Matt Roloff

It means getting up every single day without asking, “Why me?” or saying, “I can’t go on!” but instead saying, “What can I do to make today a great one, despite all that is going on in my life now?” and “Thank you, God, for thinking enough of me to allow me to have to endure the pain and difficulty I’m going through now.”

And it means knowing that there is a purpose in what you’re enduring and making sure you keep your eyes open to find it.

Being little people, Matt and I have had more to persevere through than most people. We have had to deal daily with our physical limitations, Matt has had to go through surgeries and other painful medical procedures, and we’ve both had to take being “looked down on” because we are smaller and because we are “different.” However, this isn’t all bad news. We have learned that there are, in a very real way, advantages in what we’ve gone through when it comes to learning to persevere through difficult times.

Now, most average-sized people might look at us and ask, “How in the world can you say there’s an advantage to being little?”

The answer to that is simple: When you are a little person in a big world — or when there is anything about you that makes you “different” to the point where people can’t help but notice or that limits you in some area — that difference tends to make you stronger mentally and give you “muscles” of perseverance and resiliency that most people don’t have.