In the spring of 1982 I was 25 years old, with a newly acquired master’s degree in social work, and sharing a New York City apartment with my twin sister, Laura. Times being what they were, I was out of work. And I was 25 pounds overweight. So, when I wasn’t out looking for a job, I busied myself doing sit-ups in an effort to lose weight. And, because I needed spiritual strength as well, I began reading the Bible.

And then the strangest thing happened. One day I was sitting on the living room floor doing sit-ups, huffing and puffing like a steam engine, when a singular thought drifted through my mind…a thought so unusual it couldn’t have been my own…a thought that grabbed my attention and held it like one of those messages being pulled across the sky by an old-time biplane: Run the New York City Marathon.

The thought at first excited me, but it was so ludicrous that I laughed out loud. You see, my sister and I were both born with cerebral palsy. We have what is called mild spastic partial paralysis of our legs, and to get around, we depend on our “Canadian canes,” aluminum crutches that attach to our forearms.

As the days passed, however, the thought wouldn’t leave me. I kept wondering: Was it possible?

When I told Laura about the thought, she didn’t seem to think the idea was so ridiculous. “I don’t know about any marathon,” she said in her quiet, matter-of-fact way, “but you do have a lot of time on your hands. And you do want to get in shape. Maybe you could try jogging.”

That did it. Running the marathon was an impossible goal, a goal that would take a miracle to accomplish, but that appealed to me. The New York City Marathon was six months away. I would do everything I could to run it.

Back then the only way to run in the New York City Marathon, if you weren’t a nationally recognized runner with a preexisting qualifying time, was to apply early or enter a lottery. I’d already missed the early filing deadline, so I had to go into the lottery. When I filled out the application form, there was no box to check for “disabled.” I simply completed the form like an able-bodied person and dropped it in the mailbox with a prayer.

I didn’t tell many people about my plans, just Laura, my mom and a few close friends. I was too shy—embarrassed, really—to talk about it. What if I failed? Could I finish even part of the 26-mile, 385-yard race?

When I started training, my pace was so slow, about 25 minutes per mile, that I found myself doing a lot of running at night. About three times a week, often after a long day of job hunting, I grabbed my crutches and set out from our apartment on East 39th Street. I headed north, up Fifth Avenue—past Trump Tower and Tiffany’s, past the Plaza Hotel, and up alongside Central Park, where uniformed doormen stood guard in front of the city’s most elegant apartment buildings. As weeks passed, I became a familiar sight, hurrying by on my crutches; doormen tipped their hats as I passed and some called out words of encouragement.

As I grew stronger, my runs grew longer, taking me farther up Fifth Avenue, past the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and all the way up to Mount Sinai Medical Center on 100th Street, where I turned around and headed back home the same way. Many times it was past midnight when I finally returned home, where Laura would be waiting up for me with my favorite dish, a big plate of spaghetti.

In the weeks that followed, I found there was something about running at night that invited a contemplative mood. The city around me faded away; I talked to God and listened for his response. As I planted both rubber tips of my crutches on the pavement ahead, leaned into the darkness and pulled my unwilling legs toward the seemingly impossible goal of 3 miles…9 miles…12 miles…16 miles…it occurred to me that running in the dark was a lot like faith. “Faith,” it says in the Bible, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Not that faith was darkness. The darkness was the myopia of my limited human vision, the shortsightedness of my dreams, my inability to see beyond difficult circumstances, whether unemployment, unwanted pounds or a physical disability. But faith was the running—running with conviction, full-steam ahead—into the darkness. Faith was running in the dark with the assurance that God, who held my destination in his hand, would see me through the journey safely. All he asked of me was to trust him. And to keep on running.

Incredibly, at the end of the summer I received a notice in the mail informing me that I had been selected in the lottery and was among the 16,000 who entered the marathon. I was going to run!

On Sunday morning, October 24, I stood at the base of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Staten Island, the starting point of the race. I wore leather gloves to prevent my palms from getting blisters from the friction of the crutches, and I carried a small canteen of water and a pocketful of vanilla fudge caramels for extra energy. My family and some friends agreed to meet me at the marathon’s 15-mile mark—if I made it that far.

Grouped among the slower runners at the rear of the crowd, I didn’t even hear the starting gun. And suddenly I was caught in the throng of runners moving across the mile-long bridge leading to Brooklyn. No one had told me the bridge was uphill, and the early morning wind was cold and hard. When I came off the bridge, I was already tired. And totally alone. The other runners were out of sight.

Most of the crowd of spectators had gone too, and city workers were beginning to disassemble the police barricades. Ahead, down the middle of the street as far as I could see, stretched the thin blue line painted to mark the marathon route—a route that promised to take runners through all five of New York City’s boroughs, ending at the finish line in Central Park.

I’ve always loved the energy and vitality of Manhattan—but now, for the first time, I found myself running through New York neighborhoods I’d only read about. It’s often said that New Yorkers are a hard, tough breed who don’t care about other people. But the New Yorkers I encountered that day were a big-hearted lot whose support and encouragement brought tears to my eyes.

There was the pretty little blonde girl in Brooklyn who pulled away from her parents and ran out in the middle of the street to say, “You can do it!” And there was the group standing on the sidewalk outside a tavern in Queens who applauded and cheered and shouted, “Keep going!”

Because I was so slow, by the time I reached official water stations they had been dismantled. In the more dangerous neighborhoods, people offered to walk with me as I ran, taking my canteen and refilling it with water.

But as the afternoon wore on, I began to worry. The streets had all been reopened to traffic, and I was running alone on the sidewalk. What would I do when it got dark, and I could no longer see the blue line? I had a terrible sense of direction…who knows where I might wind up?

