Title: Hard Times And Great Blessings

Author: Kenneth F. Worth

Review by C.A. Webb, President, Conversations Book Club

I think we have all had those days when we feel as though nothing is going right. From the moment we get up in the morning to the time we retire to bed, one would think the world has been against us the entire time. A little dramatic? I would say so, but it doesn’t stop us from looking for reasons to feel sorry for ourselves and try and get others to do the same. If you have been one of those who feels as though the sky is falling on top of you, then “Hard Times and Great Blessings” by Kenneth F. Worth is a book you need to not only read but memorize.

This autobiography reminds me much of the story of Job. He was a man who had been greatly blessed and was forced to suffer great loss, but remained true to his faith. Kenneth has done the same. In writing this book he opened his life up to us and revealed the real life of the man behind the smiles. Here was a man who lived a relatively simple life with his brother and parents, enjoying the simple pleasures of life, when one day that was destroyed forever. Imagine having to deal with the fact that your mother was found to have not only killed your father and then herself, but had been dealing with emotional difficulties for sometime.

Kenneth’s story is amazing in that he can be the man living next to us that we had no idea what he has gone through because he chooses not to focus on the negative. Instead he looks to the ways he has been blessed instead of the hard times that has befallen him. This holds true in his relationship with his wife as well. They have been together for decades and had to deal with health issues that have not divided them but managed to bring them closer together. It is the true definition of love and marriage. When they said “Til Death Do Us Part” they meant it with their whole being. Through cancer scares and other ailments Kenneth appreciated life enough to know that you can’t sweat the small stuff, and he knew that everything except death was the small stuff. He wasn’t going to live his life dwelling on the past. There was a future left to live.

His brother died a few years ago, yet instead of drowning himself in sorrow he chose to reflect on the fact that his brother had dedicated his life to God. Ken now suffers from Parkinson’s, and even through that Ken is looking for ways to educate the public about the effects of the disease and providing information about support groups for family members who are living with the affects.

Now after hearing just a snippet of what this man has had to endure, doesn’t it make a great deal of our problems seem quite trivial? “Hard Times and Great Blessings” is the story that movies are made of. Sure, it doesn’t have the ending that you may want for your hero, but it still gives you that feeling of hope in the end.