A touching story, indeed.
Adriana Lopez, a teacher at Public School 22 in Staten Island, New York, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The PS22 Chorus wanted to show their love for the educator during this obstacle so they surprised her at their last practice of the year, fittingly performing Martina McBride’s “I’m Gonna Love You Through It” for Lopez.
That’s not all the students did. Hit the link for video of it all.
I have to testify! God is so good. Nobody in the world can tell me he can’t do the impossible. I was living a lifestyle of homosexuality. Attracted to men and dating men. The enemy had a hold of my mind.
As I look back over my life I went through different levels with my past lifestyle. The stage where I denied being gay, the stage where I wanted everyone to know I was gay, to the last and final stage. The stage where this isn’t working for me so lets just live life and accept I’ll never change.
Guess what? None of those stages worked! I was another lost soul on my way to hell, but God saw fit and gave me a chance to clean my life up. See what half of you guys see is the positive statuses I post, the pictures where I’m smiling and being so uplifting.
I bet half of you didn’t know I’ve contemplated suicide, been in a mental institute, suffered from depression. The Doctors pronounced me as being bipolar. I been on all kind of depression medications and on top of that had to struggle with not knowing my identity. NO MORE! I met a man on ?9-18-11? who changed my life forever. The same men I was introduced to at a early age.
So you’re ready to make the greatest decision of your life? And yes, this is the smartest thing you can do. Accepting Jesus into your life is the best thing to do. I do want to say something though. It’s about what to expect when you first accept Jesus into your life. I just want you to know what you’re getting into. If you want to skip on ahead to the prayer, it’s at the bottom of the page.
There are many positives to accepting Jesus. For one thing, you now have eternal life. What you need to understand is, as an unsaved person, you are spiritually dead. Why? Jesus took our sinful lives to die on the cross so that we may have new life in Him. And the thing with Jesus’ life: it never dies. His spirit lives on forever and, if we accept Jesus, that spirit now lives in us.
Make sure you understand that Jesus died and took the ultimate punishment for us. Just like we are so grateful that the fireman saved us from the fire. But then, he died while getting you to safety. You were supposed to burn, but the fireman took your place. It’s basically the same thing with Jesus. You were supposed to be on that cross; but Jesus loved you enough to say that he would die for all of us so that we can live.
Westerman, a pastor at Cincinnati, Ohio’s Springdale Nazarene Church, surprised 15 customers at a local grocery store by paying for their groceries at the checkout counter. Lewis, a minister with JesusPainter Ministries, filmed the day’s events.
The question is, why. Why did they do this?
“We wanted to attract people who haven’t really given church much of a thought lately,” Lewis told TODAY.com. “We thought some sort of effort like that might touch people’s hearts.”
“Our goal was to go out and show average people that God loves us, whether you accept it or not, believe it or not,” Westerman told TODAY.com. “Let’s truly love our neighbor, whatever that looks like for you. We did this with no strings attached.”
Ah, that’s wonderful.
It’s my birthday today, in case you were wondering. So, this piece of news at this time is something I can connect to.
“I just felt like I needed a birthday cake, so I just took myself and my power chair and my debit card and I decided to go down there and get me a birthday cake,” she told TODAY.com.
But her motorized chair stalled along the way. That left Richardson, who uses the wheelchair because of damaged knees, stranded. The temperatures were nearing 100 and she had no cell phone. Someone driving by called 911, requesting help for a woman she saw crying into her lap.
So then what?
Oklahoma City Police Officer Travis Vernier arrived first on the scene. Vernier’s partner, Amy Hanson, then drove up and the two decided to load up Richardson’s broken wheelchair into one of their cars and drive to the woman’s home to drop it off. All three then headed to Wal-Mart, where Hanson and Vernier bought Richardson a cake — a cheesecake, her favorite — and some candles.
Then, a “faith in humanity restored” twist came in.
“I was very surprised. I’ve been very shocked by it all,” Richardson said. “I didn’t know there were still good people around but I’m glad there is.”
It’s a shame that she was living in a world where she didn’t think there was good people left. That’s why I push this blog. There is a lot more to read on this.
