Overcoming

In a remarkable story of perseverance and hope, a 47-year-old mother of five from Cookeville, Tennessee, has graduated from Tennessee Tech University after losing her sight in 2020. Despite the challenge of blindness, Amanda Juetten graduated magna cum laude, refusing to let her condition define her or limit her aspirations. “I want people to know that blindness doesn’t have to stop you from pursuing your dreams,” said Juetten.

Throughout her studies, she relied on assistive technology, the support of her family, and her own determination to overcome obstacles. “There were days when I felt overwhelmed, but I kept telling myself, ‘You can do this,’” she said. One professor remarked, “Her dedication to her education and her family is truly extraordinary.” Another classmate added, “She’s shown all of us what’s possible when you refuse to give up, no matter the circumstances.”

Now a proud graduate, Juetten plans to use her degree to advocate for the blind community and help others facing similar challenges. “I want to be a voice for those who feel unseen,” she explained. Her story is a testament to the power of determination and the importance of never losing sight of one’s dreams, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even when we refuse to let our limitations define us, we are called to trust that God’s purpose for our lives remains—He can use our greatest challenges as platforms for His glory.

Nine-year-old Kaden is a Michigan boy undergoing treatment for a cardiac condition at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. He recently had his dream come true when he met his hero—astronaut José Hernández—through Make-A-Wish Michigan. The emotional and inspiring meeting was the result of a heartfelt wish to connect with the man whose story helped Kaden find strength during his medical journey.

“Everything was amazing! Thank you! Kaden had a blast. My cheeks never hurt so much from smiling so hard,” said Kaden’s mother, Michele, describing the joy the experience brought to their family.

Hernández, a Mexican American engineer and former NASA astronaut, flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-128 in 2009. His life story was chronicled in the memoir Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut and the Amazon Prime Video film A Million Miles Away. Both projects showcase his remarkable journey from farm fields to outer space. That resilience deeply resonated with Kaden, who has adopted “never giving up” as his personal motto.

The special trip included VIP access and a guided tour of NASA. That was where Kaden was able to explore the wonders of space science alongside his inspirational role model. “Wishes give kids the strength to keep fighting and bring joy to their families,” said Make-A-Wish Michigan, the organization that made the meeting possible. Kaden’s wish was also featured at the nonprofit’s Wish Ball Grand Rapids event, helping raise over $652,000—and counting—to fund future wishes for other children across the state.

To date, Make-A-Wish Michigan has granted more than 12,000 wishes, each designed to give critically ill children hope, joy, and the motivation to keep moving forward. For Kaden, meeting José Hernández was more than a dream come true—it was a life-affirming reminder of what’s possible when you refuse to give up.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Encouragement from others can be a divine provision for endurance in trials.

Some people call it the most joyful work ever written: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, composed in 1824, which ends with the famous anthem “Ode to Joy.” In English it says: “Joy, thou shining spark of God / Daughter of Elysium / With fiery rapture, goddess / We approach thy shrine!”

You might assume that Beethoven, was a joyful man. You would be incorrect in that assumption. He was well known among his contemporaries as an irascible, melancholic, hypercritical grouch. He never sustained a romantic relationship that led to marriage, was mercurial in his friendships, and was sly about his professional obligations.

Of course, Beethoven progressively lost his hearing and was therefore deaf when he wrote his later works (including the Ninth Symphony). But we have ample evidence that his unhappy personality predated his deafness. Even before his hearing loss set in, for example, he complained bitterly about his music’s shortcomings, as he saw them. He is said to have reviled what was probably his most popular early composition, the Septet in E-flat Major, saying “I wish [the score] were burned!”

At the same time, he clearly saw—and regretted—the effects of his unhappy personality. “I can easily imagine what you must think of me,” he wrote to an “esteemed friend” in 1787, “and I cannot deny that you have too good grounds for an unfavorable opinion.”

