A Palestinian Goes Rogue

maozisrael | August 03, 2010

http://www.maozisrael.org

He grew up during the first Intifada… regularly fighting with and being arrested by Israeli soldiers. He hated Jews. So how did this Palestinian man wind up in Israel, hugging and praying for Israeli soldiers and washing the feet of an Israeli man? This video tells the incredible story of Saed Awwad, shared in his own words.

Saved from Spiritual Cancer; Content with Physical Cancer

“I still can’t believe God would save a wretch like myself. I don’t deserve it…If He never would have answered me back when I was battling through cancer — He would still be just. He would still be just if I went to hell, because I would have deserved it.” No truer words were ever spoken. I can say the very same thing for myself. Oh how His mercies transcend all things! Thank you Father!

One of the most moving and beautiful testimonies I have ever heard. God is a Redeemer to all and for all! Be encouraged.

Sidebar:Ayla has cancer and was recently saved by the Grace of God. She went through struggles with homosexuality/bisexuality, and ultimately with her selfish desires until the Lord broke her of self and led her to Christ alone.

Psalm 34:4-5
I sought the LORD, and He answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to Him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

Psalm 40:2-3
He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.

Psalm 34:22
The LORD redeems the life of His servants;
none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.

illbehonest:

A Young Man’s War Against God in a Perverted World

This testimony of this young man blessed me so much. It softened my heart in some areas that needed softening. Some of you will know what that is. Thank you Jesus!

Such a transparent and broken young man. God watch over Daniel and keep him for Your kingdom. May he be a light to his generation and many to come!

Break me Lord! Break me! Create in me a clean heart and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Revive me!

More on the True Beautiful Story

What a testimony of redemption. God is so great!

True Beautiful Love Story

Tearjerker: 5 alive after woman makes 1 brave choice
Incredible decision impacts generations to come

Photos can be seen here:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=112324

Late one evening in 1956 after watching the movie “The Ten Commandments” in a theater, a 22-year-old woman walked home alone in the dark – but she would not make it to the house before eight young men would brutally beat and rape her in the streets.

The woman, Ann, recalled the horrifying sexual assault in a video about her experience in St. Louis, Mo.

“I walked home which was about eight blocks, and when I got close to home there was a used car lot, and there were eight men in there,” she said. “They grabbed me and attacked me. And I made it home after they attacked me and beat me up and did a few other things.”

A child conceived in rape

Already shaken by the traumatic sexual assault, Ann made a shocking discovery when she went to stay with her parents in Jackson, Miss.

“At that time, I didn’t know I was pregnant,” she said. “Three months later, I found out I was, and my parents didn’t want me to have the baby, let alone keep it.”

Her mother insisted that she have an abortion. But Ann adamantly refused.

“I didn’t believe in destroying her, so I had her,” Ann said in the video. “And they forced me to give her up.”

Now that little baby, Juda Myers, is grown and shares her inspirational story of life.

“She knew I was a human,” Myers told WND. “She said she couldn’t kill a kitten or a puppy, much less a human baby.”

Forgiveness beyond human imagination … ‘Think No Evil’ by Jonas Beiler and Shawn Smucker will challenge you to examine your willingness to show grace to those who don’t deserve it.

A Methodist minister and a Catholic priest were instrumental in helping Ann follow through with her plan to deliver the baby. The priest took Ann to a Catholic charity in Shreveport, La., where Myers was born.

“She gave me up for adoption,” Myers said. “She didn’t want to do that, but under the circumstances she had to.”

When Ann was recuperating in the home following childbirth, an elderly lady brought the new baby to see her. Ann held the baby often, but when Myers was only 3 months old, she was adopted by another family.

Ann was given a photograph, and it remained her only memory of her baby for 48 years.

A tearful reunion

Myers’ new parents were open about the adoption and told the little girl she was adopted at a very young age.

“My adoptive parents always told me that I was very special because I had two sets of parents,” she said. “They insisted on letting me know that I was loved. I did wonder why I was given up.”

