Evidence that physical disability is not a lack of ability surfaced once more when Cindy Chilaka, a physically challenged University of Port Harcourt student, posted a video of her graduation with the title “What God cannot do does not exist.”
This multi-talented young lady, who completed a university course despite her disability and is also a talented hair stylist, shared a video in which she was dancing for joy whilst donning a t-shirt with the inscription “What God cannot do does not exist.”
The inscriptions refer to God and affirm how the concept of God and faith in his providence can help people face great odds with confidence. It is said that it is easier to climb a mountain when you know you will meet a friend at the top.
Believers and people of faith can face life’s great challenges with confidence and courage because they are assured of God’s all-loving providence as their father. This increases optimism about outcomes, and studies show that optimistic people have more positive outcomes. “An optimistic attitude helps us be happier, more successful, and healthier,” according to kidshealth.org. According to Liz Mascolo, General Mills’ business unit director, it focuses on positive outcomes (Umah 2017). “It doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily shiny and happy at all times of the day,” she says. “However, it does imply that you have the ability to look at a situation and, while it may be difficult, see around the corner and see the possibility…versus the difficulty.” (Umah 2017).
Optimism necessitates hard work, which distinguishes it from positive thinking, which is simply daydreaming about positive outcomes without putting in the necessary effort. Cynthia, despite her handicap, was very confident that God would see her through, and her faith gave her the optimism she needed to face and overcome those challenges. Her joy is shared by friends and family alike, and it stands as an indictment of those who give up and cease to strive for their dreams regardless of the obstacle. Cynthia’s completion of her graduate degree despite missing a limb and having to navigate around campus on crutches shows that those who have all of their limbs have no reason to give up.
To summarize, Cynthia’s faith in God’s providence manifested in her optimism and, as a result, fortitude until she achieved her goal, a lesson for all who face challenges of any kind.
It is hard to find good things to write about Nigeria that is why I never let an opportunity pass if one ever presents itself. Scrolling through twitter this morning, I came across a clip from Reuters about Ukamaka Okoye, a Nigerian woman who fabricates parts for motorcycles using smelted aluminum vehicle parts from the scrap yard.
According to her, she used to work as someone’s secretary in computer firm, but one day, an opportunity came for training as an auto part fabricator at Nnewi and she volunteered to attend and instantly fell in love with auto fabrication technique. Wasting no time, she set up a small factory run entirely by hand and together with her husband they began manufacturing and today they have employed some more women to help them churn out about 1000 motorcycle clutch pads and disks a day.
Her office is no air-conditioned rose smelling upscale flat, but a rented shack, hot and smoky, with blasting furnace adding to the sweltering heat of the sun blazing down her back as she works, yet she is working and working very hard, bearing witness to the truth contained the time worn refrain that when the going gets tough only the tough gets going.
In a time when countless young people are falling into hopeless despondency, Ukamaka Okoye shines the light of hope, and providing an example that if you are ready to work hard, there is no obstacle you cannot overcome and nobody has any reason to give up hope or worse fall into the temptation of engaging in crime like many young people are doing. Here is the spirit of initiative and industriousness that Nigeria and indeed the rest of Africa need to lift her from the putrid gutters of poverty.
Ukamaka and her husband have triumphed over lack of electricity Power, pipe borne water and every possible amenity that any one can imagine, and built a manufacturing firm, creating wealth and contributing their fair share in developing their country. I hope that this exposure and recognition she received from Reuters and the rest of the world would encourage investor to come forward and give her help to expand her business into a modern industry, as I know would be the case where she living in any other country other than Africa.
Yes, what a man can do, a woman can do even better. Ukamaka is a good model to many indigent young girls often tempted into prostitution and selling their bodies to survive. Ukamaka story shows that there is another way, a better way. Honest and dignified work is always available to those willing to find them, and who courageously embark on their dreams no matter the odds. Lastly the Nigerian government would do well to recognize and support Ukamaka, and more importantly study her method of enterprise so that they can guide the teaming mass unemployed young people roaming streets without direction, to emulate Ukamaka’s enterprise in other to carve a better future for themselves and the Nation.