Perhaps you can relate to Beethoven: You recognize that you have some unhappy personality traits—and, like him, you regret that. But remember, even with his flaws, Beethoven transformed his struggles into timeless masterpieces. Your challenges, too, can become the source of your greatest strengths and achievements.

Alexander George writes in Popular Mechanics:

Ready for the one genius tip that will make you a better winter driver? Here it is: Look where you want to go. Yep—that’s it. It’s so simple, and so effective, that every pro driver does it. But it’s so unintuitive that you have to practice to get it right.

That’s because our very reasonable instinct is to instead focus on where we don’t want to go. When the most urgent threat to your bodily safety and insurance premium is the car ahead of you or a guardrail, you watch that thing. But when you’re at speed, you involuntarily direct yourself towards wherever you’re focused. It’s formally known as target fixation, a term you’ll see in literature for fighter pilots and motorcycle racers.

Rather than watch the bumper of the car you’re following on the highway, or a guardrail between you and steep cliff, look further in time. Fix your eyes on the middle of your lane, at the spot you want to be several seconds later, even if that means ignoring the car in front of you. Your peripheral vision will still catch any unexpected braking or road debris.

It took me a full day at a winter driving school to believe. On a track made of snow and ice, I drove a Lexus LX into a turn with too much speed and deliberately lost traction. Most runs, the rear end would fishtail, sometimes turning me completely around. A few times, usually after the instructor disabled the stability control and ABS, I’d end up sliding almost perpendicular to the direction I was pointing. Even in a controlled environment, it’s terrifying.

The instructor correctly pointed out that I was looking right at the wall of snow I wanted to not hit. “Look where you want to go,” he said, and fixed almost everything I was doing wrong.

I haven’t found any activity where this doesn’t help — surfing, cycling, skiing. Try it the next time you’re out on the road.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, when faced with a temptation, instead of always looking at the temptation, bad habit, or trouble that you want to avoid, “look at Jesus” (Heb. 12:2). Fixing your eyes on our Savior and focusing on your relationship with him will get you safely through whatever trouble, temptation, or worry is troubling you.

The Grammy-award winning rock musician Lenny Kravitz was asked, “How do you stay positive?” Kravitz replied:

It’s a choice. I grew up around some very positive people, namely my grandfather. Being a Black man growing up at the beginning of the century and all he went through, he retained a positive outlook regardless of all the roadblocks and mountains in front of him. This man was the man of his family at 9 years of age—his father died and he had a mother who was bedridden and four siblings in the Bahamas on an island with zero electricity. He went out into the world and found work and took care of his family. So, he always taught me this way.

From the Roman Empire to the Maya civilization, history is filled with social collapses. Traditionally, historians have studied these downturns qualitatively, by diving into the twists and turns of individual societies.

But a team of scientists has taken a broader approach, looking for enduring patterns of human behavior on a vaster scale of time and space. In a study published in May 2024, the researchers wanted to answer a profound question: Why are some societies more resilient than others?

The study, published in the journal Nature, compared 16 societies scattered across the world, in places like the Yukon and the Australian outback. With powerful statistical models, the researchers analyzed 30,000 years of archaeological records, tracing the impact of wars, famines, and climate change.

The researchers looked for factors that explained why societies in some cases suffered long, deep downturns, while others experienced smaller drops in their populations and bounced back more quickly.

One feature that stood out was the frequency of downturns. You might expect that going through a lot of them would wear societies down, making them more vulnerable to new catastrophes. But the opposite seems to have occurred. They found that going through downturns enabled societies to get through future shocks faster. The more often a society went through them, the more resilient it eventually became.

In the 2023 South East Asia 500-meter race, one runner showed what it really means to run the race well. Despite the pounding rain and her last place finish, Bou Samnang refused to give up. Cheering fans encouraged the native Cambodian as she finished the race on behalf of her country, six minutes after the race was decided.

Despite knowing that she would not finish first place, Bou Samnang was determined to finish well. According to one news source she said, "I tried to reach the finish line because I wanted to show people that in life, even though we go a bit slow or fast, we will reach our destination all the same."