In 2005, almost 49 years later, Myers contacted an agency to help her find her birth mother.

“I wanted to be able to research her address and go there to thank her for giving me life,” Myers said. “I wanted to be able to get those words out before she’d say, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Leave me alone.’

“All I wanted in life was to thank this woman for giving birth to me.”

But Ann called Myers in December and left a voicemail message before Myers could acquire the address.

She said, “Hi, this is Ann, and I’m interested in what you have to say. I’m sorry I missed you. … If you’re my long-lost daughter, God bless you. If you’re not, give me a call anyway. I’d love to know what you want. God bless you, too.”

Myers immediately called Ann, but Ann could not hear her because a group was Christmas caroling in the background.

“I asked, ‘Is this Ann?’” Myers recalled. “She said, ‘Honey, you are going to have to speak up. I can’t hear you.’”

“I shouted, ‘As far as I know, I’m your daughter!’”

Ann broke into tears.

“While I was saying this, the choir was in the background singing ‘Gloria,’” Myers said with a chuckle.

She arranged to fly to her birth mother’s nursing home, but she was apprehensive about the reunion. Would Myers’ features remind Ann of her attackers on that horrific night?

“I have bright blue eyes, and I was so afraid that my mother probably would have had brown eyes,” she said. “I thought I might look like one of the rapists, and I didn’t want to meet her looking like him.”

But when Myers approached the reception desk, she heard, “Juda?”

“I turned around, and I saw the brightest blue eyes,” she recalled. “It was just amazing to be able to see eyes that resembled mine. It was a surreal moment.”

Ann sat in her wheelchair, clutching the photo of her little baby.

“She was holding that picture in her hands after 48 years,” Myers said. “She had never let it go.”

Message of forgiveness and life

After speaking with her birth mother for more than an hour, Myers asked Ann about the circumstances of her conception. Ann explained that she had been raped by eight young men one night outside of a used car lot in St. Louis when she walked home from the movie.

“I was on my knees, and I was crying,” Myers said. “I put my head in her lap and cried.”

But Ann’s reaction to her daughter’s weeping astonished Myers.

“She just patted me and said, ‘Honey, stop crying. I’ve forgiven those men.”

She continued, “Look what God has done. He’s brought you back to me. God is faithful.”

When Myers returned home, she wrote a song for her mother and recorded it on a CD. She titled it “God Is Faithful.”

“On Valentine’s Day, which is my birthday, I went back, and I gave her that song as a gift,” Myers said. “As she listened to the song, she just stared at me.

“In my entire life, I have never felt that kind of love. It was the most incredible moment.”

Myers said her mother is her “hero” for forgiving her eight attackers and allowing her baby to live.

Because of Ann’s decision to save the life of one baby 53 years ago, five people are alive today – including Myer’s one-week-old grandbaby. She now has two sons and two grandsons.

Myers, a singer, songwriter, artist and author, wrote a book about her experience titled, “Hostile Conception: Living With A Purpose.”

“The main thrust of the book is how to forgive any offense, because my mom forgave,” she said. “I forgave.”

Now, Myers shares that message, seeking to inspire people wherever she goes. She has been to South Africa and is planning a trip to orphanages in India to share her music and testimony of God’s love.

She has accepted an invitation from Harvard Right to Life to speak at Harvard University on Oct. 20. Myers also plans to accompany Molly White, founder and director of Women for Life International, to the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women’s Conference.

Conceived in rape and dedicated to sharing her story of life and forgiveness, Myers urges women to choose life instead of abortion.

She told WND she has an important message for women who experience unplanned pregnancies:

“If you ever find yourself in this situation, be a hero.”

His Hands that Held You

The following blessed me so much that I had to put it here. It is written by mykayla of  http://mkayla.wordpress.com/ . She is a new blogger friend and you will be blessed if you visit her site.

She wrote the following about her daughter who she lost in a car accident. Thank you mkayla for sharing with us. May the God of all comfort, comfort you every single day, my sister. 

