Unstoppable (7 page)

At my mother’s urging, I went to Phil’s home in 2002 to meet him during a trip to the United States. I’d had a cousin suffer through an incurable disease, and I was prepared for the worst. But when I entered Phil’s room, Phil gave me a beautiful and welcoming smile that changed my life. I will never forget that day. Despite his pain and suffering, Phil did not retreat into a corner to feel sorry for himself. His strength and courage touched and inspired me.

Phil and his family never gave up hope for a miracle, even as he prepared himself to be with God in heaven. By the time I met him, ALS had taken his ability to speak. He could communicate only by blinking through the alphabet, which he did with amazing patience and grace. He’d found a way to use laser technology that allowed him to talk to his computer, and he used it to create a Christian newsletter that had more than three hundred subscribers at one point.

His determined effort to put his faith into action while unable to speak and while confined to his bed motivated me to begin my own ministry a few weeks later. From that day forward, whenever I felt discouraged, I thought of Phil Toth. If he could continue to make a difference and serve others in his condition, I had no excuse. About a year later I had the honor of being at his bedside when Phil moved from this life to the next, and though I mourned his departure from earth, I felt humbled to witness a general in God’s army go home. I only hope that you and I can show the same determination, courage, and grace while staying in faith and acting upon it so that we can be a blessing to others.

THREE

I
FOUND THE LOVE OF MY LIFE IN A CROWD OF PEOPLE HIGH ATOP THE
Bell Tower at Adriatica. While it looks like one of those ancient structures found in old European villages, this stone tower is actually a unique office building in McKinney, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. I was there in April 2010 to speak, but I had some trouble focusing on my talk that day after locking on to the most beautiful, wise, and warm eyes I’d ever seen.

You may think this “love at first sight” story is a cliché, but if this is what being a cliché feels like, believe me, mate, I’m okay with it. As a Christian, I follow the lessons from the Bible. This one is drawn from the Song of Songs: “You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes.”

If you follow my website, blog, tweets, or Facebook page, you likely have learned that my heart was captured that day by the wonderful Kanae
Miyahara. We became engaged in July 2011, and we were married in February 2012, just after I finished writing this book.

There are several reasons I want to share with you the story of how Kanae and I met and fell in love. The biggest is that so many people of all ages come to me with questions and stories about their own relationship challenges—junior high kids, teenagers, college students, young adults, middle-agers, seniors, singles, and marrieds. The details of their stories vary, but the central themes are universal: each of them wants to love and be loved in return.

Matters of the heart have confounded, distressed, and fulfilled males and females since Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. The powerful yearning of the heart is one of the most essential human needs. Yet when we look for love, we open ourselves not only to being loved but also, unfortunately, to being hurt. So there is a decision you have to make: you can give up on love and never find it, which seems like a waste of a good life, or you can keep trying.

I put my heart on the line and came away bruised more than once. I was hurt, embarrassed, angry, and sometimes I felt like a complete fool. But I got over it. Each and every time I eventually decided that the only way to find what I was looking for was to put faith into action and keep trying.

You may have had similar heartbreaks. Few of us who choose to seek
love survive unscathed. My advice is to consider your failed attempts as nothing more than tests: situations that build your strength to love even more when the right person comes along. As long as you remain open to love, love can happen. If you build a wall around your heart, it won’t.

I certainly struggled for many years with feelings of insecurity and loneliness. As someone who is two arms and two legs short of the standard-issue Prince Charming, I feared rejection and often despaired that I would never find someone to share my dream of having a family. I’ve often spoken and written of my youthful fears that no woman would want me because I cannot hold her hand or hug her.

I grew up, as most men do, with the traditional image of a husband as the provider and protector in a marriage, so the last thing I ever wanted a woman to think was that she would need to care for me instead of simply being my wife and partner in life.

Concerns about finding love are by no means unique to me or other people with physical disabilities. Everyone has insecurities and fears about relationships. Yet I urge you to never give up on love. I found the perfect woman for imperfect me. We know we each have our flaws, but we see ourselves as perfectly matched. (One wise-guy friend who knows us both too well said, “I’m glad you found each other. Why waste two other perfectly good people?”)

