“God has definitely answered my prayer to use me. He speaks to people when they hear my story,” she says. “People tell me that they have drawn closer to God, started to believe in God, found hope for their lives, or were inspired to overcome a difficult circumstance. I just praise God when I hear that because it’s not me doing anything for them—God is the One Who is helping them. I’m so stoked that God would let me be a part of His plan.”
You can’t help but be stoked by Bethany’s incredible spirit. Few would have blamed her if she’d quit surfing altogether after the shark attack. She had to learn how to balance on a surfboard all over again, but that didn’t faze her either. She trusted that even though something terrible had happened to her, good could come of it.
RIDING THE WAVES
Remember this amazing girl’s faith whenever life jumps up and takes a bite out of your plans and dreams. It will happen. We all get hit by unexpected waves now and then. Chances are your problem won’t be a shark, but whatever knocks you down, think of this gritty teenage girl who not only survived an attack from one of nature’s most ferocious predators but bounced back more determined than ever to lead an awesome life.
Bethany inspired me so much that I asked her to help me do something I’d always wanted to try. Would she teach me to surf? To my amazement, she promptly offered to take me out on Waikiki Beach.
I was psyched at the prospect of learning to surf in the historic place where Hawaiian kings and queens first rode atop waves. I also was more than a little nervous. As Bethany waxed a longboard for me, she introduced me to surfing stars Tony Moniz and Lance Hookano, who would be joining us in the water.
As I’ve mentioned, when you find yourself wondering whether you will be able to accomplish your goals in life, trust in people who are willing to lend you a hand and who can serve as your guide. That’s exactly what I did in approaching this goal. I could not have asked for better surfing buddies. They started me practicing by balancing on my board in the grass.
They took turns riding with me, giving me instructions and cheering me on. As we were wading into the ocean waves, I was struck by the scary thought that the two of us had only three limbs between us—and they were all Bethany’s! I loved the idea of being a surfer dude, and as a strong swimmer, I have no fear of the water, but I wasn’t sure I could stay on a board atop the waves even with all the expert help. On one trip I did a 360-degree turn with one of my instructors on board. On another I hopped off my board and onto Bethany’s board while surfing!
Eventually I wanted to try it by myself. I can’t help it—I’m a ham. Finally everyone agreed I was ready to surf solo. To help me get up on my own once I caught a wave, they created a small platform by duct-taping a few folded towels to the front of my surfboard, which I felt confident would help me bring myself up. Then, once I built up some speed on a wave, I could leverage my shoulders against the towels and inch up into a standing position. Where there is a will and a wave, there is a way!
A surfing competition was being held that day at Waikiki, and a crowd began to gather, watching us. Though it made me nervous, I was getting plenty of advice from the experts.
“Are you really going to try this on the water, dude?”
“Dude, I don’t know how you can stay balanced without arms and legs!”
“Can you swim, dude? Can you swim faster than a shark, dude?”
Once we were out on the water, I actually felt better. I am very buoyant, so floating and swimming is not a problem. I also tend to drift, so I never know where I might end up. I had visions of floating back to Australia and washing up in my parents’ backyard!
It was a gorgeous day. Bethany was in the water alongside me, encouraging me, but whenever I tried to catch a wave and stand up, I’d fall off my board. Six times I tried. Six times I wiped out.
I couldn’t give up. Too many people were watching. Too many cameras were rolling. I was not about to be featured on YouTube as the disabled dude who couldn’t hang two. As a kid I’d spent a lot of time skateboarding, so I was getting a good feel for it. Finally on my seventh attempt I caught a big wave and brought myself up. It was such a thrill, I don’t mind telling you that I screamed like a schoolgirl as I stood atop that board coming into the beach.
Everyone watching along the beach cheered and whistled as I surfed in. I was stoked! I know that because everyone told me, “Dude, you are a stoked dude!”
For the next two hours we caught wave after wave, making nearly twenty rides. There were several photographers on the beach because of the competition, so I became the first rookie surfer ever to be featured on the cover of Surfer magazine. I toweled off from a great day on the water.
Later in an interview Lance Hookano made an interesting observation. “I’ve been on this beach my whole life,” he said, “and I’ve never been a part of something like this. Nick is one of the most stoked people I have ever seen. He loves it. He’s got salt water running through his veins. It makes me think anything’s possible.”
Hold that thought: Anything is possible. When you feel wiped out and blown away by a huge challenge, trust that anything is possible. You may not see a way out at the moment. You may feel that the whole world is lined up against you. But believe that circumstances can change, solutions can appear, and help can arrive from unexpected places. Then anything is possible!
If a bloke with no arms and no legs can learn to surf on one of the world’s greatest beaches, anything and everything is possible for you!
FAITH TAKES ROOT
One of the most familiar stories from the Bible is the Parable of the Sower. A farmer sows seeds all over the place. Some fall on the road, where birds eat them. Some fall on rock, so they never take root. Others fall into thorny weeds that choke off their growth. Only the seeds thrown on good soil are able to grow and produce a crop and create many more seeds than were originally sown.