It would have been easy for her to stop running, especially as she was dealing with anemia which prevented her from running as fast as she would have liked. But her determination and endurance has led to her inspiring fans around the world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Paul wrote that our faith journey resembles a race. Running the race well doesn’t always mean finishing first. It does mean, working hard for something outside of yourself, persisting with a goal, and enduring hard times for Christ. We are encouraged to be like Bou Samnang, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, endure to the end.

In their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath describe an experiment in which participants underwent three painful trials. In the first, they submerged a hand for 60 seconds in a bucket filled with frigid, 57-degree water.

In the second trial, the time was increased by 30 seconds. For the first 60 seconds, the water was still 57-degrees. But in the final 30 seconds, it was raised to 59-degrees. In neither trial were participants told how long the experiment would last.

Before their third and final bucket, they were asked if they'd prefer to repeat the first or second experiment. A whopping 69% chose the longer trial! Think about that for a moment. In both of the first two trials, their hand was placed in frigid water. The second trial was 30 seconds longer and only slightly less uncomfortable in the end. Yet, more than two out of three people asked to repeat the second trial. Why?

Psychologists tell us it's because when people assess an experience, they rate the experience based on its best or worst part (that is, the peak) and the ending. They call it the "peak-end rule."

Whether you like it or not, people will tend to remember you for when you were at your best, or worst, and for the way you were in the end. It's impossible for any of us to always be at our best. Our worst selves will sometimes slip out no matter how hard we try to hide them. But the ending is something we can better control. Knowing that it's the end, we can devote more time and attention to getting it right.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Christian Life; Discipleship - Right now, your life may be average by most standards, with all of its highs and lows, but if you make an effort to end well your every encounter with other people, you'll leave them with a good impression. There are no second chances for making a good first impression, but there's always the chance to end well. 2) Pastor; Minister - Overall, a sermon may be so-so; but if the conclusion is memorable, it'll likely be remembered fondly weeks later.

When we think of strength in God’s creation, we might think of elephants but rarely would we think of an octopus. After all, an octopus doesn’t even have any bones, so how could it be very strong? Sy Montgomery writes in The Soul of an Octopus:

Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin.

Yet the octopus is strong, very strong. An octopus’s muscles have both radial and longitudinal fibers, thereby resembling our tongues more than our biceps, but they’re strong enough to turn their arms to rigid rods—or shorten them in length by 50 to 70 percent. An octopus’s arm muscles, by one calculation, can resist a pull one hundred times the octopus’s own weight.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Our creative, powerful God gives gifts of strength throughout his creation even in the most unlikely of places. So how surprising should it be that God gives us strength when we need it to serve him and to resist temptation?

Australian Erchana Murray-Bartlett completed 150 marathons in 150 days, running 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from the country’s northern tip to the southern city of Melbourne in what could be a new world record. The 32-year-old runner crossed the finish line on Monday after a feat that, if confirmed, will beat the previous world record of 106 consecutive marathons set by British national Kate Jayden last year.

While Jayden sought to raise money for refugees, Murray-Bartlett completed her run to raise awareness of the threats to Australia’s biodiversity. She said, “Australia is fantastic, it’s so beautiful, and that was one of the key things I wanted to get out of this run, it was to showcase Australia’s beauty to the world.”

Murray-Bartlett raised more than 118,000 Australian dollars ($82,130) for the Wilderness Society, with all profits going towards conserving Australia’s native animals.

Australia, which has one of the world’s worst records on extinctions, last year announced a 10-year plan to try to prevent any more species from dying out in the country. The country’s wildlife has suffered the effects of natural disasters and the climate crisis, including catastrophic bushfires in 2019-20 that killed or displaced nearly three billion animals.

