Today I want to talk about my books: Not Without God: A Story of Survival and my most recent, Not Without God: Hope In the Storm. They are both centered around a catastrophic accident I was in at sixteen years old. While trying to cross the street on my way to school, I was a pedestrian hit by a motor vehicle. Chapter one of my book is called, “The Crash.” I write about a nurse named Mary Kay, a survival life flight nurse, who was on a helicopter ride with me to Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan.
She just kept gently rubbing my shoulder and saying, “Hold on, Zina, hold on. We’re taking you to U of M. They’ll take good care of you there.” I remember holding onto her voice and fighting for my life. I was in and out of consciousness, I couldn’t move, talk, or see. I just mumbled. I remember feeling a peace, though. The Bible talks about a peace that surpasses all understanding. I felt the Holy Spirit with me there. Mary Kay’s voice carried me through.
It’s interesting because before the accident I would ask God what life is all about. God, I know you are real, and I feel your presence. But I want to understand you and know you more. How does life work? Like many of us, life was dysfunctional at home. My surroundings had me confused. I wanted to know him and understand him better. The accident was a turning point. I experienced God’s genuine love through the doctors, nurses, Mary Kay, and others who were fighting for my life. I witnessed the love of Christ.
I would stay up each night upstairs on the 6th floor East, at the time, at Mott Children’s hospital. With a flashlight in one hand and a notepad in the other, I would write. God spoke to me through whispers in my heart. He told me I would recover and even walk again. I am not walking as well as I did before the accident, but I have completed thousands of hours of physical therapy and can now walk with forearm crutches or a walker. The progress I have made is huge. Some doctors predicted I would be paralyzed for life.
I also write about a man named Dennis. Someone I worked with at Strawberry Hills Fruit Market just before my accident. I worked there for a few months. Dennis was the kind of man that was always happy and always sang hymns to God. After my accident happened, Dennis would come to the hospital. He’d bring prayer booklets and talk to me about Jesus and having faith. My left arm had been stuck at a 90-degree angle from the crash. It was even impossible to eat with it. On one visit, Dennis got up and stood next to my bed – he held my arm gently but firmly and started to pray in what some Christians call “tongues.”
He started to slowly stretch my arm and it was very tight at first. But as he was stretching I began to feel the heat. My arm slowly stretched out. All the while he was looking up to the ceiling and praying and stretching it. Finally, my arm became completely straight. If God didn’t heal my arm through Dennis that day, I never would’ve walked again. I never would’ve been able to get up on parallel bars. That story is also in my book.
My latest book, which was just published in January of 2022 is also a narrative, like my first. But Hope In the Storm is more of a teaching book. I offer journaling sections at the end of various chapters where the reader can write and reflect. I ask questions like, “When was the last time God was there for you?” or “How much time do you spend on prayer or reading the Bible?” We are told in the Bible that the Word of God is sharper than a double-edged sword it can divide joint and marrow, soul, and spirit, the Bible provides life-giving medicine. When you soak the verses up, they can strengthen and even heal you inside.
I also write about how physics and religion merge in my book. You may have learned in school or at church when you were younger that everything will come to an end. Physics and the Bible both verify that one day everything will end. All structures will come down, there will be nothing standing, and all black holes will even disintegrate. We don’t know when this day will be, Brian Greene, a famous world-renowned physicist says it will be a long time from now but since nothing can truly be predicted, it can happen sooner.
However, there will be new beginnings or fluctuations. All that will be left are particles floating around in the void. These particles will at times get large, so then new particles will form. If you wait long enough, any rare thing can happen, says the famous philosopher, Sam Harris. These particles will form new beginnings. The number one rule of thermodynamics says that energy can never be destroyed, but it is transferrable.
In Revelations 21 John says, “For then I saw a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and earth were gone. There was no longer any sea. In Revelations 21:2 he states: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”
John continues in 21:3-4, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Thus, science and the Bible merge. There will be new beginnings… Thank the Lord!
