Nick Vujicic on why he is happy with his life… without arms or legs

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
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Preacher Nick Vujicic.

“Do you know God? …Why is he interested in us?  Why would he ever have the time of day to listen to my prayer?  Who am I compared to God, the creator of the universe?... It’s a big thought. (smile)  For me, God is everything. (nods) For me, there were many times in my life where I did not have peace in my life. And seeking the answers to many questions and of course being born without limbs, I asked God “Why did this happen?” (furrowed brows)  You know, we always talk to God more on a bad day (heh!).  We ask God for things, we thank God for things, but if you get to know him, do you talk to Him apart from just asking him for things?  Because if I had a friend and I just called him up when I needed him, it’s not really a friendship.  (smile).  Do you that he is excited to hear from you?  Do you know that you were on his mind before the earth began and he formed you in your mother’s womb?  That was such an amazing peace that I had at 15 years old. To know that I finally have someone who is going to be with me through it all.  Who knows all my circumstances, who is BIGGER than my circumstances. 

Nick Vujicic speaking about how
 it's possible for him to be happy.

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Partial transcript of an interview with Nick Vujicic, the man who has no limbs, but is happy anyway.

This man has no arms and no legs. Why does he not curse God?

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
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Nick Vujicic was born without arms or legs.  Yet he loves God and Jesus Christ.  How is that possible? Nick tells his own story.

Nick Vujicic was born with no arms or legs

• If I fall and think I can't get up, I haven't failed until I stop trying. Only then will it be true that I can't get up. But if I keep trying, there's always hope, and the possibility that I will get back up.
• Sometimes you have doubts about what is going to happen in the future, and it scares you.
• But I found my strength in Jesus Christ.
• My victory is not when I stand up.  It's when I know I can't do this on my own. 
• If God can cause a man without arms and legs to smile, then God can cause us to be thankful, and to hang on to the hope that we have.

Nick Vujicic surfing with Bethany Hamilton

In February, 2012, Nick married this woman. They now live in California. They hope to become parents some day.

In February, 2012, Nick married Kanae Miyahara

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Understanding the motivation and feelings of a Pro-Life Organizer

A little piece of my heart is wounded each time we are unable to help a woman turn from her plan to abort the tiny human life within her womb. As an Ultrasound Technician for the past 35 years, I have had the honor of witnessing the work of the Lord, in the womb. “I knit you together in your Mother’s womb…” Psalm 139:13. I have seen and documented the development of tiny humans as they progress through different stages of their lives. “You were made in My image” Genesis 1:27 “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” Psalms 139:14. “Even the very hairs on your head are numbered” Matthew 10:29-31. I have watched the children jump and stretch, stick their tongues out, yawn, suck their thumb, show me if they’re a boy or girl, listen their heart beat, measure their bones and waist size. I have been privileged to watch their growth through the various stages of human development and share that view with their parents and our Creator. I can’t help but be attached to them, because I know them; I have seen and heard them. I have watched them play...

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Peace,

Mike Stack MEV

From Pain to Healing thanks to God's Forgiveness

The following story was written by Tracy, from Connecticut in the United States.  It was forwarded by Mike Stack, a pro-life organizer and a friend of mine. His wife works at the same hospital as my wife, and his daughter babysat our children when they were young.

Within a year of my parents' divorce, when I was sixteen, I left home to avoid the mounting responsibilities of being the oldest of five children. Against my mother's protests, I moved in with a man I met, who gave me a diamond ring and promised marriage as soon as I finished high school.
Before Christmas that year, I found out I was pregnant. My boyfriend demanded that I get an abortion. It was easier to be pushed into abortion than to fight for my baby, not knowing how I would be able to manage on my own.     

I was pregnant at sixteen.

He went to work and told me to "take care of it". The clinic was filled with other women, some somber, some laughing - all of us going in pregnant and coming out alone. The pain of the procedure was worse than I thought possible. I was crying the whole time. For over an hour afterward I was throwing up, repulsed by what I had just done. I told my boyfriend everything in graphic detail. He cried and told me if he had known how horrible it was, he would have never made me do it...




(Read the rest at Wtness.org)

Experienced a living Jesus while living a sinful life

After turning back to Christ in the 80's, for the second time, I was really trying to understand God and was still wondering if this whole concept was real, or if it was just something to keep people in line, like "Love Thy Neighbor" and "Treat others as you would have them treat you". I was not married to the woman that I was living with and still married to my second wife at that time. But, the more I sought God, the more He moved us apart. She soon moved out and lived with a friend that I use to do a lot of drugs with. I had my two oldest kids with me at the time, whom they had come to know her as "Mom". After church one Sunday, the kids wanted to visit her.