On April 27, 2002, our 19 year old daughter Jessica
was killed in an automobile accident.

The following story, His Hands that Held You, is a true account of a vision that I experienced shortly after her passing.  I am sharing this experience because I believe that we are living in a time of tragedy, none that America has experienced in quite a long time,  maybe never before.  We are shaken as we have experienced  this great country to not be the solid fortress we once thought. Sadly, we have lost our hope, our guide and now desperately long for something or someone to hold onto, to put our trust in.

The situations in this country and in the world will not get better.  The hatred and violence, the crimes against humanity will continue to grow in great proportions.  Because we are human and are given to doubt the things that we cannot understand or fully explain, some may find this story hard to accept in its truthfulness.  This incredible experience of peace and hope for the future was a true gift from God.  I am sharing this gift to encourage you that there is a God who loves you despite all the bad press. A God of comfort, of unexplainable peace and life everlasting; probably just the opposite of what you expected, learned or heard  Put all the negative stuff away for a few moments and listen to my story.  Come and meet the God of love!

This is dedicated not only to the precious memory of Jessica, but to the Lord Jesus Christ who keeps us and holds all things together, those things seen and unseen.  Things that are within our understanding and things that are not.

 

 “His Hands that Held You”

In Memory of Jessica Nicole Brown

Jesika,

One night during April 1997  you made the decision to follow Christ and it changed our lives and our eternities.  Your last night here on earth in April 2002 again changed our lives and the lives and eternities of many others, such that we will not fully know until the appointed time.  Even though your missions ministry here on earth was short- as we count days down here- it is eternal in the presence of God.  And just like you, your ministry was different from most, yet perfect in the eyes of God.  Just a few days after your death here, the Lord spoke to me. “Teach what you have been taught, for I come quickly.”

I am angry.  I am on the beach in Laguna lost, crying, asking God why this happened, why you had to die.  I want to know if you are with Him in paradise why I am stuck down here in such terror. I  spent so much time holding you up in prayer, together with you, only a month before….and in those secret moments God waking me in the middle of the night, crying for your safety,  begging for your life because I could not dare to face even the thought of losing you.  Yet, there was a slight nagging in my soul telling me I just might.

How I loved you.  How I longed to take my faith, my wisdom and give it to you, carve it out of my very spirit.  In overcoming horrors of my own life, I thought I could walk you right through yours.  I know I was the cause of some of those horrors – the insecurity, the lack of self confidence, the emptiness, searching, reaching for anything, anyone to make you feel good about who you are.  Never stopping to count what it would cost or where it might lead you later on. I knew this all too well as I once owned these things.

In watching you over the years, I amazingly saw things in your personality and character that I adored, characteristics that were much different than my own.  It was the very essence of you, the girl-i-ness, your sense of humor, and the outright determination to be different from anyone, the courage just to be Jessica – – Jesika.  I am glad that I took the time to tell you this before

Our private jokes that were funny lines and gestures taken from movies that we would  throw in to our conversations just for the simple giggles.  Watching you in youth group, becoming a mentor, your deep concern for others’ feelings.  Often expressing concern for others in our family to know Jesus Christ. The desires to serve God in missions – watching you practice mime…our favorite song….”is your name in the Book…” (I’ve forgotten the movements again)….endlessly begging you to sing with me –you knew you had the voice!  Watching you jokingly argue with Amanda, laughing as you both fell to the floor turning it into a wrestling match, calling me to help you.  Dad taking you out to buy your first car, teaching you bass guitar, making sure you had what you needed, always. Watching you with him, hugging, talking, sometimes crying, but often laughing.

