Lives Transformed - Life Without Limbs

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May 25, 2021

CHOICES

The plan for January 8th, 2011, seemed simple enough. Attend a meet and greet, speak with our congresswoman and be on our way. We arrived early, met several of the congresswoman’s staff, and signed the registration list. My wife, Doris was number two and I was number three. We had just started talking with our representative when there were some loud bangs and a whirlwind of air. The first two shots were a blink of an eye apart, then a flurry of shots began and I found myself lying flat on my back, looking up at the roof under which we had been standing.

I was shot twice. The first bullet struck my upper right chest, knocking me backwards. The second bullet entered and exited my lower right leg. The shooter had emptied his extended clip of 33 rounds in less than 20 seconds.

As I lay on the concrete sidewalk waiting for the emergency responders to be allowed access to the scene, a verse of scripture came to mind: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8). The verse was as comforting to me on that morning as it had been two years earlier when my doctor told me that I had cancer. Later, as the ambulance turned into the driveway that led to the emergency room entrance, I remembered the verse my wife and I chose for our wedding day: “Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but to your name give glory, because of your mercy, because of your truth.” (Psalms 115:1).

After I was moved from ICU to a private room, I could identify two choices that my wife and I would have to make if we were going to heal and make any sense of what we’d been through. They were: (1) could we still trust God, could we thank Him despite what took place, could we trust Him for the outcome? And, (2) could I forgive the shooter for what he did to me?

The bullet to my upper right chest blew a two-inch section from my clavicle, sending bone fragments into the brachial plexus nerve bundle and severing many nerves to my shoulder, arm, and hand. The second bullet entered and exited my lower right leg as I was falling. Because I lost a great deal of blood from both wounds at the scene, the doctors worried that major arteries had been punctured.

I began a personal “faith check” to review everything I had learned over the years about God’s character, purpose, sovereignty, justice, love, and forgiveness. Several passages of scripture stood out: “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised . . . Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 1:21b, 2:10b). “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” (Matthew 5:43–46a).

I couldn’t have done anything to prevent what took place. But that made me think about the broader issue, what can we control in our lives? I believe the only thing we really have 100% control over in life is what we think. I have been taught that our thoughts—and what feeds our thoughts—will lead to our actions:
Thoughts -> Words -> Actions -> Habits -> Character -> Reputation.

The ramifications for our lives are so great when we realize that this chain reaction originates in our thoughts! Previously, one of the things I heard Nick Vujicic say was “I have a Creator, and He designed me specifically for a purpose and if God can use a man without arms or legs to be His hands and feet, then what an awesome God we serve!” Besides scripture, Nick’s statement gave me confidence that the neuromuscular damage to my body would not hinder me in doing what God still planned for me.

Since the shooting incident, I have learned many things and have shared them with others. There are four key lessons that I found to be most valuable. First, faith and forgiveness are the result of choices—not the result of feelings or circumstances. They are based on the promises of scripture and not on experience. If I had waited for my feelings to line up with my desires, the healing would have been greatly prolonged or even delayed. In fact, I found that once I chose to believe what the Bible says regarding the placement of my trust and the extent of my forgiveness, the feelings followed! Second, I could undergo what I could not understand at the time. Third, God’s character, purpose, sovereignty, justice and love, never change. I chose to step out in trust and took God at His Word.

Lastly, God doesn’t waste a hurt. He doesn’t comfort me to make me comfortable, but to make me a comforter to others.

Aug 17, 2020

HOW NICK INSPIRED ME!

Hello, my name is Alexis and I am seventeen years old!
I have seen Nick on various YouTube videos and have always felt inspired and connected to him! I was born without my right hand, due to amniotic band syndrome, resulting in the loss of limb below my elbow. But, like Nick I have never let it stop me ! In years past I have competed on my high school’s volleyball and basketball teams, and I now travel the country competing in my horse career. A career I plan on continuing through college, and later professionally. Nick has inspired me because he seems to be happy, and that is a feat many of us never seem to accomplish, and yet he did it! He also inspired me to share my own story. I have been told to write my own book, by others who recognized my love for writing and my unique circumstance. Claiming it’s the perfect ingredients for the next best seller, I guess. But I was always cautious, who would want to read about me? So far my story has been featured in local newspapers, national magazines and I have a Instagram following of 6.5K plus, but never in a book. I recently previewed Nick’s book, “Life Without Limits” and I was amazed that I had a lot of the same experiences and feelings that Nick had. The more I read, the more I realized that I could do this! I laughed a little when Nick wrote, “why couldn’t You (God) give me just one arm”? Think what I could do with just one arm!”. So, thank you Nick, thank you for your attitude, and thank you for inspiring me to get my own story out to the world! I won’t let you down, and I plan on showing exactly what you can do with” just one hand”. 😉