Sometimes just existing is an act of bravery. Muniba Masari, 20, was involved in a car crash when her husband, who was driving, fell asleep and the car crashed into a ditch. Though he was able to jump out and save himself, she suffered numerous injuries, including a fractured wrist, collar bone, and rib cage; the rib cage injury severely injured her lungs and liver. She couldn’t breathe, and she’d lost control of her urine and bowels. In addition, her backbone was completely crushed. For the rest of her life, she was paralyzed.
After two and a half months in the hospital and multiple surgeries, the doctor told her she would never be able to walk or have a child again.
“Why me?” she asked her mother, devastated. “Why am I still alive?”
“This, too, shall pass,” her mother assured her. I’m not sure what God’s plan is for you.”
Muniba’s heart was set on fire by those magical words. She had always wanted to be an artist, and even though the doctors said she couldn’t use her hands, she asked her brothers to bring her canvas, and when they did, she did her first painting inside the hospital, which started her recovery process.
Her doctors advised her to lie down straight on her bed for two years after she was discharged.
“That’s when I realized how fortunate people were to be able to walk around, go outside, and not even realize it,” she explained. She resolved to help others realize how fortunate they were.
Her first step was to break free from her fears. So she took out a piece of paper and jotted down all of her fears.
Her greatest fear was losing her husband through a divorce. She married the man her father chose when she was 18 years old. It was never a happy union. Her husband had survived the accident unscathed, despised her for her condition, and was having an affair with another woman.
“I was clinging to this person who didn’t want me,” Muniba explained, “and from that day forward, I resolved to liberate him, to set him free.”
“In fact,” Muniba continued, “I was so free that when I found out he was getting married again, I texted him and said congratulations, I am happy for you, and he knows I am praying for him today.”
Muniba had unknowingly followed Jesus’ teaching, which stated, “You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be called children of God. He makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. What is the reward for loving those who love you? Aren’t the tax collectors doing the same thing? And what are you doing more than others if you only greet your own people? Do pagans not do the same? Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:43-48)
Therefore, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:43-48) her fear of never having her own child vanished when she realized there were thousands of children in Pakistan who had no one to love them. So she decided to assist them by adopting one, and a cool stream of happiness returned to her bruised heart. Muniba now has a healthy young son whom she adores and who adores her. She also travels around giving talks and encouraging people to see the bright side of life and appreciate what they have.
Every great athlete will tell you that they are at their best when they are not self-conscious or self-focused, but rather when they are completely focused on the outside, on the game. Similarly, people who have suffered a disaster are best able to overcome when they resist the urge to bitter self-pity and instead focus on helping others.
Muniba’s pain and suffering opened her eyes and made her more understanding of other people’s sufferings, making her a better person.
“There are incidents that happen, that deform you, but they mold you into the best version of yourself,” Muniba said, confirming the truth that, behind the dark clouds of pain, lies the silver lining of realizing a better, more beautiful version of ourselves, like gold purified by fire, or rough diamond made valuable by knocks and chisels blows.
God’s Understanding
“God has a purpose for you,” her mother had told her, and those magical words had set her heart on a search, looking outside of herself. It piqued her interest in learning what she could do to help others, because suffering need is something that can happen to anyone, but knowing how to endure it belongs to great souls, souls who have loved deeply.
Most people understandably avoid suffering like a bat avoids fire, but if suffering is inevitable, rejection would be futile and harmful because the hand of the clock, no matter how much we wish, cannot be turned back.
Acceptance is the prudent course of action. Making the most of a bad situation
This is why the Christian message is so powerful, and why it is referred to as the good news. God emptied himself, became man, and humbled himself to die on the Cross so that people like Muniba can know that God loves them because he chose to suffer similar affliction, not just her, but all men and women throughout history.