We not only receive seeds in our lifetime, we also hold them in the “good soil” of our hearts. When challenges get us down, we can look to our dreams of a better life. These dreams act as seeds for the realities that will come. Our faith is the rich soil that brings those seeds to life.
Those who loved me always encouraged me. They planted seeds in my heart. They assured me that I had blessings that could benefit others. Some days I believed them. Some days I didn’t. But they never gave up on me. They knew that at times they were planting on pavement, or in the weeds. Yet they trusted that their seeds would take root.
My family planted seeds every morning as I went off to school: “Have a good day, Nicholas! Do your best and God will do the rest!”
There were days when I’d think, Yeah, yeah, God has a mean sense of humor because I know I’ll be teased today on the playground.
Sure enough, as soon as I rolled onto the school grounds in my wheelchair, some jerk would be telling me I had a flat tire or that they wanted to use me as a doorstop in the library. Very funny.
On those days of discouragement, the supportive words from my parents fell on hard ground. There was nothing to nurture them. I was too bitter at the circumstances I’d been born into.
But in the months and years following my bad trip to the bathtub, more and more of their encouragement fell on fertile ground. Part of it was that I won over my classmates with my determination and outgoing personality. I still had my down days, but I had fewer of them.
The great inspirational author Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark your life seems to be, raise your sights and see the possibilities. Always see them, for they are always there.”
You may never be a Presbyterian or a Rotarian, but you should always be a card-carrying Possibilitarian. Without trust in the possibilities for your life, where would you be? Where would any of us be? Our hopes for the future give us momentum. They keep us moving forward through the inevitable hard times, the discouragement, and the despair.
My Possibilitarian tendencies showed up early in life. I was
six or seven when I wrote and illustrated my first book. The title was The Unicorn That Had No Wings. It’s no deep mystery where I came up with that concept, but I have to say that my little parable drawn from my own life still offers a nice message about faith. (Don’t worry. It’s short. I was only six when I wrote it.)
Once there was a mother unicorn who was having a baby. When the unicorn grew, it didn’t have any wings.
The mother unicorn said, “What happened to her wings?”
When the unicorn went for a walk, she could see unicorns flying in the sky. Then a little boy came to the unicorn and said: “What happened to your wings?”
The unicorn answered: “I didn’t grow any wings, little boy.”
Then the little boy said: “I’ll try and make you some plastic wings.”
It took him an hour to make the plastic wings for the unicorn.
When the boy was finished, he asked the unicorn if he could go on the unicorn’s back, and the unicorn said to the boy: “Yes you can.”
So they went for a run, then the unicorn started to fly, and the unicorn shouted: “It worked. It worked.”
When the unicorn stopped flying, the boy got off the unicorn’s back. Then the unicorn went back in the sky. The little boy said to the unicorn. “Congratulations, unicorn!”
The little boy went back home. He told his mum and his two sisters and his brother what had happened to the unicorn.
The unicorn lived happily ever after.
The End
We all wish to live happily ever after. Even if you believe you can handle the hard times and savor the good times, disappointments will occur. But the happy ending should always be your goal. Why not shoot for it?
PATIENCE REWARDED
My team at Life Without Limbs helped me plan a World Outreach Tour in 2008 with the goal of visiting fourteen countries. In the early planning, we set a budget and held a fundraising campaign to cover our expenses for the trip. We didn’t have professional fundraisers on staff then, and we fell far short of our goal. We raised only about one third of what we felt we needed. I forged ahead and started the tour with visits to Colombia, Ukraine, Serbia, and Romania. When I returned home, my advisers were concerned that we didn’t have the funds to continue with the rest of the tour.
My uncle Batta is a successful businessman in California, and he serves on my board. He made an executive decision to cancel two major stops on the rest of my planned tour. Money was not the only reason.
“We are getting more and more reports that it might not be safe to travel because of unrest in India, especially Mumbai, and Indonesia,” he said. “Since we are short of our budget anyway, I think it would be wise to visit those countries another time.”
My uncle is a very wise man, and I didn’t argue with him. I told him that I trusted him. Then I went to a speaking engagement in Florida, where there were 450 volunteers just to handle the huge crowd. I was there to inspire them, but my audience charged me up with their enthusiasm. On the way home to California, I was so encouraged by the reception I received in Florida that I felt an overpowering need to continue our world tour as planned.
I prayed and prayed for guidance. I felt that I should go to India and Indonesia despite our insufficient funds and the signs of danger. I believed we could serve others and the rest would take care of itself. Uncle Batta invited me to dinner at his home to discuss my desire to continue based on faith and not on funds.
As we were talking over dinner, I became very emotional about the situation. I just felt so strongly that this was something I needed to do. Uncle Batta understands me and my drive to bring my message to as many people as I can.
