HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah — The Hill AFB community gathered March 2 at The Landing for a National Prayer Breakfast, where they heard about the importance of perseverance and self-worth from Chaplain (Brig. Gen.) Steven Schaick, Air Force Deputy Chief of Chaplains.

The commemoration started in 1952 after President Harry Truman signed a resolution establishing an annual day of national prayer.

Schaick was the guest speaker at the breakfast and presented a story from the Bible about King David’s kindness to Mephibosheth.

In the story, David wanted to show kindness to someone in the house of Saul and sent a servant to find Mephibosheth, a decedent.

Mephibosheth who was crippled in both feet was hiding from David in a town called Lodebar, which translated means, “land of nothing.”

When David learned of Mephibosheth’s crippled condition he showed kindness and invited Mephibosheth to live with him and his 15 sons.

Like Mephibosheth,”We’ve all been to Lodebar,” Schaick said.

He speculated there were people at the breakfast who had experienced Lodebar…betrayal by a friend, emotional or sexual abuse or the untimely death of a family member for example.

The general shared his own story of being teased during his childhood and the difficulty he faced overcoming his own failures.

Like Mephibosheth, people are too often identified by their weaknesses and misery becomes your comfort zone when you live with it for a long time, Schaick said.

He explained his fondness for the ‘rags to riches’ story of David and Mephibosheth and said Mephibosheth was the hero of the story because of the courage it took for him to leave Lodebar and live with David.

Schaick also provided contemporary examples of people who succeeded because they persevered even when they faced adversity.

He said Walt Disney was once fired for not being creative enough, Oprah Winfrey was accused of being too emotional, Thomas Edison had numerous failures before he invented light bulb, Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four years old and dropped out of school, and Babe Ruth who was known as ‘the Sultan of Swat’ held the major league baseball record for strikeouts.

Schaick concluded that “We are all invited to live like a king’s kid.” Because “God puts a comma where most would put a period.”