Suffering was unbearable before Jesus’ message, and those who suffered had no hope. Then, worldly power and wealth were everything, and a man’s worth was largely determined by his possessions.
Christ turned everything on its head. He was born in a Manger, the dwelling place of animals, lived poor, and preached that the poor are blessed and that all the things that men cringe and flee from are the true treasures, hunger, thirst for Righteousness, and meekness. Furthermore, He not only preached but His death and resurrection validated His teachings as genuine and divine.
Though Muniba is not a Christian, she has grasped the tenants of Christianity, and just as the Cross ceased to be a symbol of punishment and instead became a symbol of victory in the Passion, Muniba’s wheel cheer and urine bag are a symbol of hope and victory for all. She has received numerous international awards as an artist, motivational speaker, activist, TV host, and Pakistan’s first Goodwill Ambassador to UNWomen Pakistan at the age of 42.
“I always go around with a big smile on my face,” Muniba, an ironwoman whose example is urging everyone to make up their minds to follow the way of self-surrender even when the Cross is on their shoulders, says.
One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s.
The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man’s door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: “Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s bedside just before he passed away.
God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others.”
You have surely heard the nice saying that it has been around for a few years: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
But now I’d like to coin a companion saying: “Today is the last day of your past.”
Those two messages don’t mean the same thing. The first advises us to get our life going the way we want it to go. The second means: get rid of old failures, taboos, inhibitions that have kept us from being what we can be.
As we grow, ‘we pick up warnings like: “That’s a no-no.” “Don’t you dare do that!” “Know your place.” We learn what people around us consider to be “customary” or “proper” or “a shame.” We also hear why something is “impossible” to do.
If we are brainwashed by all this and go out as an adult into a very competitive world, we are shorn of our initiatives. We are handcuffed by all these warnings which we have dragged up from history.
What we need are the unlimited vision and the natural imagination which we had as children.
Let today be the last day of your past….
There are 33,000 distinct churches in the world, five new churches are formed every week in the US alone. If every single church claims to teach the word of God right out of the bible, who is to say which is true? How can we reconcile to become one as Jesus wants us to be. Bishop Palmer speaks about unity and show video of Pope Francis
• For the husband who complains when his dinner is not on time, because he is home with me, not with someone else.
• For the teenager who is complaining about doing dishes, because that means she is at home & not on the streets.
• For the taxes I pay, because it means I am employed.
• For the mess to clean after a party, because it means I have been surrounded by friends.
• For the clothes that fit a little too snug, because it means I have enough to eat.
• For my shadow that watches me work, because it means I am out in the sunshine.
• For a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing,
because it means I have a home.
• For all the complaining I hear about the government, because it means that we have freedom of speech.
• For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot, because it means I am capable of walking and I also have transportation.
• For my huge heating bill, because it means I am warm.
• For the lady behind me in church who sings off key, because it means that I can hear.
• For the pile of laundry and ironing, because it means I have clothes to wear.
• For weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day, because it means I have been capable of working hard.
• For the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours, because it means that I am alive.
• And finally– for too much e-mail, because it means I have friends who are thinking of me.
The various enemies of Christmas have managed to remove from the public gaze most of its once common external signs. We see few mangers. Everything Christian is swept out or sanitized. What Christmas is finds itself removed. One might argue that things like the Christmas tree itself, the Yule log, or even sentimentalized snow are, in fact, steps to remove any specific Christmas meaning.
Christmas has become a “winter festival,” whatever that is. “Dreaming of a White Christmas” shifted attention from the feast to its atmosphere. “Adeste fideles” and “Silent Night” we still hear, of course. We try to be “joyful and triumphant,” as if the event of Christmas had nothing to do with what causes the joy. We are to be festive without a reason. The increasing emptiness of the feast gnaws at our souls.
