Friday, October 18, 2013

The Mighty Fortress - by Doug Nol

Just a brief word of introduction, this post is written by a colleague here at Jabez Ministries. His contribution to this ministry is invaluable and his story is an important one. You'll be reading more from Doug in future blogs. Please read. -Pete

                                                          The Mighty Fortress

                                                                By Doug Nol

 

There is a popular hymn in the church today entitled “A Mighty Fortress is our God” which you may have heard or sung in church.  This song has always been a personal favorite of mine and I wanted to use it as the theme to kick off my debut contribution to the Jabez Ministry Blog. But before I go into why I chose this theme I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Doug Nol; I am a 29-year old man withmild cerebral palsy, who is driven by three attitudes.

The first attitude is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with everything I have, the second is to build relationship and unity with everyone I meet through the love Jesus Christ and the third is to be a voice empowerment and encouragement to people with disabilities.  Now that I have given you a little of my personal worldview, I also wanted to briefly share with you my personal testimony about my life and my struggles with cerebral palsy , but I also wanted to share my story from the perspective of my relationship with Christ and how my personal experiences have influenced my faith.

While it is often difficult for person to summarize his or herlife in a few words, for me it has become almost second nature,because it is extraordinary story that never really gets old.  But last thing I want to do is bore you to death with details, so I’ll only tell you the highlights and let the Lord do the rest.

From the day I was born I had to be a fighter, and sometimes I didn’t even know I was fighting.  For example when I was born I was diagnosed with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and while the name pretty much speaks for itself the best way I can summarize it  is I was born 3 months too early and because I was so small it was difficult for my heart to keep beating. In fact my heart stopped and started at least 12 times before it continued beating on its own, but the Lord was watching over me and I stayed alive.

When I was 16 months I was diagnosed with a disorder called hydrocephalus which is a big word for water on the brain.” In other words my spinal fluid would not go from my brain and out of my body like it was supposed to so it would it would cause my brain to swell and I would need a plastic tube called a shunt put in to drain it, but with the shunt I could function normally, and there were not any complications.

When I was 2 years old, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and it was this struggle in particular that seemed like the most difficult to fight through because no matter how hard I tried I was not able to walk or stand up on my own. The doctor pretty much said that even if I was able to walk with surgeries and physical therapy, it would be very unlikely that I would be able to walk on my own without walking aids.

For a while, he was right.

It actually took me 9 surgeries and years of physicaltherapy before I was able to walk without a walker, but I think it is only fair to mention that the Lord had a hand in it too! When I was 5 years old I had gotten to the point where I could walk with a walker, but still not strong enough to try to walk on my own. Truthfully, it had gotten to the point where I was so used walking with a walker I never thought I would ever need to, but God had another plan in mind.

One day I was kicking around a soccer ball in my Grandparent’s backyard and I was dragging the walker around with me in the process. Then suddenly I heard a voice in my head and the voice said that “If I believed I could walk, I would.” At first, I didn’t think much about it, but then I heard it again and again, and then I thought “What if I could” so I told my Dad that I wanted to walk over to him by myself. While my dad did not think it was a good idea, I didn’t want to take no for an answer.  While it was difficult at first to get the courage to begin, I took one step forward, then another and another and before I knew it I had walked fifteen feet to my Dad by myself.  I had done what the doctors had said was impossible. Those steps were literally steps of faith and from that point on I believed that not only was the Lord with me and saw that I could do anything with him leading and guiding me.

At the beginning of blog I mentioned the “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” hymn and said that I would explain why I used that hymn as my theme.  If you ever have sung that hymn before you know that it begins with the lyrics “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing, our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing, for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate. On earth is not his equal. While that is a lot to digest especially with the old-language, there is still a message to consider and that is that God is our fortress, He is the very foundation that holds us up and he understands the physical trials and illnesses we go through as humans. When that happens it is easy for us to become discouraged and the evil one Satan often does his best to make sure we don’t forget it, but because Jesus has overcome the world through his death and resurrection we should believe what scripture said in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” While that may be hard to believe at times remember that according to the doctor I was not supposed to walk, but have been doing independently for over 20 years.

So……What does that tell you about God and his love?  Think about it.