“Life sometimes happens whether we are prepared or not. I had one hope: my faith.” ~Zina Hermez
When you read this quote, what does it mean to you? Could you paraphrase this expression, or interpret it if I asked you to? It’s pretty self-explanatory. Faith means so much. Faith is what brought me through after my accident in October of 1994. This month will mark 20 years, and I don’t think I would be writing to you today if I did not have faith!
Have you ever had to search within your soul and pull out that faith? Did faith come easy for you? Was your survival dependent upon having faith? If you had a choice between “fight and flight,” which would you choose? I chose to fight, and I’m so glad I did because if I didn’t I would not be where I am today.
You may need a big miracle in your life, and it may be completely different from my own. But it’s something that requires a lot of faith. God wants to stretch your faith! Faith makes all things possible. Miracles don’t usually happen overnight. Not that they can’t. But sometimes your faith needs to grow.
About Zina
Zina Hermez has authored the book Not Without God: A Story of Survival and has created the Spinal Cord Injury Solutions! on line website. Zina works as an English Language Instructor, and has been an educator for nearly fifteen years her thousands of students have been from many parts of the world and she’s worked with all ages.
Zina writes articles on faith and overcoming disability and her stories have been featured in Christianity Today, Spinal Cord Injury Zone, SCI Access, newsletters, and medical journals among many other various publications. To learn more about Zina visit http://zinahermez.com.
notwithoutgod.net 
Zina,
I read your book and WOW was I impressed!
One of the things I found most impressive was how your faith never wavered throughout the course of your life even after the devastating accident left you paralyzed when you were just 16 years old. What an inspiration you are.
My faith was not nearly as strong and I definitely fell into the Fear category.after the 2010 surgery to remove a spine tumor left me paraplegic, I had many doubts about God’s existence (including Jesus Christ) and the validity of the Bible. After much self pity, clinical depression and thoughts of suicide. an intensive study lead me to give my life to Christ. Far different from the way in which you handled the life altering effects of paralysis I needed to quell my doubts with an appeal to my intellectual vanity.Given my age (56) and the ever present risk of death caused by infection, atrophy, etc. I decided to document my findings for my family so that they had in hand the legacy I would like to be remembered for.
What began as a quick summary to guide a Christmas talk for my wife and kids.has now morphed into a multimedia powerpoint presentation that exceeds 115 slides and I am only 2/3 finished. I saw on your blog that you attended a faith based conference which included a session on apologetics (from Greek word apologia- rational support for faith). In the hope that you may find in your travels someone needing similar evidence from Science including Cosmology, Astrophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Quantum Mechanics and History I would be happy to send you.a DropBox link.
Thanks again for the fine work you do for the SCI community and the public at large.
Pete
P.S. Thanks for the shout out in “Not Without God”. What a cool surprise!!
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Thank you so much Pete! I’m so happy that my book helped you, and thank you for your kind words about me they mean so much. I am so glad you found your way to God despite the surgery that caused paralysis. I would ABSOLUTELY love to see your 115 power point slides on Apologetics that would be fascinating, and a wonderful learning experience. I emailed your gmail account the other day, maybe you could send the Dropbox link back to my email. Thank you, I would love to not only see your presentation but share it with others in the near future.
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