Life Without Limbs?

Wow. I shared Hour of Power with my Mother last night.

Now that is not very unusual. What IS out of the ordinary was the guest speaker. A young man from Australia with boundless energy and spirit, Nick Vujicic, kept us on the edge of our seats.

This is a message about hope, about inner peace, about joy from the inside out, about life without limits.

This young fellow has a fantastic sense of humor, is well read, articulate and is currently touring the US. If you have the chance to see and hear him, it is well worth your effort.
Ma and I have not stopped referring to him or his message since we saw it last night.( of course, we took time out for sleeping and other things too!)

Nick puts a totally fresh perspective on the concept of DISABILITY in some ways like my friend
Mary Louise St. John, OSB, who used to refer to the concept of disability as inaccurate.
It is more accurate to refer to people as "temporarily able" because at any moment any one of us may find ourselves in different circumstances with diminished capacity of some kind.
I agreed with her, particularly as we all began to age.

Yet, when a person is BORN with a particular condition or illness, as she was(muscular dystrophy) and Nick was(no arms or legs), their perception of what is possible often exceeds what the average person imagines. To learn to live WITH something from the start requires a powerful commitment and deep faith to carry-on with everyday living. To experience diminishing capacity as a consequence of aging or accident really IS different and requires a different kind of response to continue. The faith and commitment are both needed, yet, they may not be readily available to the recently disabled.

I think of our returning vets, in particular. Their limb loss is often linked to violence and wartime atrocities. It gives them yet another hurdle to jump to reach the kind of limitless life that Nick demonstrates as he preaches. The coping , pain and attitude adjustments are not to be belittled in either case. Simply different approaches.

My Mother kept referring back to what it must have been like for Nick's MOTHER when she gave birth to a boy with no arms and no legs. Yet, after the initial shock, they did not give up.

I invite you to visit Nick's site and see what I am talking about. It may do YOU a world of good too.
Spread the word. God has a purpose for you too. Let it be filled with peace and real joy.

Yes, even as we hold the families of the Minneapolis Bridge collapse victims in our hearts and minds, let us embrace the bigger picture of peace beyond comprehension.
As my friend seeks peace tonight without HER best friend beside her, too.
As we face another HOT and rain-free week in the deep south, let us be mindful of the gifts we have been given and strive to use them well.

Life Without Limbs :: From life without limbs, to life without limits - Nick Vujicic is a motivational speaker and has a non-profit organization that is spreading the message of hope around the world.

What do you say when a friend dies?

Now I cannot answer that for you. I can only sometimes answer that for me.

In this case, our friend Jim was suffering and it can only be considered a blessing for him to be granted relief from that.

We still feel his absence and the loss. It was rather swift. We only heard about his raging illness a few months ago.

It brings up a world of sadness in me to go through this with his wife.

You see the cancer that stole him from us is the kind of cancer that is very hard to detect. It is the kind that my own father had and by the time we discovered it, it was quite advanced. The same is true for young Jim.

I was fortunate. The cancer that stole part of me was fast and detected early.
We were able to get rid of it quickly and yet, the struggle and recovery were not to be diminished in importance.

CANCER Steals from us. Cancer Kills.
It appears to be peaceful but that is deceptive. It may be silent at first, but this silence is not peace. It is a harbinger of death and disease.

Be aware. Be alert.

Take good care of yourself. You only have one life to live as I know it. You only have one body(exceptions are possible for various parts).

Notice the difference between the silence of Peace and the silence of death.

Do your part to live a life of Peace.