Thursday, March 1, 2007

What a Living Inspiration!


My name is Nick Vujicic and I give God the Glory for how He has used my testimony to touch thousands of hearts around the world! I was born without limbs and doctors have no medical explanation for this birth "defect". As you can imagine, I was faced with many challenges and obstacles.



"Consider it pure joy, my Brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds."


....To count our hurt, pain and struggle as nothing but pure joy? As my parents were Christians, and my Dad even a Pastor of our church, they knew that verse very well. However, on the morning of the 4th of December 1982 in Melbourne (Australia), the last two words on the minds of my parents was "Praise God!". Their firstborn son had been born without limbs! There were no warnings or time to prepare themselves for it. The doctors we shocked and had no answers at all! There is still no medical reason why this had happened and Nick now has a Brother and Sister who were born just like any other baby.



The whole church mourned over my birth and my parents were absolutely devastated. Everyone asked, "if God is a God of Love, then why would God let something this bad happen to not just anyone, but dedicated Christians?" My Dad thought I wouldn't survive for very long, but tests proved that I was a healthy baby boy just with a few limbs missing.


Understandably, my parents had strong concern and evident fears of what kind of life I'd be able to lead. God provided them strength, wisdom and courage through those early years and soon after that I was old enough to go to school. The law in Australia didn't allow me to be integrated into a main-stream school because of my physical disability. God did miracles and gave my Mom the strength to fight for the law to be changed. I was one of the first disabled students to be integrated into a main-stream school.


I liked going to school, and just try to live life like everyone else, but it was in my early years of school where I encountered uncomfortable times of feeling rejected, weird and bullied because of my physical difference. It was very hard for me to get used to, but with the support of my parents, I started to develop attitudes and values which helped me overcome these challenging times. I knew that I was different but on the inside I was just like everyone else. There were many times when I felt so low that I wouldn't go to school just so I didn't have to face all the negative attention. I was encouraged by my parents to ignore them and to try start making friends by just talking with some kids. Soon the students realized that I was just like them, and starting there God kept on blessing me with new friends.


There were times when I felt depressed and angry because I couldn't change the way I was, or blame anyone for that matter. I went to Sunday School and learnt that God loves us all and that He cares for you. I understood that love to a point as a child, but I didn't understand that if God loved me why did He make me like this? Is it because I did something wrong? I thought I must have because out of all the kids at school, I'm the only weird one. I felt like I was a burden to those around me and the sooner I go, the better it'd be for everyone. I wanted to end my pain and end my life at a young age, but I am thankful once again, for my parents and family who were always there to comfort me and give me strength.

Due to my emotional struggles I had experienced with bullying, self esteem and loneliness, God has implanted a passion of sharing my story and experiences to help others cope with whatever challenge they have in their life and let God turn it into a blessing. To encourage and inspire others to live to their fullest potential and not let anything get in the way of accomplishing their hopes and dreams.




One of the first lessons that I have learnt was not to take things for granted.


"And we know that in all things God works for the best for those who love Him." -Rom 8:28

That verse spoke to my heart and convicted me to the point where that I know that there is no such thing as luck, chance or coincidence that these "bad" things happen in our life.

I had complete peace knowing that God won't let anything happen to us in our life unless He has a good purpose for it all. I completely gave my life to Christ at the age of fifteen after reading John 9. Jesus said that the reason the man was born blind was "so that the works of God may be revealed through Him."



I truly believed that God would heal me so I could be a great testimony of His Awesome Power. Later on I was given the wisdom to understand that if we pray for something, if it's God's will, it'll happen in His time. If it's not God's will for it to happen, then I know that He has something better.





I now see that Glory revealed as He is using me just the way I am and in ways others can't be used.

I am now twenty-one years old and have completed a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Financial Planning and Accounting. I am also a motivational speaker and love to go out and share my story and testimony wherever opportunities become available. I have developed talks to relate to and encourage students through topics that challenge today's teenagers. I am also a speaker in the corporate sector.
















Contributed by Ogochukwu Eze

4 comments:

Fifi said...

Hi There in Nigeria...... from South Africa!
What a beautiful story! My eyes filled with tears as I read of this young mans courage and his love for God! Stories like these make our problems seem insignificant! I do pray God's glory will continue to shine through this mans life!
Thank you for sharing!

Karen said...

Amazing! This guy is so...inspiring. He has a good;looking face and has a heart of gold. That's priceless.

Thanks for sharing this story.

Liza on Maui said...

Inspirational...very inspirational! Thank you.

Kerry Hancock Jr said...

SACRIFICE

Hbr 11:4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

Hbr 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of [our] lips giving thanks to his name.

What does man define as sacrifice?

The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person.

Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

Sacrifice is losing or giving up something (of value/worth) for the good benefit of another person or cause. I now realize that from the very beginning we were created by God in sacrifice. Ultimately everything was created by God. Everything including Satan, sin, death and murder.

Why would such a loving and perfect God create such terrible things? or how about this question that I am so very familiar with myself. Is this all really worth it? Have you ever thought this; if I was never put on this earth I would never be burdened with making these decisions or have to face the possibility of heaven or hell? Have you ever said to God, I never asked to be put on this earth in the first place? If so, lets put everything into perspective so that we will appreciate the love and glory of Jesus Christ and God our Father. The answer is simple it is sacrifice but we need to understand the answer so that it is fulfilling in truth and it will take away these questions and cast away a couple more of Satan's many lies and misconceptions of truth.

It all comes down to sacrifice. God had to sacrifice so much to give us this gift of free will that ultimately benefits us the most in the end. Does it benefit God; of course it does but I want you to see how God had our best interest in mind and how God gives up more for us to have this than we do with our little time on this earth. In such a way you will no longer have a thought of comparison.

When God first created man He sacrificed more than the world can ever see. God did not create evil for the purpose of evil. When God created man He created something very special beyond all other creations. We know Satan was created before man for a simple reason. When God created Adam and Eve He gave them something special called "choice" or "free will". If we did not have choice then we would be robots and we would not have a free will. Why would God want us to have something so powerful as free will? To God we become real, we become meaningful, we bring purpose and we fulfill one of His greatest creations which is love. Just think for a moment what it took for God to give us free will.

It takes good and evil to make us have a decision so that we do in deed have free will. Although this can be very painful to a man or woman at times in life. Realize that when God created evil He knew that all the perfect creations of His such as man, woman and angels would be divided and He would have to lose part of His perfect creation for the gain of what is left. Simply put; many will spend eternity in hell and the rest will be with God Almighty in eternal life. Whatever is cast into Hell is really God's and once was a perfect creation, even Satan. So it is God who loses something that was His and was perfect. Can you now start to see how much God sacrificed for us before Adam and Eve walked this earth? Even after that, God came to earth Himself and sacrificed His life in flesh. All in all, God has sacrificed Himself to us both in spirit and in flesh.

Why would God create something that would cause Him so much pain and something that will actually take a part of Him away forever. In the end; God's children are His by our own will. Not because we were forced to but because we chose to because we were not blind to His love. As the days get shorter the devil is working harder to make people believe in everything but God. Satan is also working hard on those who do believe in God by limiting our beliefs in his power and existence. Do not be blinded to the sacrifice God has given to you before you made any sacrifice in your life whatsoever towards His glory. Why do you think we were commanded to give sacrifices to God? So that we could be conditioned to understand the meaning of sacrifice in order that we could see the great love that God had for us before man was even created.

Glory to GOD,

Kerry Dale Hancock Jr
messenger in CHRIST