When Nick Vujicic speaks--and he does, all over the world--people hang on every word. They can't quite believe that this man is saying what he's saying.
Certainly I found that to be true.
Some years ago my husband and I heard Nick speak and afterward joined the crowd around the stage. His smile lit up the room.
Since then I've seen him on television and just recently on YouTube.
Always, I marvel how every day he triumphs over challenges that would drive many of us to curl up in the corner and wail.
And then there are his remarkable parents. Three sonograms gave them no warning their child would be born with problems.
Imagine their shock to find their newborn son possessed no arms and no legs, only a sort of a "foot flipper" at the bottom left of his torso.
What would you do?
No doubt many well-meaning people told Nick's parents that raising their severely handicapped child would be too much for them and they should turn him over to the professionals.
They paid no attention.
That plucky pair took their baby son home and somehow loved him into a remarkable wholeness of spirit.
They did more than love him absolutely. They gave Nick a lifetime gift.
They instilled in him the sense that he was bigger than the obstacles he faced.
They assured their son he could trust God to make a way for him and use him. Somehow. Somewhere. Some way.
Still, it was years before Nick believed it wholeheartedly for himself.
The boy with the hard name and the weird body
Nick Vujicic (VOO-yee-cheech) was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1982. As you would guess, being taunted and bullied were everyday occurrences.
He says, "I often came home crying and told my parents, 'I hate school! The kids make fun of me!'
"My parents always said, 'Don't pay any attention. You're God's creation, fearfully and wonderfully made, and we love you. You just smile back and talk to them and play with them as much as you can.' After awhile things got better, but I often felt depressed.
"I accepted myself after I read about the blind man in John 9. I read how Jesus said the blind man was born that way so that the works of God would be revealed through him. I said to God that if He had a plan for that man I certainly believed that He had one for me.
"That's when I totally surrendered the idea of ‘needing to know the plan’ and trusted in Him one day at a time."
Would you describe Nick as "disabled?"
Most people would. Here's what he says about disability: "We all have brokenness. Mine just shows more than most people's.
"Fear is the biggest disability of all. Fear is simply False Evidence Appearing Real. Courage is doing what's in front of us, even when we're afraid."
Asked how he finds courage to keep going every day, Nick smiled. "I thank God for what I have instead of complaining about what I don't have.
Nick says, “If God can use a man without arms and legs to be His hands and feet, then certainly He will use any willing heart!”
God answers Nick's heartfelt prayers
For years Nick wondered whether any woman ever could or ever would love him. Then God answered his lifelong prayers for a godly wife and a family of his own.
He and Kanae fell in love and then married on February 12, 2012.
And now they have four beautiful children.
(To read more of his story, go to his website: www.lifewithoutlimbs.org or Google his name.)
Nick Vujicic often quotes a favorite verse.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
Dear reader friends, that same promise applies to you and to me, every bit as much as it does to Nick. If we compare our problems to Nick's we may feel we have no right to complain, but we are human. Inevitably, we will have times when we feel broken and downhearted. Even then, in Jesus Christ our hope and our future is secure.
Let's resolve to live our lives, too, by the sure and certain promises we find in God's Word.
Lenore
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