July 9, 2020

GOD'S CHOSEN ROUTE FOR MY LIFE

I am a 62 year old South African living in Kwa Zulu, Natal. Ever since I can remember I had a fascination for snakes, I started catching snakes at the age of eight and have become extremely knowledgeable about them and the environment as a whole. My young life was full of all sorts of activities such as sport fishing, hunting and of course snakes. With such a full life I never had time for God.. and although many people tried to get me to go to church I always had something else “more important” to do! Then one day (about 24 years ago) I went to remove a green mamba from a local residence. After the removal and a lesson for the old man and woman, the old lady turned and said to me “you don’t believe in God do you young man”? Before I could respond she continued, “God says that you have cheated death more than five times! You must go and fix your things with Him because you will not get another chance”!

At that time I had already planned a road trip with my twelve year old son to Namaqualand, some two thousand km from our home, and we were due to leave in three days to spend ten days in finding snakes and recording all the data we could gather. After ten days we started the long journey back home, this was now fourteen days since the “old lady incident”. No sooner had we left (in the dark after sunset) I spotted a snake crossing the road so I made a quick turn and jumped out to capture the snake. Another vehicle approached at high speed and collided with me and my vehicle. I was critically injured and by the time I got to the nearest hospital the prognosis was, I wouldn’t survive the night. My right lower leg was smashed and shattered. My right leg femur was badly broken, and the upper half of my femur smashed through my hip joint up into my abdominal cavity, and broke through my side breaking two ribs on the way out. My pelvis was also broken as was my lower back. After about an hour an ambulance arrived and took me to the Springbok hospital which was a small, ill equipped clinic that couldn’t deal with this sort of trauma. Cape Town was experiencing bad weather and they couldn’t send out a mercy flight! In the early morning hours the weather cleared sufficiently to get a flight through and I was flown to the Tygerberg hospital for emergency surgery. When I came out of surgery I was told that I would never walk again! In that first day after surgery through the mist of semi consciousness, The Lord stood at my bedside and asked if I could now lay still enough or long enough to listen? I responded “yes Lord”! He told me that He was sending someone to speak to me, and that I was to give my life to Him. Meanwhile, family friends knew a pastor in Cape Town and asked him to come and pray for me. Early the next day a man dressed in a tee shirt and shorts walked into the ward and looked around, his gaze settled on me and he walked over. As he walked over to me I told him that I knew who he was.. he didn’t seem surprised and simply said that God had sent him.. Just then my friend ‘s Pastor also walked in and the two prayed for me and led me to the Lord. I lost my leg but gained my soul! Now, I am a servant of the most High God, and still live a life of adventure! There is plenty of evidence of on the Ndlondlo Reptile Park on YouTube!

June 3, 2020

SALVATION AT WORK

Dear Nick, many people have said I should share my story with you, given your profile I’m not sure how significant it is but here we go.

In February 2009 a friend of mine sent a clip of you called “You Will Finish Strong” which I watched in amazement and awe at your demeanor and how you engaged with others, in a way I had never seen before. Being the type of person I am, I had to find out more about you, which I did and subsequently found out that you are a Christian, which in some ways put me off, but in other ways made me more intrigued that you could love and witness for such a malevolent God who would allow his “children” to suffer. The more I listened to you speak the more angry I became at this creature whom I was not convinced existed. So, in my rage I jumped out of my seat at work and shouted “okay if you exist which is highly doubtful, and you are loving for which there is no evidence, and ‘all knowing’, change me from the inside out”. Within seconds I felt I had been stripped and a river of unforgiveness, anger, bitterness and resentment came flooding out of me. I had not cried in 23 years but was overwhelmed with this crazy sense of peace, joy and love, which to be honest I hated because all of a sudden I felt out of control, exposed and vulnerable.

