There isn’t much that stops Bob Mortimer.
Despite missing both legs below the knee and his left arm due to a car accident when he was 21, he firmly maintains that the only handicaps we have are the ones we put on ourselves.
While speaking in chapel on Oct. 18, Mortimer illustrated his message in a refreshingly creative, optimistic way. He pulled out a hat that literally read the word: “Handy” and put it on his head.
“This is my ‘Handy-cap,’” Mortimer said. “It’s the only one I have … my missing legs, my missing arms, they’re not a handicap. They’re an adjustment. I’ve had to make a lot of (adjustments) to my life … The message is, the only handicap you’ll have is the one you put on yourself, and the real handicap might have nothing to do with legs and arms. They have to do with the things that you bring into your life, entertain and feed that will hinder you.”
These handicaps come from not recognizing the divine plan God has for all people. Rather than focusing on the hope of the eternal promises of Christ, there is a tendency to chase after temporary and ultimately unfulfilling desires.
What are some handicaps that hinder true Christian witness?
“We can call a bad attitude a handicap,” Mortimer said. “Low self-esteem … prejudice in the way we’re treating other people, alcohol, and drugs and other controlling behaviors.”
Mortimer’s faith was challenged when he was 21 years old.
After coming home from a party one night, his brother crashed their car into a power line, causing it to fall. Mortimer got out of the car unscathed but had not realized that the power line was down. He electrocuted himself, resulting in the loss of both legs and his left arm.
After six months in the hospital, Bob returned to a life of partying, drugs and alcohol.
“I didn’t think that anyone would ever accept me or listen to me, or ever say ‘I love you,’” Mortimer said. “All I noticed was now I have stumps where I used to have limbs and scars where I had skin. So I went back to the party scene, which never spirals up, by the way, kind of a downward pattern.”
Four years later, he met a friend who helped him realize his handicaps.
It was at this time that he found himself in the back row of a church reciting lost truths he had learned as a child.
“That morning I made a super decision,” Mortimer said. “I just made the biggest decision I’ve ever made in my life, realizing there’s a better road to be on than the one I’ve been on. I raised that shaky hand in the back of the church and said ‘I need Jesus.’”
Mortimer ended up marrying that “friend.”
He and his wife, Darla, have been married for 43 years, enjoying a blessed marriage with three children.
He has made a career as a motivational speaker at various colleges, schools, churches and venues. Mortimer is a witness to the transformative power of the gospel. His resilience resonates with people, and his story inspires people in different ways.
Mortimer said that parts of his story will resonate differently with different people, one aspect being the need for love and acceptance.
“I believe I kind of talk about when I was a teenager, displaced and wandering and searching for the same things we all search for at that stage in our lives: acceptance and somebody you can just talk to,” he said.
Ultimately, Mortimer’s goal is to be a Christian witness, a living testimony to the power of the gospel.
His story is defined by the transformative love of Christ.
“It’s incredible what will happen when you really allow Jesus Christ into your life, because he takes all those stupid mistakes and all those pains and all those aches,” Mortimer said. “I still got the scars from everything I did wrong. But to believe that if you can really give your life over to Him and let Him guide it, there will be days where you’ll be laughing at that past, something that at one time you never thought you could ever voice out loud without breaking into tears. You’re able to sit there and laugh because of the joy of Jesus Christ.”