Now, some people prefer to remain single, and there is nothing wrong with that if it makes you happy and fulfilled. But if it is in your heart to share your life with another person, I assure you there is someone for you if you put your faith into action in matters of the heart. To do that, you first must accept these four basic tenets:

As I noted in
chapter 1
, there was a time early in my life when I felt that if I really was a child of God, I must have been the one child He did not love. I could not understand why a loving God would create me without arms and legs. I even thought God was punishing me or that He must have hated me.
Why else would He make me so different from most other people?
I wondered also why God would create a child who would be a burden to good Christians like my parents.

For a brief time I shut God out of my life because I was angry. I could not accept that He loved me until I realized that everything He does has a
purpose. I read a Bible passage in which God used a blind man to teach a lesson. He healed his blindness “that the works of God should be revealed in him.” In reading that passage in John 9, I had a revelation.
If God had a purpose for a blind man, He must have one for me too
.

I found God’s purpose for me over time, and I realized that I am indeed a beloved child of God, even if He didn’t give me arms and legs. The same holds true for you. I had issues. You may have your own. You may have insecurities and imperfections. Don’t we all? You may not understand what God has in mind for you. I certainly didn’t for the longest time, but when I read of the blind man in the Bible, I put my faith into action. I saw that God had a purpose for the sightless man. I was blind to my own purpose, but my faith allowed me to accept that one day I would find the path God had laid out for me.

The Bible says whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Know that you are God’s creation and that He loves you just as He loves all who stay in faith.

Once I accepted that God loved me and had a purpose for me, my self-image changed and so did my attitude and my actions. It didn’t happen overnight, but over time I stopped avoiding my classmates in school and around town. I no longer went to the music room so I wouldn’t have to interact with them during lunch hours. I quit hiding behind the bushes on the playground. My parents had encouraged me to speak up instead of waiting for other kids first to reach out to me. I finally emerged from my shell, and I discovered that once people knew me, they accepted me and found me inspiring. More important, I accepted myself.

When I kept to myself out of a fear of rejection, no one could get to
know the real Nick. I felt sorry for myself, and that’s all others could feel for me. But when I shared my victories with my classmates, they celebrated them too. Once I opened up to their curiosity and questions about my lack of limbs, talked openly with them, and laughed with them, they became my friends.

Their respect bolstered my self-image and in turn gave me the confidence to be more outgoing. I realized that being different physically was only as limiting as I allowed it to be. There were some things I could not do, but I often surprised others and myself by finding ingenious ways to overcome challenges. I skateboarded, swam, and excelled in many of my classes, especially mathematics and—surprise—speech!

When I understood my own value, I valued others more. They returned my appreciation for them by appreciating me. That’s the message contained in the Bible when we’re told to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If you love and accept yourself, you will become more loving and accepting of others. You create an environment in which friendship and love for others can be nurtured.

You attract what you put out. If you have no respect for yourself, do you think others will respect you? If you don’t love yourself, can others love you? Of course not. But if you are comfortable in your own skin, others will take comfort in your presence. If you make others feel good about themselves because of your positive, encouraging, accepting, and inspiring presence, I believe love will find you.

When I speak at schools and church gatherings for young people, I always tell them that God loves them just as they are. I tell them they are beautiful and that they need to appreciate themselves as much as God does. Those are simple words. Yet every time I say them, the tears start flowing. Why is that? It’s because young people especially think they must fit in or
be cast out. Too often they feel it’s necessary to have a certain look, certain clothing, certain physical attributes, certain this or that to be accepted. But that’s not true. God accepts us as we are.

You are a beautiful child of God. If the Father of us all—the Creator of the universe—loves you, then you must love yourself as well.

Now, maybe someone you loved and trusted broke your heart. I know it’s little consolation, but many others, including me, have gone through this truly awful and humbling experience. But a breakup and betrayal does not make you unworthy. A failed relationship only means that it was the wrong relationship for you. I know that right now you may find it difficult to see why things went wrong, but someday you will understand. In the meantime do not make the mistake of shutting down your ability to love and be loved.

For a time I didn’t trust God to make a match for me. I was lonely and tried to push friendships into relationships even when my feelings were not reciprocated. Kanae taught me the beauty of a true loving relationship in which both people are all-in. Loneliness can make you feel that you should settle for a relationship that may be comfortable but lacks the spark of love. But you should not compromise on love. Instead, believe in it. In the Bible, Jesus commands us to love as He loves: “Love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”