We walked over and when we entered the house, she was sitting at the table playing monopoly with my friend and his wife. He was tripping, and she and his wife were drinking. My kids went to play in the other room with his kids. I felt a really strong urge to get away from there. I went into the bathroom before I left and prayed. As I started to pray, in the spirit, I was brought up to what I believe was Heaven.

Then, Jesus appeared, sitting on the throne. He spoke three words, "I AM ALIVE", more plainly then if someone right beside me said them...


(Read the rest at Wtness.org) 

Alan from Lebanon, New Hampshire

I felt arms around my body, but couldn’t see anyone…

I began seeing a woman who was in the middle of a divorce. When she became pregnant, I figured I was on the road to happiness with a wife and a family.  She on the other hand became threatened because she feared losing the two children she already had in her upcoming custody battle.  She said she wanted to have an abortion, and although I did express that I wasn’t real happy with that decision, I said that I would stand by her either way. 

The day of the abortion I became so sick to my stomach that I had to leave work.  I was honestly in so much pain on the inside that I sweated all day, my hands shook uncontrollably, and I couldn’t keep any food down.  I tried all day to ditch the feelings, but nothing worked.  At 11:30 at night I somehow made it into a church parking lot.  When I got to the front door, I startled the Pastor of the church, and he really startled me too because neither one of us expected to see the other.  The priest let me in.  He went into the office, and I went towards the sanctuary.

When I started down the hallway to the church, I lowered my eyes to the ground, and tried to say I was sorry, but I broke into tears – too much to speak, and I fell on the floor and cried.

 

Then I felt arms around my body.  I actually felt the pressure of someone holding me, but I couldn’t see anyone... 

(Read the rest at Wtness.org)  

Pete Eastman

Pete Eastman is not the writer’s real name. 

The Lord's help during a sad time

For several months, two people who are important to me have effectively shut me out of their good graces.  We can't avoid interacting with each other, and when we meet, conversation is reduced to perfunctory exchanges, with not much enthusiasm.  I will be frank here and admit that it hurts more than a little.  In fact, I pass through most days with a melancholy accompanied by a lack of energy for most things.

I have tried to force myself to keep a happy disposition, and I've been temporarily able to use diversions such as seeing other friends or watching a movie to make myself feel better, but beneath it all, there is a long sadness about this.

Today I went to take a walk in the woods near a stream.  I feel closer to the Lord then.  I sat on a log an prayed.  I had been spending regular time with the Lord in readings and prayer and fasting since January, so I'm starting to recognize Him when He's there, though it's nothing as certain as looking at a photo or talking on the phone.

My prayer began as a jumbled mess, with a hundred topics and questions. It didn't take long for Him to jump in and calm me down.  I felt an involuntary calming down of my nerves, and then I had some thoughts that I wondered whether they were my own.  They were not like the thoughts that in the last several months I had voluntarily generated.  Those were like "What can I do to fix this?" "What did I do wrong?" "How can I say how unhappy I am with the mistreatment without making matters worse?"

This calming thought was like this: "You are already taking the right approach by not reacting angrily or upset by this.  You are doing the right thing by purposefully deciding to treat them well." 

I admit, it did calm me down.

(Please to to WTNESS.ORG to read the rest of the story)

Vicki Duffy overcame rape, self-cutting, drug use because of Jesus

(this blog has grown up and is now a full website.  Please go instead to www.wtness.org.)
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We all have heard of someone whose life is so messed up we just shake our heads, thinking there's no hope for them. Vicki Duffy had a life like that, and tried everything to get out of it. It was her last hope - praying to Jesus - that worked.


Vicki Duffy

 Vicki was born in Pennsylvania in 1968.  When Vicki was five, her mother's boyfriend raped her, then threatened to kill her mother and brother and dog if she said anything.  When Vicki was 11, she was raped by her own brother, who was thirteen, who convinced her it was her fault.  Raped twice by an Uncle at age 19.  During those years, she was abused, told she would never amount to anything, and told she was stupid. She felt deeply that indeed there was something wrong with her.  She became incredibly insecure and without any self esteem. 

By the time she was in her early 20's, she hated men (imagine that!) and led a promiscuous gay lifestyle. She was into drugs and alcohol.  She suffered from anorexia and bulemia, and had spent six stints in a mental hospital.  But the worst compulsion was self-abuse.  She cut herself with razors and burnt herself with cigarettes.  The scars, over 250 of them, are still visible.  She said "It was something I could control that nobody else could."

Scars from self-inflicted cuts visible years later

She tried to get help, and despite regularly taking 17 psychotheraputic medicines, saw no improvement that lasted for long. 

In despiration, she bought a Bible.  She opened it and in front of her was a story of a man who constantly screamed and purposefully cut himself, and in Vicki's view, evidently had mental problems. Jesus was able to heal him (see Mark 5).

