The woman remembers the stories of her mother. The health workers were afraid to show her a disabled child, they brought her only a few days after the birth. Because of what Vera was born like that, it is not known, she herself does not complain about her fate.
My mother told me that the doctors were interested in whether she, being pregnant with me, could not have been poisoned by something, or maybe she felt bad. But this was not the case. Mother worked as a milkmaid on a farm, father worked as a machine operator. And I'm not their first child either. So it was meant to be...
Faith was born with serious pathologies. She is missing both arms. But that's not all, one of her legs is twenty centimeters shorter than the other. The girl hardly learned to walk, and did not speak until she was three years old. She coped with the hardships thanks to the support of her family. Parents and older brothers and sisters from childhood surrounded her with love and care.
At the age of 7, Vera went to first grade, studied at home. The girl wrote with the help of her legs, so deftly that the teachers were surprised how she did it. Over time, Vera learned to do everything with her feet. Do not occupy her sense of humor with optimism. The woman admits that she does not like to sit back ... legs.
And sweep, clean up toys for the children, change their clothes, feed them, cook dinner - I manage to do everything. I even work with my feet in the garden. I have already got the hang of it so much that even my relatives are surprised and sometimes do not keep up with me.
Faith's favorite pastime is embroidery.
She began to embroider at the age of seven. Now, of course, there is not always enough time, but I try to devote at least half an hour a day to a hobby. I give away my work to friends and acquaintances. My embroidered towels and napkins are also abroad, with friends from Germany and Poland.
But the most amazing thing is that Feshchuk-Omelchuk herself learned to do makeup with her legs. The first clients appeared. Local girls gladly signed up for her. Journalists became interested in the unusual master.
They wrote about her in newspapers, filmed videos for television, and Vera became a real celebrity. Oriflame drew attention to it. The woman was paid makeup courses, and now she is a certified makeup artist.
I work as a local makeup artist. I love trying new things in makeup. It's not difficult for me to paint myself or my girlfriend - I grab a makeup brush with my toes - and go!
Vera got married in 2011. Peter sought her hand for five years. A year after the wedding, the couple had a daughter, Evelina, a couple of years later, Arseny was born. Vera herself looked after the children, fed them, changed diapers and even changed clothes.
After the birth of his second child, Peter began to drink. Vera could not stand it and filed for divorce. She understood that she could cope alone, because she was not used to being discouraged. Now a woman single-handedly raises children and earns her living as a make-up artist.
“I decided to commit suicide on the night of March 8. She put on a fashionable Madonna hat, a short black skirt, half boots, put a cigarette in her mouth. I did not dress warmly, but I was going to die. I wanted to die beautiful. He would then look at me, so luxurious and dead, and would regret that he left.
That night, frost broke out at 35 degrees, so I could not think of a better way to die.
Before leaving, she looked around her house for the last time, shook her head, chasing away doubts, and waved her stack in one gulp. I thought I would fall asleep and die in my sleep.
There was no fear. I leaned against a tree and began to wait for death to take me. There is silence all around, ringing, deaf, dead ... For a kilometer - not a single living soul.
I sat for a long time until it dawned on me - I'm still alive. And suddenly such fear seized. I have two children - Dianka and Antoshka! I looked at the sky and cried: “Forgive me, little children ...”
I tried to get up and walk, but my arms and legs were frostbitten, like a fish. I don't remember how I got back. Crawling, probably.
Then two weeks in intensive care. I screamed to be put to sleep, asked everyone how I would live. I called a psychiatrist, but nothing helped. After I realized what I had done to myself, I wanted to die even more.
I was lying on a hospital bed, day and night howling the same song: “Ah, Samara-town. I’m restless… You calm me changing…”…
They discharged me without arms and legs. Torso and head.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror, at my wardrobe, sorting things out. Nothing suits me, and I'm no.
Tatyana always keeps order in the housePhoto: Anton Petrov for TDMost of all I was afraid of meeting Him. When we met, I was in a wheelchair. He looked at me and laughed loudly, in a bass voice, pure Satan: “Ha-ha-ha! What God will help you?!”
I forgave him. My act dishonored him to the whole village.
I forgave him. My act dishonored him throughout the village. At first, the local grandmothers cackled and pecked at the back of my head: “He is a disgrace to you. An honest woman would have been invited to marry long ago, but if she doesn’t take you, it means that you are a bad woman, walking, unworthy. And when all this happened, they began to poke me that it was I who disgraced him throughout the district.
