Life Without Limits, Nick Vujicic

If you are busy, skip my blog and go read Nick’s book. It will inspire you.

If you aren’t busy, watch this video, then sure, read my blog.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CBNonline?ob=0#p/search/4/i-OkIuQTBdo

Nick Vujicic is a man of many contrasts. He has no limbs, but he travels the world extensively. (I envy.) He struggles physically, but he is always smiling like he has won something. His future may look bleak to some, but he is ridiculously excited about his life – all because he chose hope instead of despair. His emotional suffering and physical limitations have pushed him to discover some truths in life that most people never experience.

Nick speaks to all kinds of audiences, Christian and non-, and this book is marketed to a broad audience. It isn’t preachy or overly religious, but it’s obvious that his trust in God is the strength of his life. He uses the word happiness a lot, but he possesses a deeper joy, and a hilarious sense of humor. This book is very future-oriented and discusses many angles of trusting, hoping, planning, with many examples from Nick’s life and many others.

Maybe I gravitate to Nick’s story because I know about disability. My dad is severely disabled with MS, and he also has a great attitude. People who just met him five minutes ago will comment on his amazing attitude. He doesn’t complain. His sense of humor is intact. He isn’t angry. He loves God, and he loves sharing the Gospel. I hear people carelessly say that if they were in a similar situation they would rather be shot. I’ve come to realize that my dad’s story, like Nick’s, is not at all as hopeless as you might think. What defines “hopeless?” Nick says, “If you say you are without hope, that means you think there is a zero chance of anything good happening in your life ever again. Zero? That’s pretty extreme, don’t you think?” Nick can say it like no one else - God can be all the missing pieces we need.

Some thoughts I want to remember (in no particular order):

Give!

Don’t be limited by fear.

Listen to good counsel, and be willing to take risks.

It doesn’t have to make sense now, just trust.

Whatever it is, it’s not the end of the world.

Choose a positive outlook.

Your pain can become someone else’s miracle.

Your pain can glorify God.

Attitude is altitude!

Master your strengths.

Hugs help.

The only thing I missed in this book was Nick’s Aussie accent. The rest was wonderful – a great way to kick off the year!

The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Mark Twain

I found this ratty paperback for $1.50 at a bookstore on the way home from school--as if I needed a new distraction right then. I enjoy Mark Twain's witty character as it shows through in his short stories and essays, and I envy his creativity. This book is stories of the real characters and adventures that inspired Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. There are some politically incorrect moments, but they are in no way offensive unless you are too stiffminded to appreciate the world as it was back then. This book captures that world, at least from Twain's perspective. His way with words is almost as amazing as his adventures -- I laugh out loud. He paints pictures. Not just of his life and his family, but of his whole society. He alternates from serious topics like death, poverty, slavery, to his mischievous pranks, and the funniest things that happened to him, just for the sake of a laugh. (He once tricked a friend into climbing onto an icy, second-story roof, all the time hoping the poor guy would fall into an outdoor party in progress below and cause a commotion. He did and it did.) Mark Twain was the kind of kid that when he got smacked for something he didn't do, his mother said he deserved it for something she didn't know about. Less interesting men have written much about themselves, but Twain is one man who owed the world at least one autobiography.

End of the Spear, Steve Saint

I don't live the most adventurous life, but I compensate by reading books like this one. Steve Saint moved his wife and four children into the deep Ecuadorian jungle to live with the Waodani tribe. Good excuse to write a book, eh? If you've read Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliott, then you already know the beginning of this story. Steve's father, Nate Saint was one of the missionaries speared to death by men from this very tribe, back when Steve was five years old. The rest of the story is that Steve has practically adopted Mincaye, the man who killed his father, as a second father. They share a friendship you would never think possible. If you've ever had to forgive someone and found it difficult, you'll be amazed at the miracle of this story. While the elements of the story itself are fascinating (a wild pig for a pet; monkey meat for dinner...) I was also impressed with the quality writing. You really get a taste for the language and customs of the Waodani, the distance and isolation of the world they live in. Their mindset is so far removed from ours. The Waodani thought white people, being so pale, must live inside trees. When Steve brought Mincaye to the States, his culture shock was more severe than an American in the jungle. Mincaye told his people back home that we don't use money - everything is free in America! You just show a little plastic card... More sobering was that they'd never heard of war as we know it. Men who used to kill with spears and had the highest mortality rate of any known population were horrified that our people sometimes kill total strangers en masse with bombs and guns. The Saints' ministry is not what we think of as typical missionary work. They had to re-interpret the Bible just to get basic concepts of Christianity across. Following God became "walking Waegongi's (God's) Trail." Stephen Curtis Chapman is a character in this story, and he was even instrumental in shedding light on an old, unknown miracle. [Listen to the song "No Greater Love" on the album DECLARATION and you'll hear Mincaye chanting at the end.] The ending of this story lets you know that in the middle of that long past tragedy, God was watching over the missionaries that died, over their families, and especially over five-year-old Steve Saint.

Miracle in the Andes, Nando Parrado

• After reading "Alive," I looked up Nando's story, written 30 years after the disaster. I was surprised by the impact of this book because I had just read the factual account, "Alive". But there was no feeling of repetition. If you've ever felt true panic, that is what Nando experienced nearly every moment for 72 days. This book places the reader "inside Nando's skull" and "in his rugby shoes, on the frozen slopes he was certain would be his grave." The emotions and philisophical questions raised here are profound.
• Nando doesn't believe in the 'conventional' idea of God, although he remains Catholic to this day. He was one of the strongest heroes because he summited a mountain and walked 45 miles through the Andes without climbing gear. He decided a million times over to suffer a little longer through the cold "as painful as fire." He got a rescue team, but he degrades his own courage saying because he was so overtaken by fear at the time. He was more afraid of dying at the crash site, so he left to get help, and became convinved that he would die trying. He likened it to jumping out of a burning building - choosing one death over another. He doesn't accept that prayers helped him get out of the mountains either, although he calls it a miracle.
• On his trek out, he summited the 17,000 ft. mountain and was devestated to see no farmers' fields, but just miles upon miles of more mountains. He writes, "In that moment all my dreams, assumptions, and expectations of life evaporated into the thin Andean air. I had always thought that life was the actual thing, the natural thing, and that death was simply the end of living. Now, in this lifeless place, I saw with a terrible clarity that death was the constant, death was the base, and life was only a short, fragile dream. I was dead already. I had been born dead, and what I thought was my life was just a game death let me play as it waited to take me."
• He ends his story by bringing it current, to his loving wife and family, and also gives a brief update on all the other survivors. The sixteen have a lifelong bond and many are close friends. They occasionally visit the graves at the crash site, and even keep up with the Chilean peasant who was their first outside contact. With all those memories to deal with, Nando's father counseled him just days after the rescue that he not let the plane crash be the most important thing that ever happened to him. In one way, Nando is gifted to know how just how fragile and special life is. He ends with a strong message to savor every moment of this precious gift: "Live every moment. Do not waste a breath."