About Zina
Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book, Not Without God: A Story of Survival. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. She’s also been featured on the Intuitive Edge podcast as well as ESPN’s “Solutions from the Huddle” broadcast and on Grace and Truth Radio World! Zina’s written several hundred articles and has taught thousands of students of all ages from many different backgrounds and cultures. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog, and the Southern Writers magazine among other places. She writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. She also writes about health and diet and loves to help others. Her latest book, Not Without God: Hope In the Storm is live and for sale! You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Without-God-Hope-Storm-ebook/dp/B09P9T2DLT
Are you one who needs to ‘see?’ Do you need evidence and proof there is a God? Ask yourself this. Can you look at yourself without a natural mirror? How do you know you’re really here? How do you know the person you’re talking to is here? For you to deny there is a God but verify there is a ‘you’ is pretty self serving. I guess if there’s no God, we can do whatever we want. If there is no God, we can be a ‘God’ to our selves. We don’t have to be altruistic, kind, or feel remorse. There would be no ethical code. We would be free agents. The truth is, you are not a free agent no matter how badly you may want to be. You have a God. He takes you back even when you mess up. Our Lord prays to the Holy Father for us. Our Father in heaven is unconditionally loving and kind. He wants what’s best for us. He’s not out for revenge. He’s not the picture some may have painted in your mind. He takes you through seasons and trying times, he is molding and shaping. You are a wonderful work in progress. This earth is not where it all ends. There are other dimensions. Distant lands. More than 100,000,000,000 galaxies that we know of so far. There are many. Many. Earth sized planets. There are hundreds of billions upon hundreds of billions of stars. There is so much you can’t see or experience. The heavens. The universe(s). God made them all.💫☄️⚛️
Near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) of the Sun, which means they can circulate through the Earth’s orbital ‘neighborhood.’ Most asteroids range in size from about 10 feet to nearly 25 miles across!
The sun is the most beautiful commodity in the world, but we are told that 5 billion years from now, the sun may swallow up the earth. The sun may expand, and its heat may be more than we can take. Dinosaurs became extinct more than 65,000,000 years ago due to an asteroid, but asteroids may not be our problem. Entropy itself will win one day, and everything will come to an end. I mean, everything. I’m not telling you this to discourage you but to make you realize that life is finite. Nothing lasts forever. All buildings, structures, planets, black holes, and even protons will be destroyed. We are told by Brian Greene, best-selling author, professor, and physicist that this will happen at about ten to the sixty-eighth. Imagine that right now are at ten to the tenth, so it won’t be for a long time from now. But it actually can happen sooner, he says. We don’t know when. The universe is expanding, and one day that expansion may be too much. My point in telling you this is to remind you that we are here temporarily. What we do now makes a difference because if it’s not happening now, it may never happen. That’s why I want to encourage you to take that step, whatever it is, for the better to make that dream happen. Whether it’s starting a business or traveling. There is always something we aspire to do. Each of us have at least one thing we want to accomplish. Work on it now. And watch it come to fruition. All we have is today. Why wait until tomorrow?
The moon is so beautiful. I love the moon and all it’s wonder. Everything God does is perfect.✨ We can only see the moon🌕 because of the light of the sun☀️. Depending upon which part of the moon the sun shines upon, that is all we can see of it🌙. The moon goes through different phases. It takes the moon 27 days to rotate the earth one time. It takes the earth a whole day to rotate once🌍. As you know, it takes the earth 365 days to rotate around the sun☀️ once. The sun provides us with so much! We really can’t live without it. If it were any closer to the earth’s oceans, they would melt. God is perfect, though, and so is his design.🙏 The sun’s🌞 gravity pulls the earth toward it! It’s amazing how gravity works perfectly with the earth, moon, and sun!🌅 ‘The moon’s gravity pulls at the Earth, causing predictable rises and falls in sea levels known as tides. Low tides occur between these two humps. The pull of the moon is also slowing the Earth’s rotation, an effect known as tidal braking, which increases the length of our day by 2.3 milliseconds per century.’ Days are longer now, according to Google.com. What’s amazing is how we figured all this out. Isaac Newton changed the way we understand the universe. He discovered the laws of gravity and motion by watching an apple drop to the ground. God doesn’t keep secrets from us. Get this, all the laws of physics were figured out through this discovery, and even more so, all of the universe(s) follow the same Laws of Physics that we do! It’s amazing how obvious God makes some things to us. Gravity is holding all things together.
You are part of the Quantum World. You are a particle. The universe came forth through a particle. You are a wave; the entire universe is a wave. The electron is a particle that we used to think was a single point and nothing more, but then around 1909, there was a huge discovery–we learned that the particle could be a wave.
I’ve read that the moon helps balance our climate. ‘It may even be fundamental to the maintaining and stabilization of the seasons.’ It also stabilizes the earth’s rotation as it wobbles back and forth slightly on its axis.
Light is everywhere, and it is the ‘fabric’ of space that keeps the sun in orbit — the fabric is gravity. The gravity of the sun actually keeps the earth near it and in orbit, also. I have heard that gravity is everything. It holds us together. As a matter of fact, the sun’s gravity is pulling the earth closer to it! God is like gravity. He pulls us towards the ‘sun’ and keeps everything together. ☀️🌌⚛️🌠🌞🌅😎
Zina Hermez 