The second story. Asterisk ill-fated
“At the age of 18, I cut the head of my mother’s roommate with an ax. He beat off her kidneys, and I thought that for him this would be the best retribution.
From the side they will say, they say, you are still a good fellow, you stood up for your mother. For my mom, I'm a savior, yes. But he also had a mother, and for her I am a murderer. I had to somehow resolve this issue, I don’t know, contact the police, try to solve everything with my fists, but not kill. It's not human. As a result, I destroyed the lives of four people at once: mine, my mother's, the life of her roommate and his mother.
I rewound a two-year sentence in Samara, got out of prison, got married and divorced when my daughter was only three months old. My mother-in-law began to incite my wife against me: why do you need this criminal? Why, then, was it necessary to marry off your daughter at all? Mom will cook dinner, dad will warm up the car. Why a husband? Most divorces are due to parental intervention. If your parents tell you who to choose as a husband or wife, then they love themselves and choose for themselves.
I tore up the documents for the apartment and left. Started to be homeless. And then he killed a man. My wife set a condition for me: if this person is not here, then we will be together. I thought if I removed it, then my relationship with my wife would improve. I don't want to tell you how I killed him.
I ended up in a correctional labor colony of strict regime No. 22 in the Oktyabrsky settlement of the Boguchansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory for 10 years. There he crushed his leg at the sawmill when he worked at the sawmill. I began to clean it, and the machine suddenly started working. I was on the chain. Do you know what a bicycle chain looks like? Here is the same one, only three times more powerful, and there are sprockets that turn the chain in the right side. My trouser leg got caught and my leg tightened. Asterisk, let's crush this ill-fated leg. As suddenly this conveyor turned on, it stopped. I still don’t know who launched it, maybe I had an enemy ...
Asterisk, let's crush this ill-fated leg. I still don’t know who launched the conveyor, maybe I had an enemy
It was 45 degrees below zero ... They tied a stick to my leg, threw me, groaning, into the back of a car and drove 300 kilometers along a broken road to the nearest hospital in the village of Reshety. I got into trouble with a novice young doctor who came to the hospital for undergraduate practice. The bone is shattered, it is simply not there, so he still chopped up all the meat for me. While I was in the hospital, my leg was getting shorter from his manipulations. He made it smaller by seven centimeters. 13 times under general anesthesia, two years in the hospital.
VictorPhoto: Anton Petrov for TD
As he recovered, he began to learn knitting - there was nothing more to do anyway. At first he freaked out, it didn’t work out - a tricky business. When the first sock turned out - consider it, here it is, victory. And so he began to knit mittens, socks, with a pattern, mostly for children, for the daughters and sons of nurses.
He was discharged from the hospital, transferred to penitentiary colony No. 13, from where he was released ahead of schedule for good behavior. I didn’t want to leave the colony, at least I had a bed there, but what about in the wild? Mother, I was told, died, I am disabled without a home.
I had nowhere to go, and I went to the Adaptation Center for Convicts in the city of Krasnoyarsk. They helped people like me, provided a bed, could help with work. Oh, where they just didn’t invite me to work - both as a woodcarver and as a watchman. The booze got in the way. Apparently, I needed to fall even harder and lower into the mud in order to get up and walk confidently on the ground.
people throw away such good things that you don’t even have to wash them - they got dirty, threw them away, found new ones
I began to thump, hard to thump. This is the leg I stupidly drank. I drank for a week, fell asleep in unconsciousness on the battery. Burn, gangrene, amputation. The Regional Clinical Hospital became my temporary home, until they told me: “We don’t have a place for permanent residence here.” And now I'm homeless again. Slept outside or in the basement. I dug in the garbage, you know, people throw away such good things that you don’t even have to wash them - they got dirty, threw them out, found new ones. In the market, Krastets collected spoiled products from the ground. I dragged and handed over scrap metal, sometimes I’ll unload vegetables once to some huckster, I’ll get my little change, I’ll buy vodka with this money. Eating and drinking is the whole life.
I had no home, no money, no friends, no clothes. I had a haircut like a shameful dog, and lice crawled over me.
History the third. "I won't come to your cemetery, mom"
A young blond-haired guy walks awkwardly on a treadmill. He tries to let go of his hands, but immediately loses his balance, begins to fall and again nervously grabs the machine. The body stubbornly disobeys.
