TheDiscipleMD

In my senior year of high school, I was awarded the “Most Improved Varsity Wrestler.” I earned the award because in my junior year, I had an average record as a varsity wrestler. Most of the matches were close, but I came out on the losing end of the matches as often than winning. In my senior year, I miraculously turned things around, losing only one match during the regular season. I became the regional champion and finished fourth in the entire state. A remarkable turnaround!

It was, however, years before I recognized the main reason I had accomplished such a turnaround. The reason for my success was tied to the fact that my wrestling partner for most of the year was a lowly sophomore who was bold, brash, and cut from the same cloth as Mohammed Ali. He arrived at the school, and word quickly circulated that he was bragging around school that he could beat any of us on the wrestling team. We seniors didn’t take kindly to his bragging. When wrestling season started, I didn’t like him because of his brashness, but when the coach told us to work together for the entire year, I knew I needed to change my attitude. It wasn’t long before I became friends with Loran and we forged a friendship. He and I wrestled everyday together, often harder than the others. We took each other seriously and we never wanted to let the other get the upper hand in practice.

I was reminded of Loran when I visited my old High School a number of years ago. The walls of the gym immortalize the names of the “Wrestling State Champions” since the school was founded. My high school was built around the 1960s, so it has now stood for some 60 years. As I gazed at the wall, there were only four names of young men who had earned a state title in all that time. One of them was my old friend Loran. He was recently Inducted into the State’s Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Years after graduating from high school, I came to recognize that I had been the recipient of “the company that I keep.”  Wrestling with Loran every day brought out the best in me. He made me try harder by encouraging me to sharpen my skills, molding me into the champion I would become that senior year.

While wrestling champions are of little significance in the eternities, “the company that we keep” daily can lift us to heights of exaltation or bring us down to the depths of hell. I recall that at the age of sixteen, I was given what is known as a Patriarchal Blessing in my church, from an inspired man. In that blessing, he stated, “Your friends will be numbered among the best souls of the communities wherein you will live.”  At the age of sixteen, I remember thinking that the ‘best souls’ must mean important or powerful. But with age I began to understand that the ‘best souls’ of a community had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the quality of people that I choose to associate with in my communities.  Choosing is the key word.  I have been blessed to associate with men and women of honor and dignity through my church and professional associations.  I have stated many times in church meetings:

“Whose life wouldn’t be blessed by associating with men and women like you!”

We need to keep our lives in order so that we can be the kind of people who “lift” others to greater heights. May we have the wisdom to “keep the company” of men and women who will bless, uplift, and ultimately help us become the champions of our Savior.