Feb. 02, 2022
News Type:  President's Blog Date:  Wednesday, February 2, 2022 Byline:  Colonel David L. Coggins, USMC (Ret.)   Life is so precious. Years ago in Chippenham Hospital, a young mother gave birth to a baby boy...a baby she was unprepared to raise and care for. Had it been a decade later, that baby might not have […]...

News Type: 
President's Blog Date: 
Wednesday, February 2, 2022 Byline: 
Colonel David L. Coggins, USMC (Ret.)

 

Life is so precious.

Years ago in Chippenham Hospital, a young mother gave birth to a baby boy...a baby she was unprepared to raise and care for. Had it been a decade later, that baby might not have been delivered at all. But this mother saw her pregnancy through to that date of delivery, and placed the infant in the care of the Virginia Home Society. At two weeks old, the baby boy was adopted by a childless couple who raised him and built a family around him of other similarly adopted siblings.

And now, I celebrate each birthday with eternal thankfulness that my birth mother, whoever she was and whatever her circumstances, gave me that chance at life. In other circumstances, I might have been one doctor's visit away from not being here at all. 

I am thankful I had the opportunity to grow up in a family that chose me and loved me as their own. My parents very purposefully named me David, after the psalmist of the Bible...a name that in Hebrew actually means "beloved."

But most of all, I am thankful that I have a God who has always had a plan for my life.

Throughout my life I have taken great comfort and inspiration from the words of David, my namesake, in Psalms 139:13-14:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
—Psalms 139:13-14

From these words, I know that even before I was born, my God knew who I was, knew who I could become, and had a plan for my life.

As I look across our Corps of Cadets, I see young men from all parts of the world and from all types of families...and every single one of them is "fearfully and wonderfully made."

Wonderfully made...the psalmist uses the Hebrew word "pala" which means to be marvellous, to be wonderful, to be extraordinary. In other words, to be special. Each one of us is designed to be special.

Fearfully made...the Hebrew word used, "yare," means to fear or stand in awe of, to cause astonishment, to inspire reverence or awe. Each one of us is made to be both awesome and awe inspiring.

I challenge each one of our cadets to look at themselves in the mirror each day and to remember this lesson from Psalms 139—God has known and loved each one of us from the moment we were conceived and has designed us to be just the way we are, and that each one of us is special, extraordinary, awesome, and awe inspiring in our own way.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You are, too.

Go FUMA!

 

Colonel David L. Coggins, USMC (Ret.)
President
Fork Union Military Academy

 


 

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