Sergey Nosik is 26 years old. The first stroke broke him right after graduation. A young, healthy 17-year-old guy came home after a fun celebration, sat on a chair and did not get up again until the ambulance arrived. Then there were two more strokes.
Sergey is a budding acrobat in the past. He was fond of parkour, more than once jumped from the ninth floor upside down and each time managed to beat fate deftly, like in checkers. Until fate clipped his wings.
“Seryozha, pens,” a short man without a leg says to the guy. We need to keep your movements under control. It is better to walk slowly, but do not hold on to the simulator with your hands. - Seryozha is a good fellow for us, - the coach continues with pride. - Studying to be a carpenter. He already has two professions - a plasterer and an electrician, there will be a third one. He will definitely succeed, he will get out. People did not get out of such a bottom. I will help in any way I can."
Victor and TatianaPhoto: Anton Petrov for TD
Once upon a time, this man without documents, a house, things, without one leg and with a half-crushed second, was also helped to believe in himself.
“My temporary home was the Regional Clinical Hospital of the city of Krasnoyarsk, until they told me: “We don’t have a place for permanent residence here. Slippers were given out and sent home. And now I'm homeless. No home, no money, no friends, no clothes. One lice. The believers helped me. They brought me clothes. I ended up in a reception center, then I lived in a temporary residence. The believers restored my documents. I began to think that I could still earn forgiveness.
I began to pray. The shoemaker at the church suggested that I try to learn shoemaking. I refused at first. And then once, another tried, it began to work. A local Azerbaijani from the market took me as an apprentice for six months, paid five rubles a day for 10 hours of work. I was happy to be of service to someone.
Then I was placed in the regional psycho-neurological dispensary. There, a dental technician offered to help him - mostly to throw out the garbage. I worked for him for six months. Then he pushed: learn to be a dental technician. I went to study. Now I have the first diploma in my life from the Krutov Medical College as a dental technician.
Then I tried to quit smoking. When my hand reached for a cigarette, I was stopped by the thought: what is your love and faith worth? Here a cigarette costs a ruble. What about your words? Will you sell them for a ruble?
And then I realized that I have never loved anyone in this life except myself. All my actions, mistakes, betrayals and sins I committed for myself.
I quit smoking. Naturally, there was no talk of any alcohol then either.
I remembered my mother. Thought...
Do you want us to send the best texts of "Such Affairs" to you by e-mail? Subscribe
It looks like a myth, a beautiful, instructive, but unreal story. Think about it, a boy born without legs and arms, by the age of 31, is a world famous motivational speaker, a happy husband and father. Nick Vujicic has traveled half the world. He performed at the stadium, and 110 thousand people listened to him. Is it possible?
Happens. If every day to make a small feat. We will tell you about 12 exploits of Nick Vujicic, thanks to which you can read in his sincere smile: “I am happy.”
Birth
One of better ways to get rid of the pain of the past is to replace it with gratitude.
December 4, 1982. Dushka Vujicic is in labor. Here is the birth of the firstborn. Husband, Boris Vuychich, is present at the birth.
The shoulder showed up. Boris turned pale and left the birth room. After a while, a doctor came up to him.
"Doctor, is my son missing an arm?" Boris asked. "No. Your son has neither arms nor legs,” the doctor replied.
Nicholas's parents (so they called the newborn) did not know anything about the Tetra-Amelia syndrome. They didn't know how to handle a baby without arms and legs. The mother did not put her son to her breast for 4 months.
Gradually, Nick's parents got used to¸ accepting and loving their son for who he is.
Childhood
Failure is the path to excellence.
Leg. So Nick called the only limb on his body. Likeness of a foot with two fused toes, subsequently separated surgically.
But Nick thinks that his "leg" is not so bad. He learned to write, print (43 words per minute), drive an electric wheelchair, push off on a skateboard.
Not everything worked right away. But, when the time came, Nick went to a regular school, along with healthy peers.
Despair
When you feel like betraying your dream, push yourself to work one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year. You'll be amazed at what happens if you don't give up.
“You can’t do anything!”, “We don’t want to be friends with you!”, “You are nobody!” Nick heard these words every day at school.
The focus shifted: he was no longer proud of what he had learned; he fixated on what he could never do. Hug your wife, take your child in your arms ...
One day, Nick asked his mother to take him to the bathroom. Driven by the thought "Why me?" the boy tried to drown himself.
"They didn't deserve this" - 10-year-old Nick realized that he could not do this to his parents, who love him very much. Suicide is not fair. Unfair to loved ones.
self-identification
Other people's words and actions cannot define your personality.