Mad at Jesus for not healing her, she swore at God and challenged him to prove he was real within three weeks.  In those three weeks, she went to a revival meeting with Janny Grein and to a church in Florham Park, New Jersey.  She never felt so truly peaceful.  She knew it was real.  She said that no medication ever made her feel that alert and alive.  She made a decision to follow Christ in April 1995.

Within a year and a half, she had stopped all of the cutting and burning.  She had stopped taking the medications.  She was getting control of the eating.  And amazingly, unbelievably, she had forgiven her abusers.

By 1999 she was married to a wonderful Christian man who was able to see past all her past troubles.  She now has a son, and is still on the Christian path, openly sharing her story with others who also want to put a horrible past behind them. 

Do you have a life situation that you think is impossible to overcome?  You know what to try.  Rather, Who to try.

See Vicki Duffy's full story in this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaCImy92tg0

My commentary:  Is God Real?  I consider this more evidence.



Christ's love softened Muslim heart

I work in a large corporation in which we have a United Nations of people.  Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, aetheists.  We all work together every day, and it's very good for us all.  One day in April, 2011, the news carried a story that an oddball named 'Pastor' Terry Jones from Florida was planning on visiting Dearborn, Michigan (a city with a large Arabic and Muslim population).  He was infamous for having burnt a Koran. I felt very angry thinking he might try that again here in our city (I am Catholic).

Because of Jesus' influence on me, I believe that we should treat our neighbor as ourselves.  I know that I would be very upset if somebody burnt my holy book -- an outrage! 
 
I was planning on protesting Jones' arrival, and so I had a browser open on my computer where the title "Terry Jones Koran Burning" was visible when my colleague Houssam (a Muslim) happened to come to my desk to work with me.  He confronted me about what was on my computer, wondering whether I was sympathetic to Jones.  I told him 'not at all', but instead I was planning to protest and said that I'm sure a large number of Christians would be there besides me.  I said that Jones was the anomoly, not the norm among Christians.  Houssam expressed his suspicion about that, saying that most Christians secretly agree with Jones.  I could tell he felt pretty certain about that, the way he said it.

I urged Houssam and another colleague, Hassan, to go with me to the protest after work that day, along with four members of my family who drove in for the event.  What Houssam saw changed his mind, he later told me.  He saw that more than half of the people in attendance at the protest at the Islamic Center of America (largest mosque in the city) were white people, and that four prominent Christian leaders, including the Archbishop of the Detroit Catholic Archdiocese, were speaking. 


photo by William Archie, Detroit Free Press.
Leaders and supporters from various faiths in front of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI April 21, 2011. I was also in this crowd with my friend Houssam, but you can't see us.


He said he never would have believed it unless he saw it with his own eyes.  He said that he feels very differently about who the average Christian is because so many people spontaneously had a reaction to show support for our neighbors.

While Houssam was far from being a Muslim terrorist (unless you consider a software guy to be scary), it might be true to say that if this type of positive interaction between cultures happened more often, I would venture that there would be less animosity between the cultures throughout the world, and perhaps less desire to hurt each other.

God Whispered to Her

One time when my wife was in college and really overwhelmed by the massive amounts of tough homework and by the lack of contact with her family and friends, she was feeling very depressed.  She didn't have much energy for anything, but found five minutes to clear her mind and pray.  In that five minutes, she appealed to God for something that would help her.  She very clearly "heard" Him whisper "Do you have any idea how much I love you?".

Her depression went away. She felt completely loved by the author of Love and the tedium and burdens didn't seem to matter.  She had the wherewithall to keep moving forward after that. 

My observation about the characteristics of this message from God:
1.   It's loving and authoritative.
2.   He identifies himself as being a different person than you.
3.   His message is in response to what your current need is.
4.   His message corresponds to Biblical teaching.
5.   The impact on the listener is to both support the listener and bring them closer to God.

Spoke in Navajo without knowing what it was

My church's deacon Bob O told this story about 10 years ago.  Bob is considered a very Godly person and would never make this up.  Before Bob and his wife Kathy had children, they spent some time doing mission work on a Navajo reservation out west.  In the months preceding the trip, they did a lot of praying, and had a strange event happen:  Bob felt the urge to pray "in tongues" (yes, that's strange to me too... but keep reading).  He spoke the same thing at several points in time, so he wrote down the sounds on paper and kept them with him.  He asked some people if they understood it, and they said no. 

God encountered at Navajo Reservation

A few months later, after they had been on the Navajo reservation for a while, Bob was sharing this story with one of the Navajo leaders, and the leader did not dismiss him.  He asked to hear the sounds, which Bob promptly repeated.  The Navajo leader surprised Bob by saying that it was perfect Navajo language and that it was a message praising God.  (!)