After setting off from Cape York in Queensland in August, Murray-Bartlett ran 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) each day, enduring scorching heat and storms as she crossed dirt roads, rivers, and beaches. She said, “It’s very exhausting, I’ll give you that but I feel very blessed have been out to get to the finish line.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians have our own marathon to run with perseverance. Our race begins anew every day, and also has purpose - to please the One who calls us and to share our testimony with the world.

Many of the world’s greatest souls became their best selves not in spite of but because of their distress. The great hymn writer Cowper wrote hopeful hymns and the great artist Van Gogh brushed epic paintings while contemplating suicide. Charles Spurgeon preached some of his best sermons while depressed. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. battled melancholy. The great composer Beethoven went deaf. C.S. Lewis buried his wife after a short, cancer-ridden marriage. Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom survived the holocaust. Joni Eareckson Tada lost her ability to walk in a tragic accident. John Perkins endured jail, beatings, and death threats from white supremacists.

As grief expert Elizabeth Kubler Ross famously noted, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known one defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation and sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep love and concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

When people like Maria Garza are released from the Logan Correctional Center in central Illinois, the staffers there don’t usually want to see them return. But in Garza’s case, they were willing to make an exception.

During her time there, Garza was enrolled in the Northwestern Prison Education Program, earning a bachelor’s degree. But since they didn’t want her release to interfere with her education, she was allowed to return to the classroom via Zoom. In her chemistry class, she’s the only one doing the experiments from home.

According to NPEP program director Jennifer Lackey, Maria was their first student to earn early release while in the program. The Illinois Department of Corrections says that most prison education programs like NPEP are so new that the directors have yet to figure out protocols for re-entry because so few of the inmates qualify for it.

One of the few other prison education programs that address re-entry is North Park University and Theological Seminary, which offers a master’s in Christian ministry through the Stateville Correctional Center. Program director Vickie Reddy says of the four students who have made re-entry during the program.

Garza is grateful to maintain the connection with her classmate. She said, “To me, it’s kind of like a comfort. There are people who would say that once they leave [prison] they detach themselves from everything. But it’s hard to detach yourself from the people that understand what you’re going through.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Loving others; Loving the Unlovely - When we do our best to care for incarcerated people, we are demonstrating God's love for the lost and broken. 2) Perseverance; Overcoming – Through perseverance it is possible to overcome failure and achieve goals.

For 50 years, Toby Nigh had what he describes as the perfect life. He had a good job, a happy family, and if you had asked him, he would have told you that he was really lucky. Then his perfect life fell to pieces in 2018. One day at work he picked up a 30-pound machine and blew out the L4-L5 disc in his back. A surgery led to an infection, which required another surgery, and then another. He was left weak and in pain.

He battled ongoing infections for a year and a half, and in the midst of it all, he lost the job he’d had all his life. The pain, trauma, and anger were too much to bear. He found relief in methamphetamines. He said, “I wanted to bury the pain—the physical pain, the mental pain. I made a very bad decision.”

Things got worse for Toby in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic reached America. He said, “So when the pandemic hit, I’m thinking, If I get it, I die. I went in my basement, and I closed myself in, and my addiction became bigger and stronger.”

According to stats from the CDC, Toby wasn’t the only one who responded that way. Within a few months of the start of the pandemic, more than 40,000 Americans self-reported new or increased substance abuse. It seems people turned to drugs as a way of coping. That number is probably low. By the year’s end, the country saw a record 91,799 drug overdose deaths, up from 70,630 in 2019. In 2021, more than 100,000 died from an overdose.

Gary Blackard, CEO of a Christian drug and alcohol recovery program, has seen the pandemic’s impacts firsthand. He said, “One of the worst things you can do with someone who is struggling with addiction is isolating them. To put someone in isolation who is struggling that way certainly exacerbates the addiction and the struggles.”

Today by God’s grace Toby is free of his addiction. He served time in prison. He got off drugs. He developed a deeper relationship with God in a faith-centered recovery house. He always believed, he said, but it wasn’t personal before.

Many professional athletes have their trademarks when it comes to celebrating their wins. Tiger Woods has his legendary fist pump. The eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt has his signature "lightning bolt" pose.