"What happened to you?!" - until Nick became world famous, this was the most frequently asked question to him.
Seeing a man without arms and legs, people do not hide the shock. Sidelong glances, whispers behind his back, grins - Nick answers everything with a smile. "It's all about the cigarettes," he says to the particularly impressionable. And he jokes about the children: “I just didn’t clean my room ...”.
Humor
Laugh as much as possible. In the life of any person there are days when troubles and hardships pour, as if from a cornucopia. Do not curse tests. Be grateful to life for giving you the opportunity to learn and develop. A sense of humor will help with this.
Nick is a big joker. There are no arms and legs - life "played" him, so why not laugh at her?
One day, Nick dressed up as a pilot and, with the permission of the airline, met passengers at the landing with the words: “Today we are testing new technology aircraft control ... and I am your pilot.
People who personally know Nick Vucic say that he has an excellent sense of humor. And this quality, as you know, excludes self-pity.
Talent
If you are deeply unhappy, then you are not living your life. Your talents are being misused.
Nick Vuychich has two higher educations: accounting and financial planning. He is a successful motivational speaker and businessman. But his main talent is the ability to convince. Including through art.
Nick's first book is called "Life without limits: Inspiration for an absurdly good life" (translated into 30 languages, published in Russian in 2012). In 2009 he played leading role in the short film "The Butterfly Circus" (IMDb rating - 8.10). A story about finding the meaning of life.
Sport
It is impossible to argue with the fact that madness is genius: anyone who is willing to take risks, in the eyes of others, appears either as a madman or a genius.
“Crazy” is what many people think when they watch Nick looking for a wave while surfing or skydiving.
“I realized that physical dissimilarity limits me only to the extent that I limit myself,” Vuychich once admitted and did not limit himself in anything.
Nick plays football, tennis, swims well.
Motivation
Think of your attitude to the world as a remote control. If you don't like the program you are watching, you simply grab the remote and switch the TV to another program. It’s the same with your attitude towards life: when you are unhappy with the result, change your approach, no matter what problem you are facing.
At the age of 19, Nick was offered to speak to students at the university where he studied (Griffith University). Nicholas agreed: he went out and spoke briefly about himself. Many people in the audience were crying, and one girl went up on stage and hugged him.
The young man understood that oratory was his vocation.
Nick Vuychich traveled to 45 countries, met with 7 presidents, spoke to thousands of spectators. Every day, he receives dozens of requests for interviews and invitations to speak. Why do people want to listen to it?
Because his performances are not reduced to the banal: “Are you in trouble? Yes, look at me - no arms, no legs, that's who has problems!
Nick understands that suffering cannot be compared, everyone has their own pain, and does not try to cheer up people, they say, “compared to me, everything is not so bad with you.” He just talks to them.
Embrace
I have no hands, and when you hug, you press right against the hearts. It's amazing!
Nick confesses that since he was born without arms, he never missed them. The only thing he lacks is a handshake. He cannot shake hands with anyone.
But he found a way. Nick hugs people... with his heart. Once Vuychich even arranged a hugging marathon - 1749 people per day, hugged by the heart.
Love
If you are open to love, love will come. If you surround your heart with a wall, there will be no love.
They met on April 11, 2010. The beautiful Kanae Miyahara has a boyfriend, Nick has no arms or legs. It's not love at first sight. It's just love. Real, deep.
On February 12, 2012, Nick and Kanae got married. Everything is as it should be: a white dress, a tuxedo and a honeymoon in Hawaii.
Family
It is impossible to live life to the fullest if every decision you make is driven by fear. Fear will keep you from moving forward and prevent you from becoming who you want to be. But it's just a mood, a feeling. Fear is not real!
Tetra-Amelia syndrome is hereditary. Nick wasn't scared.
Hope
All good things in life start with hope.
Nick Vuychich is a man without arms and legs. Nick Vujicic is a man who believes in miracles. There is a pair of boots in his linen closet. So… just in case. After all, in life there is always room for something more.
It was their long-awaited firstborn. The father was in labor. He saw the shoulder of a baby - what is it? No hand. Boris Vuychich realized that he had to leave the room at once so that his wife would not have time to notice how his face had changed. He couldn't believe what he saw.
When the doctor came to him, he began to speak:
"My son! Doesn't he have a hand?
The doctor replied:
"No... Your son has no arms or legs."
The doctors refused to show the baby to the mother. The nurses were crying.