Christmas is now a feast without a cause. Folks do not, however, want to give up the days off, the presents, the good feelings, the “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” So they are kept without the religious mood that caused them to come about in the first place. We have gone through this elimination of the Christmas theme before. But what interests me is why Christmas in particular, by all odds the most popular of Christian feasts, has found itself under such attack? We cannot even have symbolic signs of its significance or meaning. Why is Christmas feared? Why is it dangerous?
One reason is, supposedly, that it “offends” the sensitivities of those of other religious persuasions. They have delicate consciences. The older notion of “I will tolerate your quirks if you tolerate mine” is not present here. Christmas is what offends. Why is this?
Chesterton’s poem, “The Wise Men,” reads: “Step softly, under snow and rain, / To find the place where men can pray; / The way is all so very plain / That we may lose the way.” Christmas is feared because it is true. If true, it is dangerous. We cannot just ignore it, much as we try. “So very simple is the road, / That we may stray from it. / … And the whole heaven shouts and shakes, / For God Himself is born again….” We may stray from the road.
How odd to have a plain road on which we can lose our way. This not-wanting-to-know about “God Himself” born again is a voluntary act. We do not want to be reminded of the manger. We do not want to see those who actually rejoice in the Christmas Mass, in the family unity about the Holy Family.
We have instead warm colors, winter fests, animals, snow, presents. We do not have the manger, the angels singing on high. And the Word made flesh to dwell amongst us? This we do not want to reckon with.
No fear here: “The Nativity with God the Father and the Holy Ghost” (Giovanni Battista Pittoni, c. 1740)
If Christmas is just a myth, we can let it alone. But what if it is a history, an event, an account of what happened in the time of Caesar Augustus, “when the whole world was at peace?” We do everything possible to prevent ourselves from considering the implications of this fact.
Christopher Dawson once remarked that, on the morning after the Nativity, the leading papers of Jerusalem, Rome, or Athens – had there been such – would not have announced it. It was not important. From the beginning, the Nativity was only known by a few. It is an event that is “too good to be true.” But that is precisely what it is not. It is true. Its good is something we should know and want to know. Indeed, within the Christian corpus is the sometimes upsetting mandate to make this event and its consequences known to “all nations.” Even if they do not want to hear of it? It seems so.
The fear of Christmas is something even more basic, or perhaps more sinister. Why is that? It is one thing simply not to know something because we have never encountered it or thought about it. It is another thing when, having heard of it, we refuse to allow it to be known. We organize our polity in such a way that every obstacle is put in the way of knowing it.
We are not yet like the countries which seek to prevent private expressions or celebration of Christmas. But with developments such as our increasing denial that marriage is of a man and a woman, we belong to the same mentality. We have taken the first step, and perhaps more than the first.
Christmas is a dangerous feast. We fear it. We do not allow ourselves to consider it. Yet, somehow, we still envy those who know this feast of domesticity. “Unto us a Child is born.” “What Child is this?” If this Child is indeed “Christ the Lord,” what happens to us who make every effort to prevent its truth from being known?..Robert Royal
LAGOS, Nigeria — About 100 feet down, on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, divers had already pulled four bodies out of the sunken tugboat. Then a hand appeared on a TV screen monitoring the recovery.
Everyone assumed it was another corpse, and the diver moved toward it.
“But when he went to grab the hand, the hand grabbed him!” Tony Walker, project manager for the Dutch company DCN Diving, said of the rescue in May.
Harrison Odjegba Okene, the tug’s Nigerian cook, had survived for three days by breathing an ever-dwindling supply of oxygen in an air pocket. A video of Okene’s dramatic rescue —[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArWGILmKCqE%5D — was posted on the Internet more than six months after the rescue and has gone viral this week.
As the temperature dropped to freezing, Okene, dressed only in boxer shorts, recited a psalm his wife had sent him earlier by text message, sometimes called the Prayer for Deliverance. “Oh, God, by your name, save me. … The Lord sustains my life.”