Truly there is an endless list and it brings me great joy to know that although our time together on earth is finished, we have an eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ to giggle and paint nails and best of all to dance on His altar at His feet.  We can be together without the pain, without the tears!  You are our porcelain doll and we have hated every moment without you.Dad and I are on the Laguna Beach, just days after your funeral.  I am hysterical with grief, pounding the sand in my anger and frustration, questioning how something so unspeakable could have happened to us.  There is no comfort or peace as the detective’s words replay over and over…”Jessica was in an automobile accident and she didn’t make it”.  Remembering how I ran into your room, begging God…..this could not be so, falling to the floor in total unbelief, and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do to change it.  And in a moment, remembering every prayer, every tear and the knowledge that your passing was not a surprise – I knew.  Of all the things we fixed for you as parents, this would not be one of them.  Sometimes in my sleep I think I  hear you screaming as your car flips coming apart, tossing your precious body out into the desert.  I cannot bear the thought of my baby out in the cold wind, dying alone in the dirt. 

Later in the unfamiliar hotel room that is too dark, too enclosed  I can’t decide if  I should  start screaming or just choke myself.   I hear the waves crashing on the Laguna shore, so familiar, like a lullaby rocking me to sleep on so many other nights and even some sunny afternoons during happier days.  On this night there is no lullaby.  The sounds of the ocean bring more pain, more emptiness. Nothing will ever be the same, feel the same, taste the same because you are not here.  I swear to cry for you every day of my life. I swear to hate the rest of my life. 

In the darkness of the room somewhere between sleeping and dreaming I  see my own face before me.  I wonder why I would be looking at myself.  There, in the darkness begin swirls of light and color – all colors, especially pastels of blues, lavenders and pinks.  The light gently touches the top of my head, and is gone., but leaves a sense of comfort.  I am intrigued  as again I see the light touching my face, giving a deeper sense of peace. The touch moves away just as another  comes, establishing a brilliant pattern of bright light and  color.  This sense of touch, sense of peace never leaves me.

The pastels are radiant swirling in and around each other like mists  blown by a gentle  breeze.   They increase in brilliance and swim together as part of the pure white light.  I know there is a Presence of Holiness in the colors and  begin to see  small hands there.  Then I recognize that the hands are the lights and colors.  In a glimpse, I see feathers of white light, touching, caressing one side of my face.  Each touch  brings its own measure of peace  flowing downward, filling me, transcending inward where I am broken, lifting the horror, the grief.  A healing? 

Then I see two hands, one on each side of my face.  The hands are large and strong, much more brilliant than the smaller ones. I am so calm that nothing seems to matter now.  I feel as though I am floating, the weight of this burden gone and I would be content to float here forever.  Then my  face begins to fade and I see your face, my Jessica, my daughter.  It is your face that is being held between these two brilliant hands. Your face  was between the hands of the Most High God as He held you during your last few moments here on earth.  In His mercy and kindness the Creator  of all Life took the time to assure me that you were not left to die alone in the cold desert field.

Psalm 71:20-22

You who have shown me great and severe troubles shall revive me again,

And bring me up from the depths of the earth. 

 

You shall increase my greatness 

And comfort me on every side.

 

Also with the lute I will praise you

And Your faithfulness,

 

O my God!

To You I will sing with the harp,           

O Holy One of Israel

http://mkayla.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/his-hands-that-held-you/#comment-24

Movie: Forever the Story of Karla Faye Tucker

Karla Faye Tucker; the first woman to be executed in Texas in over 100 years. She had been on drugs the night of her horrendous crime and murdered her victims with an ax.

This post is not to exonerate her. It is not about trying to clear her of her crime. It is simply one of telling the story of a life from one of wickedness and sin to one of repentence and redemption.

Karla Faye Tucker found the truth when she met Jesus Christ. Hers is not a story of jailhouse religion in hopes that she would be released if all she had to do was pretend she got religion. No. She did not find religion. She found a living Savior who was able to redeem the rest of her life on this earth.

When it came time for her to be executed she ran to the gurney and laid down. She knew. She knew she would soon meet her Maker and she was ready. God had more mercy on her than she had on her victims. That is the kind of God He is–Merciful.

The movie below tells her story. It comes in 14 parts. This is the first part and the rest may be found here also. on the sidebar.

May God bless you as you see how He can and did redeem a womans’ life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iJy2puSsp0&feature=PlayList&p=ACC26C1096456591&index=0&playnext=1