Read this whole article.
I knew about his poverty-stricken background from the video recorded at the prayer breakfast, and about how his mother refused to accept excuses, and pushed him to take books out of the library-amazing stuff.
But the most moving thing to me in this article is that he almost killed his friend over a radio station!
He had such a temper! He could have actually killed someone over something so stupid. I've seen that anger before-it's when you see someone-and it's mostly men (although women of course are capable of murderous rage as well) and you can see The Crazy in their brain, and through their eyes. They lose it!
At that point, they are so filled with animal rage that they kill people.
So, here's what happened to the good doctor:
"In the ninth grade came the worst incident of all. While arguing with
his friend Bob over which station to listen to on a transistor radio,
the 15-year-old Carson took a camping knife from his back pocket and
lunged toward Bob, miraculously snapping the blade in half on the boy’s
belt buckle."
“In general I was a good kid,” Carson wrote in his autobiography. “It
usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling
point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my
anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash
someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.”
"Carson was so terrified by the near-stabbing that he ran home and
locked himself in the bathroom and tearfully read his Bible and prayed
for God to take his temper from him. After a few hours, Carson says, a
feeling of “lightness” came over him and he found himself a changed
person. He never had a problem with his temper again."
AMAZING.
