My head was in his lap and I was looking up at the ceiling, wondering how I had gotten here. My little girl hopes and dreams were flashing right before my very eyes. My heart felt like it was literally being torn apart. My husband’s soft hands were brushing away the hairs surrounding my face. “Shannon, do you really think that this is Gods will?” In that moment, that very tiny moment in time, it was like a lightbulb that had been flickering for days finally flashed all the way on and shined bright. “No,” I said. “No, it can’t be.” [...]
On my own and vacant from the Lord, I become the enemy because I have no defense against sin. This makes my life aimless and its journey always leads to impossible predicaments. Using my willpower to dig myself out of the hole makes matters worse and leaves me in spiritual darkness. [...]
God is still in the miracle healing business. Here is proof.
I was born and raised as a Catholic. I was told that I was "baptized" into the gates of heaven as a baby. I had always been told that if you were a good person and did the best that you could, that when you died, you would go to heaven. [...]
My story is how God takes tragedy and turns it into triumph. This is a David and Goliath story of how God transformed me into a Hep C Warrior and taught me the true meaning of living beyond my circumstances. I was diagnosed in 1994 with Chronic Active Hepatitis C. In 1992 I had surgery at an outpatient surgical center where a drug user, who had hepatitis C, was working as a scrub tech. [...]
Three years ago last September as I was doing my usual Saturday morning fitness walk, minding my own business, I was sexually assaulted. My attacker ran up behind me, slammed me to the pavement face first, flipped me over and as he did he hooked his finger into the waistband of my skirt and ripped my clothing off. [...]
On Easter Monday five years ago I discovered I had bowel cancer, which later was found to be in the fourth stage. The Colonoscopy Nurse told me I had Malignant Bowel Cancer. Malignant means, very serious and dangerous: tending or likely to grow and spread in a rapid and uncontrolled way that can cause death. [...]
It was August 2004 and we were on our way to Mexico with some family on a plane. I was eleven years old and had enjoyed plane rides up to that point. But flying from Phoenix, AZ to Sinaloa, Mexico in August meant that we would be traveling in the midst of storms. My young self was in for the worst ride of her life. [...]
Grief was like a dark cloud, suffocating the room with its anesthetic, crippling the mind of making sense of this new reality. Some of us were weeping and some stood in shock as the body of my husband’s dear mom—my mother-in-law—lay lifeless on the floor, her soul now rejoicing in the presence of God. I thought maybe God would shine a ray of light or give some sign of her presence in Heaven to give us hope here on earth. But the sorrow was so thick it was hard to see. Lord why don’t you relieve this blackness? [...]
Many of us have experienced and survived tremendous pain and traumas, some by accidents and unforeseen events that happen, but others of us have walked through horrible suffering through deliberate attacks of other people. [...]
"You never know what a prayer request is until you become one" Ricky Trumper suffered major brain trauma last year after getting into a car accident. He had to have surgery on his head and his face and fell into a coma. His wife, who had just given birth to their baby girl at the time of his accident, also had to go back and forth from being with Ricky to pumping milk for the baby in another part of the hospital. It was a chaotic time. From an earthly perspective, Ricky should not even be alive right now; but God had a bigger plan. [...]