That day I essentially accepted Christ as my Lord and Saviour, not that I understood any of it at the time. And so, began my journey of finding a church and developing a knowledge and understanding of God and His word, etc.. However what I did not know was what lay ahead, and how God was going to work through my life. All I was told, according to God’s word was that, I was now privy to all these blessings and wonderful things, and that my life would be enriched.

Well a year later, I’m sitting in my office having a staff meeting and my wife calls to say that they suspect our son has cancer, my first reaction was to swear, apologize and then say “God you said it’s going to be good so, I believe you”. Of course, thinking this means the doctors got it wrong.

To cut a long story short, the biopsy revealed a rare and aggressive form of cancer and the CT revealed he had complications, a first of its kind pocket of cancerous fluid encapsulated the tumor, making an attack on the tumor extremely dangerous and his chances of survival almost nil. So, began a four year journey, in which we saw him recover against the odds, then have the cancer metastasize in his lungs and not only once but twice he recover after we were told he would not make it, on a few occasions. On one occasion he was grey and destined for the grave, with maybe 50 to 10 days to live. But, after the elders prayed on that Friday he walked out of the hospital the following Tuesday.

In those four years I lost my business and all my worldly assets, my self confidence and ego were shattered to nothing, but the cementation of my faith that God is real was strengthened beyond the breaking point. I’m not saying I came out unscathed because that would be a lie, I’m still struggling to reconcile all I was told and taught, I’m still struggling to rebuild my life and confidence, but because I was introduced to Christ indirectly by you (Nick) and because of your story, I always have something to look back on and remind myself that our limbs or lack thereof are not our limitation, our mindset and our attitudes are. God’s word is a very real and trusting place for setting our minds on the goal, and building character which defines our attitudes. There is a lot more detail to this story but it’s long, I will share it another time if you’d like.

Nick, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting God because it’s your story that made my story so much easier to endure, and made the cross which is the greatest story of all, so much more real and life changing. Love you forever mate, Mike

May 31, 2020

GOD SETS ME FREE

I want to declare how the Lord Jesus has helped me through the hard times facing Covid-19. I’m a doctor at a primary health care facility. But, anxiety and fear almost paralyzed my mind, making me like someone who did not know God. I tried to do a variety of things to keep my home and workplace free of the virus, with disinfection, washing my hands, and in leading my colleagues for maximum prevention and control of infection transmission at work. It turned out that God allowed me to experience symptoms similar to Covid (dry cough for ten days and myalgia). I did the first Rapid test for Covid on March 27th, and the result was negative, but ten days later, my second test was unexpectedly positive. I was shocked, scared, and worried. I have children and my parents live with me. I had to isolate myself from my four-year-old son and the rest of the family, which wasn’t easy. All the news about COVID almost made me depressed. I did a COVID PCR check to confirm my rapid test and had to wait ten days for the results. Because of God’s mercy, my first PCR result was negative. I did a second examination fourteen days afterward, and today May second I received the results. Jesus really has mercy on me, the result is negative! What makes me feel God’s joy even more is His protection over me, not because I can take care of myself with disinfection, but just because He cares about me and my family, the most important thing, He restores my prayer altar! I thought my relationship was fine with God, but through this process God opened my eyes to real intimacy with Him. In my time of isolation, God strengthened me through His heroes of faith, (Caption Rico, Pastor Philip Mantofa, Pastor Nick Vujicic and many other servants of God). I am very grateful for the testimonies of their lives. Indeed, God allowed this situation to happen just to make us know, believe, and live in Truth. Yes, Jesus is God, and He loves us. This life is temporary, but all who believe on Jesus Christ will be processed into eternity, in heaven.

April 7, 2020

SEVEN MORE SOULS

My husband and I live in Kenora, Ontario, Canada and have a street-front ministry to people who are homeless and drug addicted. We started our church in our home in 1999, and have quietly cared for these marginalized people ever since. We belong to the Pentecostal Church of God from Cleveland TN, and my husband is an ordained minister with them.

During this COVID-19 virus, all the homeless street people must roam the streets until the government supported shelter opens at 9:00 PM. Through wind, rain, and cold temperatures they must huddle outside and endure.