“Let’s see where the Lord leads us in the next few weeks,” he said patiently.
You don’t give up when faced with challenges. You don’t run away from them either. You assess the situation, look for solutions, and trust that whatever happens, it will come together for the good. Patience is essential. You plant the seeds. You weather the storms. You wait for the harvest. Mostly when you encounter an obstacle, you don’t do anything foolish. You don’t bash your head against it. You don’t turn around in defeat. You look for the best solution while trusting that every obstacle serves a purpose.
When the money wasn’t there to complete our world tour, we didn’t rush out and spend money we didn’t have. We prayed. We looked for solutions. We believed that if the door remained closed for now, it would one day open to another opportunity.
The important point to remember is that you will always find a way as you keep looking for it. You may have to adjust your goals to the realities. But as long as you keep breathing, you should remember that the possibilities are still there.
That said, I’ve got to tell you this: We didn’t receive a single answer to our prayers for a way to finance the rest of tour. But then an amazing series of events unfolded.
A few days after my dinner with Uncle Batta, a fellow named Bryan Hart, who’d heard me speak in Florida, called and offered our foundation a large sum of money as a gift.
Then our contacts in Indonesia called to say that they’d rented out two stadiums for us in Hong Kong. They promised to make sure our costs were covered if we came.
Two days after that a California charitable organization came up with an even greater sum that covered the remaining costs for the trip!
Within days money was no longer an issue. We still had security concerns about some of the places where we were going, but we put our trust in God.
SAVING GRACE
Remember when I said it all came together for the good? Because of the money shortage, we had changed our schedule for India, but when funding became available, we rescheduled our visit there and actually made it a week earlier.
That change in schedule may well have saved our lives. Just a couple days after we were in Mumbai, three of the locations we visited were hit by terrorists. The Taj Hotel, the airport, and the southern Mumbai train station were among their targets in attacks that killed 180 people and left 300 injured.
Our original schedule would have had us in Mumbai, at those very locations, during those attacks. You might say we were lucky, but I believe God had a plan that we could not see. That is why it is so important to have faith in the future and to keep working toward your goals even when the odds seem stacked against you.
A FOOT UP ON LIFE
I began this chapter talking about my left foot, a very useful little appendage. I’ve learned to be very thankful for my left foot because innovators are busy inventing nifty gadgets that work just perfectly for it. Joysticks and touch screens are some of the handiest foot devices to come my way. Even without arms and legs, I can now experience life in ways that my parents and I never would have imagined when I was a child. Though the possibilities for my life may have seemed narrow back then, the limits have been fading away thanks to modern technology and the power of believing and achieving.
As difficult as your life can be, as cruel and unrelenting as it may get, you should hang in there. My situation seemed bleak when I first came into this world, but I have managed to carve out a fulfilling life with many rewards. And if you think I’m an exception, consider the accomplishments of one of my personal heroes, the late Christy Brown.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1932, Christy was the tenth of twenty-two children in his family, though only thirteen of them survived to adulthood. Christy entered the world with all his limbs, but he was terribly crippled, so much so that he could not move and could only barely utter sounds. At the time the doctors did not know what was wrong with him. Years later he would be diagnosed with an especially severe form of cerebral palsy.
Because Christy could not speak clearly, doctors thought for years that he was mentally handicapped too. His mother insisted that he had no problems mentally—he just could not communicate. She and other family members worked and worked with him. Then one day while Christy was trying to get something across to his sister, he grabbed a piece of chalk from her with
his left foot. Due to his physical disabilities, it was the only part of his body he could control.
Christy learned to write, draw, and paint with his left foot. His family, like mine, was determined to give him as normal a life as possible, so they hauled him around in an old go-cart and then in a wagon. Like me, he became an avid swimmer. Then his mother met a doctor who helped get him admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital. This doctor later created a hospital for Christy and other cerebral palsy patients.
He also introduced Christy to literature, and several famous Irish writers inspired Christy to express himself as a poet and author. His first book was a memoir called My Left Foot; it was expanded into a best-selling novel, Down All the Days, and was made into a movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis (who, by the way, is the son of one of Christy’s literary friends, Cecil). Day-Lewis won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal. Christy eventually published six other books and was also an avid painter.
Think of the long dark days Christy Brown and his family spent wondering what quality of life he would ever have. He could move only one small part of his tormented body. He could make only a few sounds. Yet he became a noted writer, poet, and painter and led an amazing life that was depicted in an award-winning movie!
What lies in store for you? Why would you not stick around to see how your story unfolds?
A FULL VIEW
At times in my childhood I had a limited perspective. My vision of my life was so self-centered that I never dreamed there were other people in worse circumstances than mine, people like Christy Brown. Then, around age thirteen, I read a newspaper story about an Australian man who’d been involved in a horrible accident. As I recall, he was paralyzed, unable to move or talk, and confined to a bed for the rest of his life. I couldn’t imagine how horrible that would be.