Why?
Nicolas Vuychich was born in Melbourne, Australia, in a family of Serbian emigrants. Mother is a nurse. Father is a pastor. The whole parish lamented: “Why did the Lord allow this?” The pregnancy proceeded normally, with heredity everything is in order.
At first, the mother could not bring herself to take her son in her arms, she could not breastfeed him. “I had no idea how I would take the child home, what to do with him, how to take care of him,” Duska Vujicic recalls. I didn't know who to contact with my questions. Even the doctors were confused. Only after four months I began to recover. My husband and I began to solve problems without looking far ahead. One by one."
Nick has a semblance of a foot instead of a left leg. Thanks to this, the boy learned to walk, swim, skateboard, play on the computer and write. Parents made sure that their son was taken to a regular school. Nick became the first child with a disability in a regular Australian school.
“It meant that the teachers surrounded me with too much attention,” recalls Nick. - On the other hand, although I had two friends, most often I heard from my peers: “Nick, go away!”, “Nick, you can’t do anything!”, “We don’t want to be friends with you!”, “You are nobody !"
drown myself
Every evening, Nick prayed to God and asked him: "God, give me arms and legs!" He cried and hoped that when he wakes up in the morning, arms and legs will already appear. Mom and dad bought him electronic hands. But they were too heavy, and the boy could not use them.
On Sundays he went to church school. They taught that the Lord loves everyone. Nick did not understand how this could be - why then God did not give him what everyone has. Sometimes adults would come up and say: “Nick, everything will be fine with you!” But he did not believe them - no one could explain to him why he was like that, and no one could help him, not even God. At the age of eight, Nicholas decided to drown himself in the bath. He asked his mother to take him there.
“I turned my face into the water, but it was very difficult to resist. Nothing worked. During this time, I presented a picture of my funeral - here are my dad and mom ... And then I realized that I could not kill myself. All I saw from my parents was love for me.”
change heart
Nick did not try to commit suicide anymore, but he kept thinking - why should he live.
He won't be able to work, he won't be able to take his bride by the hand, he won't be able to take his child in his arms when he cries. One day, my mother read an article to Nick about a seriously ill person who inspired others to live.
Mom said, “Nick, God needs you. I do not know how. I do not know when. But you can serve Him."
At the age of fifteen, Nick opened the Gospel and read it. The disciples asked Christ why this man was blind. Christ answered: "So that the works of God may appear on it." Nick says that at that moment he stopped being angry with God.
“Then I realized, I am not just a person without arms and legs. I am a creation of God. God knows what and why He does. It doesn't matter what people think, Nick says now. God didn't answer my prayers. It means that He wants to change my heart more than the circumstances of my life. Probably, even if I suddenly had arms and legs, it would not calm me down like that. Hands and feet by themselves.
At nineteen, Nick studied financial planning at university. Once he was asked to speak to students. Seven minutes were allotted for the speech. Three minutes later, the girls in the hall were crying. One of them could not stop sobbing, she raised her hand and asked: “Can I go up to the stage and hug you?”. The girl went up to Nick and began to cry on his shoulder. She said, “No one has ever told me that they love me, no one has ever told me that I am beautiful the way I am. My life has changed today."
Nick came home and announced to his parents that he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. The first thing my father asked was: “Are you thinking of graduating from university?” Then other questions arose:
- Will you ride alone?
- And with whom?
- Don't know.
- What will you talk about?
- Don't know.
- Who will listen to you?
- Don't know.
One hundred attempts to rise
Ten months a year he is on the road, two months at home. He traveled to more than two dozen countries, he was heard by more than three million people - in schools, prisons. It happens that Nick speaks in stadiums with thousands of people. He performs about 250 times a year. Nick receives about three hundred offers for new performances a week. He became a professional speaker.
Before the start of the performance, the assistant brings Nick onto the stage and helps him get on some kind of platform so that he can be seen. Then Nick tells episodes from his everyday life. About people still staring at him on the streets. About when kids run up and ask, “What happened to you?!” He replies in a hoarse voice, "All because of the cigarettes!"
And to those who are younger, he says: “I didn’t clean my room.” What he has in place of his legs, he calls the "ham". Nick reveals that his dog loves to bite him. And then he begins to beat off a fashionable rhythm with a ham.
After that, he says: "And to be honest, sometimes you can fall like this." Nick falls face down on the table he was standing on.