And then, at mile 10, a small miracle happened. An ABC camera crew showed up out of nowhere and asked if they could accompany me. Thanks to their presence I no longer had to worry about getting lost.

At mile 13, Laura, Mom and two friends came looking for me in a car. “I’m okay,” I reassured them.

At the 20-mile point, exhaustion began to set in. My hands ached, and my forearms, which I hadn’t thought to protect, were black and blue and swollen. I’d worn a hole in one of my sneakers. The pain and fatigue got so bad that I couldn’t talk, but I kept praying: I can do all things…I can do all things…

By the time we reached Central Park, I’d been running for more than 10 hours. Two more miles and it would all be over. The park was dark and empty. At regular intervals, old-fashioned streetlamps cast a ghostly glow on my path.

Suddenly, two Parks and Recreation trucks appeared—one behind me and one in front of me—sending their spotlights into the darkness to light my way.

Up ahead, the finish line was being dismantled. But the official time clock was still running: 11:00:57. Finished!

Someone was putting me in a wheelchair and wrapping a paper-thin, silvery Mylar sheet around me. People were crying—even the ABC camera crew—and I began to cry too. Thank you, Lord, was all I could think. Thank you. Without you, this never could have happened.

The next morning I was shocked to learn I’d been invited to join Alberto Salazar and Grete Waitz, the winners of that year’s marathon, at the White House to be congratulated by President Reagan. It turned out that I was the first woman ever to finish the marathon on crutches.

An unexpected crush of publicity followed; my picture was on the front page of the New York Times, and it seemed the phone would never stop ringing with requests for interviews. Over and over again, I heard myself described as “Linda Down, brave athlete.”

Brave? Athlete? Those terms seemed so outlandish to me. And yet, the fact of the matter was that, even with a disabled body, I was able to do something far beyond anything I had ever imagined because I trusted God and took him at his word.

For years I’ve worked as an interior designer. My designs have appeared in magazines, newspaper articles, on TV. But here’s a secret I rarely tell. I got my start in a trailer on the wrong side of the tracks! 

It all began with a chair. I saw it on my way home from the Quik Mart, where I’d replenished my stash of cupcakes, soda and chips. Someone had put it out with the trash, and something made me stop.

I couldn’t believe the stuff people had thrown away. Maybe it was because my husband and I were newlyweds and we didn’t have a thing. We could barely afford the trailer where I spent most of my time languishing on the couch, alone and depressed. Maybe it was because I felt a little discarded myself in those days.

There was a time when I had big plans. I loved to draw and paint and make collages that shimmered with glitter. The more I created the more I believed in myself. I was going to be someone special.

But af­ter one hard semester of college classes I lost all confidence. My teach­ers didn’t real­ly like what I did and my classmates ridi­culed me. I dropped out, got married. My husband got a job as a security guard and we moved into the trailer.

I had no self-esteem left or even a will to live. I’d sleep most of the day, watch TV and eat. The hardest thing was to get off of that sofa and walk to the Quik Mart. That effort alone was exhausting.

Then came that day when I saw the chair sitting next to a pile of junk. I walked over and picked it up. One leg was loose, the fabric seat tattered and dirty with scribbling on it. The paint was chipped and the back scratched. And yet, something made me want to sit down and try it. Still works, I thought. In fact, it was surprisingly comfortable for an old chair. What a waste to throw it away.

“Tell you what,” I said to the chair. “I’ll take you home and find something to do with you.” Maybe I felt sorry for it—it looked so much like how I felt. Or maybe it reminded me of the chairs I used to sit in for hours when I worked on art projects as a girl, cut­ting paper, gluing glitter, drawing horses. I put that chair under one arm, took it home and parked it on our little front porch. There it sat.

One day I was watching the rerun of a come­dy I couldn’t find funny. I don’t want to be like this anymore, I thought. I’ve got to do something. I couldn’t bear spending one more minute on that sofa.

Then I looked out the window. The sun had slipped out from behind a cloud and a few shafts of light found that old chair. Nothing had changed about it. It was still battered and chipped with a wobbly leg, but it looked different to me. Salvageable. No, even better than that. Why couldn’t I paint it or decorate it with fringe? And the fabric…well, I could put something new on the seat. The wobbly leg would be easy to fix with a bit of glue and maybe some wire.

I got up, turned off the TV and started to work. Newfound energy surged through me. I felt like I did when I drew pictures as a girl. It was fun. I hunted for glue and wire. Instead of making another dash to the Quik Mart, I went to the thrift store for fabric and paint.

For days I worked on that chair, redoing the seat, putting on several coats of paint. All the while the dreams and plans I’d abandoned for my life came tumbling back. You could go back to school, get a degree. You could learn about redoing chairs and sofas, even whole rooms.

Maybe I could be an interior designer and help people remake their homes. I looked around the trailer and started seeing all the projects I could do. New curtains. New pillows. New paint for the walls. It wouldn’t be hard or expensive. The thrift store had all the stuff I needed. It just took a little imagination and time.

The finished chair was only a beginning. I redecorated the trailer and invited my neighbors to see it. “How did you figure out how to do this?” one asked. “You must have paid someone a lot of money.”

“I did it myself,” I said. The ideas were just waiting for me to stumble over them, the way I almost tripped over that old chair.It might sound crazy to you, but I believe God used that old chair to help heal me and give me a new purpose in life. 

I did indeed go back to school and get a degree. I started my own business and I’ve helped hun­dreds of people remake their rooms as they remake their lives. I especially love to give inspiration to kids. I tell them that creativity is something God gives all of us. Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement—and an old chair. 

For Kelee’s tips on nurturing creativity in children, read 5 Ways to Inspire Your Kids.