Finally my husband could take no more. In Christian love, he brought the people inside to sit and watch a movie in the warmth of our church. We have been feeding eighty people every night since August 15th, and the street people know my husband very well. In fact, police, the mayor, city council members, other churches, millionaires, as well as the street people all tell us, “there is absolutely no one else like you, Pastor Frank”!

Last night, March 24, 2020 it was cold and rainy outside. We couldn’t let the people wander around in the rain and cold for another night, because we have watched them decline in health for the last six months of being outside, so we let them come in. We had worship music on, but that didn’t reach them, they just shuffled around aimlessly.

These people are caught p in drug dealing, prostitution, and gang life. They are hurt people with a hard shell. They love my husband and I for how we have sacrificed for them, and they know we have and tell us they know, but for the most part they are closed up.

But last night, Frank was looking for some YouTube video to reach them. We stumbled upon your (Nick’s) preaching message in San Diego I think, where you said you were taking a leap of faith to call out the drug dealers to come to the front of the church and get saved.

All of a sudden, our people stopped their aimless wandering, came and sat down rooted to the screen watching you. They heard every word you said, and when Frank asked them to make a commitment to Jesus like you were doing on the screen, SEVEN people all stood up. All gang members.

The first thing two of them said they would do (after the crying and hugging finished) was clean up our bathrooms (where they had taken their drugs thinking we didn’t know) and behind our church, which is a drug den that we constantly have to clean out and monitor.

A few years ago, one of the leaders of our church headquarters in Cleveland, TN came to our Jubilee at our Church and said, “If anyone goes to hell in Kenora, they will have to do it crawling over your church. Because your church stands directly in their way”

Thank you for obeying that “nudge” in San Diego that night and bringing seven more Canadian souls into the Kingdom.

Sincerely

Lynn Kowal

February 10, 2020

A RAY OF HOPE

I am Elizabeth from India. A couple of days ago I was feeling low and going through a very depressed time, and my heart really longed for some incredible encouragement and inspiration to move on with. I am a mother of two special needs kids. My elder son Asher is eight years old and has ADHD. Due to his impulsivity I home school him, because he isn’t able to sit still in a classroom and not given admission to attend any school. My younger daughter Athalie has a severe form of cerebral palsy. She is six years old and completely dependent on me, as she can’t see, talk, walk, or do anything on her own. I pray everyday for God’s strength so I will be able to take care of these two precious gifts that He has given me in my care. But, as a human being sometimes it’s easy to compare ourselves with others, or feel different, unfit in a world of perfection, and overlooked by God. I searched online for people who could motivate me. About the same time I came across Nick’s book “Life Without Limits”, and I must say that it has not only inspired me but helped me see my life as precious in God’s sight. It served as a beautiful reminder that God has a plan for my life, even in my challenges. I really loved reading Nick’s words, they are just so touching, inspiring and amazing! I was trying to put myself in his shoes to understand his feelings, but It wasn’t possible for me. Yet, some of his feelings did match with mine even though I’m not disabled. Caring for a child who is completely in a vegetative state is just too hard and unexplainable. But, I am inspired by Nick’s parents, especially his Mum who lovingly cared for him and didn’t feel any hesitation or shame to take Nick in public places. Because of my daughter’s condition, I am very hesitant to take her out in public as I don’t want people staring at her. Thanks to Nick for giving me a new perspective in looking at my life and circumstances. I am very encouraged by each word and I want to read his book again and again, because it’s so superbly inspiring. My family and I presently live in Nagpur, Maharashtra the northern part of India. My husband is from Kerala, in South India. We as a family have dedicated our lives to serve Jesus and share His love with others. We have a small ministry here for under priviledged children. It’s Kids Club where children gather to listen to biblically based stories, songs. games, and recieve valuable education. I loved the words Nick shared in his book which said “when you yourself are suffering, go and ease someone else’s pain”. I have began a blog for people who go through extreme trials, and suffering, and not able to keep their faith in God. Through my blogs I encourage them to keep their trust in Jesus and in His unfailing love.

Once again thanks a lot to Nick for writing this book and sharing his amazing life story with us. Nick is God’s best blessing for this planet. Nick, keep writing, keep sharing and keep encouraging people. May God bless you with very good health and strength. May God bless your lovely family and your ministry! With Prayers, Elizabeth.