And continues:
“It happens in life that you fall, and it seems that you have no strength to rise. You wonder then if you have any hope... I have neither arms nor legs! It seems that if I try to rise at least a hundred times, I will not succeed. But after another defeat, I do not leave hope. I will try again and again. I want you to know that failure is not the end. What matters is how you finish. Are you going to finish strong? Then you will find the strength to rise up in yourself – in this way.”
He leans on his forehead, then helps himself with his shoulders and stands up.
The women in the hall begin to cry.
And Nick starts talking about gratitude to God.
I don't save anyone
- People are touched, consoled, because they see that it is harder for someone than for them?
“Sometimes they say to me: “No, no! I can't imagine myself without arms and legs!" But it is impossible to compare suffering, and it is not necessary. What can I say to someone whose or whose parents are divorced? I don't understand their pain.
One day a twenty-year-old woman approached me. She was kidnapped when she was ten years old, made into a slave and subjected to violence. During this time, she had two children, one of them died. Now she has. Her parents don't want to talk to her. What can she hope for? She said that if she did not believe in God, she would commit suicide. Now she talks about her faith with other AIDS patients so they can hear her.
Last year I met people who had a son with no arms and no legs. The doctors said, “He will be a plant for the rest of his life. He won’t be able to walk, he won’t be able to study, he won’t be able to do anything.” And suddenly they found out about me and met me personally - another such person. And they had hope. It is important for everyone to know that he is not alone and that he is loved.
Why did you believe in God?
“I couldn't find anything else that would give me peace. Through the word of God, I learned the truth about the purpose of my life—who I am, why I live, and where I will go when I die. Without faith, nothing made sense.
There is a lot of pain in this life, so there must be absolute Truth, absolute Hope, which is above all circumstances. My hope is in heaven. If you associate your happiness with temporary things, it will be temporary.
I can tell many times when teenagers came up to me and said, “Today I looked in the mirror with a knife in my hand. It was supposed to be the last day of my life. You saved me".
A woman came up to me one day and said, “Today is my daughter's second birthday. Two years ago she listened to you and you saved her life." But I can't save myself! Only God can. What I have is not Nick's accomplishments. If not for God, I would not be here with you and would not exist in the world. I couldn't handle my trials on my own. And I thank God that my example inspires people.
— What can inspire you besides faith and family?
- A friend's smile.
Once I was informed that a terminally ill guy wanted to see me. He was eighteen years old. He was already very weak and could not move at all. I entered his room for the first time. And he smiled. It was a precious smile. I told him that I don't know how I would feel in his place, that he was my hero.
We saw each other a few more times. I asked him once: "What would you like to say to all people?" He said, "What do you mean?" I replied: “Now, if there was a camera here. And every person in the world could see you. What would you say?
He asked for time to think. Last time we talked on the phone, he was already so weak that I could not hear his voice on the phone. We spoke through his father. This guy said, “I know what I would say to all people. Try to be a milestone in someone's life story. Do something. Something to remember you."
Hug without hands
Previously, Nick fought for independence in every little thing. Now, due to the busy schedule, I began to trust more cases to the patronage worker, who helps to dress, move around and in other routine matters. Nick's childhood fears did not come true. He recently got engaged, is going to get married, and now he believes that he does not need hands to hold the heart of the bride. He no longer worries about how he will communicate with his children. The case helped. An unfamiliar two-year-old girl approached him. She saw that Nick had no hands. Then the girl put her hands behind her back and put her head on his shoulder.
Nick can't shake hands with anyone - he hugs people. And even set a world record. A guy with no arms hugged 1,749 people in an hour. He wrote a book about his life, typing 43 words per minute on a computer. Between business trips, he fishes, plays golf and surfs.
“I don’t always get up in the morning with a smile on my face. Sometimes my back hurts,” says Nick, “But because there is great power in my principles, I continue to take small steps forward, the steps of a baby. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to act, relying not on one's own strength, but on the help of God.
Usually parents of children with disabilities get divorced. My parents are not divorced. Do you think they were scared? Yes. Do you think they trusted God? Yes. Do you think they are now seeing the fruits of their labors? Quite right.
How many people would believe if they showed me on TV and said: “This guy prayed to the Lord and he got arms and legs”? But when people see me for who I am, they are perplexed: “How can you smile?” For them, this is a visible miracle. I need my trials so that I understand how dependent on God. Other people need my testimony that "the power of God is made perfect in weakness." They look into the eyes of a man without arms and legs and see in them peace, joy - something that everyone aspires to.
