What are the chances that an armless, rebellious 16-year-old from Kabul, Afghanistan, could become a swimmer in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic games?
It’s good that the story of Abbas Karimi is true because it would be impossible to believe otherwise. He was an armless boy who channeled his internal rage into swimming. Everything he has had to do in his life has been difficult and this is the story of how Abbas has not only managed but flourished.
God Took My Arms but He Gave Me This Gift explores not only the events of his life, but the power of his emotional strength that will make us look at our own lives. Where does his strength come from? How can he keep it up? What is it like living without arms? How does he compensate? How have other people encouraged Abbas? How have they been discouraging? What is a typical day like for him? How has his deeply spiritual and religious practice played a part in his life? These are some of the things the reader will learn in this book.
“Beneath Abbas’s humility, his politeness and boyish charms, is a bottomless reserve of grit and steel. How else to explain the extraordinary arc of his young life? You would be hard-pressed to come up with a more unlikely story. Born armless, in the midst of conflict, in one of the poorest nations on earth, Abbas leaves home, becomes a refugee, travels halfway across the world, and somehow ends up representing his birthplace before the whole world in the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Abbas has shown us all what human will is capable of. He is an inspiration to anybody with a dream and obstacles lying in the path to it. Whenever I think of him, what he has accomplished, everything seems a little more possible. He is one of my heroes.”