To this day, Okene believes his rescue after 72 hours underwater was the result of divine deliverance. The 11 other seamen aboard the tug Jascon 4 died.
On the video, there was an exclamation of fear and shock from Okene’s rescuers, and then joy as the realization set in that this hand belonged to a survivor. “What’s that? He’s alive! He’s alive!” a voice can be heard exclaiming.
“It was frightening for everybody,” Walker said of that moment, speaking in a telephone interview Tuesday. “For the guy that was trapped because he didn’t know what was happening. It was a shock for the diver while he was down there looking for bodies, and we (in the control room) shot back when the hand grabbed him on the screen.”
Walker said Okene couldn’t have lasted much longer.
“He was incredibly lucky. He was in an air pocket, but he would have had a limited time (before) … he wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.”
The full video of the rescue was released by DCN Diving after a request from The Associated Press. Initially, a shorter version of the rescue emerged on the Internet. The authenticity of the video was confirmed through conversations with DCN employees in the Netherlands. The video showing Okene was also consistent with additional photos of him on the rescue ship. The AP also contacted Okene, who confirmed the events.
Okene’s ordeal began around 4:30 a.m. on May 26. Always an early riser, he was in the toilet when the tug, one of three towing an oil tanker in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta waters, gave a sudden lurch and then keeled over.
“I was dazed and everywhere was dark as I was thrown from one end of the small cubicle to another,” Okene said in an interview with Nigeria’s Nation newspaper after his rescue.
He groped his way out of the toilet and tried to find a vent, propping doors open as he moved. He discovered some tools and a life vest with two flashlights, which he stuffed into his shorts.
When he found a cabin of the sunken vessel that felt safe, he began the long wait, getting colder and colder as he played back a mental tape of his life — remembering his mother, his friends, but mostly his wife of five years, with whom he hadn’t yet fathered a child.
He worried about his colleagues — the Ukrainian captain and 10 Nigerians, including four young cadets from Nigeria’s Maritime Academy. They would have locked themselves into their cabins, standard procedure in an area stalked by pirates.
He got really worried when he heard a loud sound in the water outside — sharks or barracuda, he supposed — fighting over something big.
As the waters rose, he made a rack on top of a platform and piled two mattresses on top.
“I started calling on the name of God,” Okene told the Nation. “I started reminiscing on the verses I read before I slept. I read the Bible from Psalms 54 to 92. My wife had sent me the verses to read that night when she called me before I went to bed.”
He survived on a single bottle of Coke.
Okene really thought he was going to die, he said, when he heard the sound of a boat engine and an anchor dropping, but failed to get the attention of its crew. He figured, given the size of the sunken tugboat, that it would take a miracle for anyone to locate him. So he waded across the cabin, stripped the wall down to its steel body and banged on it with a hammer.
But “I heard them moving away. They were far away from where I was,” he said.
By the time the divers found him, relatives already had been told there were no survivors.
Using hot water to warm him up, the rescue crew attached Okene to an oxygen mask. He was put into a decompression chamber and then safely returned to the surface.
Before the slow ascent began, a voice on the video could be heard asking Okene to give a thumbs up if he understood what was about to happen. Slowly he raised his hand and stuck out his thumb.
“Good job, my friend. Well done,” the voice says. “You are a survivor.”
A little boy was sitting at the doorstep of a splendid mansion in a great city; he was cold and hungry, and his clothes were only rags. He was an orphan, for both his parents were dead, and he had been wandering over the country without a friend or a home. He hoped that someone would offer him a crust of bread, or allowed him to sleep under the stable.
As he was sitting there tired and weary, and tears running down his cheeks, the door opened and the lady of the house appeared. She was on the point of telling him to go away ; but when she saw his sad face, and heard his sorrowful tale, she had compassion, took him into her house, and gave him some food.
While she stood watching him, a thought suddenly came into her mind. “Would you like to stay with me?” she said. “I think you would be happier here than wandering about without a home.”
