knows the landscape of loss and grief. How easy it would be to wallow in despair, yet Stepanek has chosen hope--not the wide-eyed hope of the innocent, but the hope consciously chosen in the face of human suffering and troubling global problems. Many believe that global healing has to start with the little people and move its way up to the leaders. What better place to begin than with the words of this amazing child? You may be tall I may be small, But inside we are the same length of strength --Mattie J.T. Stepanek, June 1998--Gail Hudson