The little boy looked up and could not imagine what he had heard. So, she asked him a second time, and he threw himself on the ground at her feet, and for some moments could not speak, so great was his joy.
The lady was pleased with the boy, and in a short time adopted him as her child, and made him the heir of her great wealth; and the boy, in gratitude loved her tenderly all his life.
But God has done more for you than that. He created you and made you His child in this world, and has made you also the heir of eternal treasures in Heaven. Is He, then, not worthy of all your love?
My name is Nick Vujicic (pronounced Voy-a-chich). I am twenty-seven years old. I was born without any limbs, but I am not constrained by my circumstances. I travel the world encouraging millions of people to overcome adversity with faith, hope, love, and courage so that they may pursue their dreams. In this book I will share with you my experiences in dealing with adversity and obstacles, some of them unique to me but most universal to us all. My goal is to encourage you to overcome your own challenges and hardships so you can find your own purpose and pathway to a ridiculously good life. Often we feel life is unfair. Hard times and tough circumstances can trigger self-doubt and despair. I understand that well. But the Bible says, “Consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of any kinds.” That is a lesson I struggled many years to learn. I eventually figured it out, and through my experiences I can help you see that most of the hardships we face provide us with opportunities to discover who we are meant to be and what we can share of our gifts to benefit others. My parents are devout Christians, but after I was born with neither arms nor legs, they wondered what God had in mind in creating me. At first they assumed that there was no hope and no future for someone like me, that I would never live a normal or productive life. Today, though, my life is beyond anything we could have imagined. Every day I hear from strangers via telephone, e-mail, text, and Twitter. They approach me in airports, hotels, and restaurants and hug me, telling me that I have touched their lives in some way. I am truly blessed. I am ridiculously happy. What my family and I could not foresee was that my disability—my “burden”—could also be a blessing, offering me unique opportunities for reaching out to others, empathizing with them, understanding their pain, and offering them comfort. Yes, I do have distinct challenges, but I also am blessed with a loving family, with a keen enough mind, and with a deep and abiding faith. I’ll be candid here and throughout the book in sharing that neither my faith nor my sense of purpose grew strong until I went through some very scary times. You see, as I entered those difficult adolescent years when we all wonder where we fit in, I despaired over my circumstances, feeling that I never would be “normal.” There was no hiding the fact that my body was not like my classmates’. As much as I tried to do ordinary activities like swimming and skateboarding, I would only become more and more aware that there were simply some things I would never be able to do. It didn’t help that a few cruel kids called me a freak and an alien. Of course, I’m all too human and wanted to be like everyone else, but there seemed little chance for that. I wanted to be accepted. I felt I wasn’t. I wanted to fit in. It seemed I didn’t. And I hit a wall. My heart ached. I was depressed, overwhelmed with negative thoughts, and didn’t see any point in my life. I felt alone even when I was surrounded by family and friends. I worried that I would always be a burden to those I loved. But I was so, so wrong. What I didn’t know back in those dark days could fill a book:the one you’re holding, actually. In the pages that follow, I will offer you methods for finding hope even amid arduous trials and heartbreaking tribulations. I’ll light the path to the other side of grief where you can emerge stronger, more determined, and empowered to pursue the life you want, and perhaps even to find a life beyond any you could have imagined. If you have the desire and passion to do something, and it’s within God’s will, you will achieve it. That’s a powerful statement. To be honest, I didn’t always believe it myself. If you’ve seen one of my talks posted on the Internet, the happiness I have that shines through in those videos is the result of the journey I’ve made. I didn’t have everything I needed at first and had to pick up several important attributes along the way. To live without limits, I found I needed:
A powerful sense of purpose Hope so strong that it cannot be diminished
Faith in God and the infinite possibilities
Love and self-acceptance
Attitude with altitude
A courageous spirit Willingness to change
A trusting heart
Hunger for opportunities
The ability to assess risks and to laugh at life
A mission to serve others first.
Authors-choice: Hope & Revival 