Once in a while, athletes celebrate prematurely, which has proven costly. Cyclist Luka Pibernik from Slovenia sprinted to the finish line and raised his arms in triumph. Unfortunately, the race was not over and another lap remained. After a grueling 3.5 hours of cycling, Pibernik's reserves were empty and slipped from 1st place to 148th.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible encourages us to persevere to the end. The Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a marathon to illustrate the perseverance of the Christian life. We are to fix our sight on the prize and to finish the race (1 Cor. 9:24-27; Heb. 12:1-2).

Scott Bozearth coaches two youth basketball teams in New Jersey. And it was a good year, both teams made a championship run this season. If you coach multiple teams, having a single team advance into a league tournament is no small accomplishment.

He and the parents of the youth on his team credit his "can do attitude" with his success. 12-year-old Abraxus Hannah had only stepped on the court for the first time this year. “Anytime I say I can't do something, Coach Scott always tells me I can," said Hannah. "I feel like he's made a really big difference in my life.” Parents agree that Coach Scott's can-do attitude has sparked a positive change in their children.

And Bozearth knows a thing or two about working through challenges. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, hindering the muscles on the left side of his body. That includes his left hand, which does not function as well as the right. In spite of this, Bozearth grew up playing basketball. He carried that passion into his adult life, where he coaches two teams in the Herb Henry Youth Basketball League. He believes his role is to do more than simply teach technical skills. He summarized his role in a recent interview with this phrase: "I love challenges. So, what I thought is, if God gave me a hand to play, I'm going to play like that."

Possible Preaching Point:

God is sovereign. The hand you have is the hand God intended for you to have. Now play like that!

An article titled “Arrests, Beatings, and Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India’s Christians” details the persecution of Christians in India. The article states: "In church after church, the very act of worship has become dangerous despite constitutional protections for freedom of religion."

The end of the article focuses on Pastor Vinod Patil, who refuses to stop witnessing for Jesus but must operate like a secret agent. From the article:

He leaves his house quietly and never in a group. He jumps on a small Honda motorbike and putters past little towns and scratchy wheat fields, Bible tucked inside his jacket. He constantly checks his mirrors to make sure he is not tailed.

Hindu extremists have warned Pastor Patil that they will kill him if they catch him preaching. So last year he shut down his Living Hope Pentecostal Church, which he said used to have 400 members, and shifted to small clandestine services, usually at night.

One cold night this past winter, Pastor Patil drove to a secret prayer session in an unmarked farmhouse. He quickly stepped inside. On a dusty carpet that smelled like sheep, two dozen church members waited for him. Most were lower-caste farmers. When a dog barked outside, one woman whipped around and whispered, “What’s that?”

Pastor Patil reassured the woman that God was watching over. He cracked open his weathered, Hindi-language Bible and rested his finger on Luke 21, an apt passage for his beleaguered flock. “They will seize you and persecute you,” he read, voice trembling. “They will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me.”

Pastor Patil says, “You get this energy just thinking about his name.” The journalist concluded the article by stating, “They believe deeply in the teachings of Jesus.”

Software engineer Cher Scarlett is helping to shine a light on discrimination and sexual harassment at Apple, where she works. In an interview Scarlett said, “Apple does not care about its employees. It cares about money. Maybe that’s capitalism, and that’s just the way corporations are. But I can’t live my life further accepting it and not saying something about it.”

Scarlett is motivated to speak up because she knows what it feels like to be powerless; not long ago she herself was the one in need of advocacy. That’s because before she taught herself to code, Scarlett struggled with a pill addiction after surviving sexual abuse and dropping out of high school.

Scarlett teamed up with Apple Maps program manager Janneke Parrish to organize an initiative with the hashtag #AppleToo, encouraging employees to share their stories of workplace discrimination. Parrish says, “It is an incredible story. She’s a deeply inspiring figure.”

Scarlett has become accustomed to telling her story to her many followers on social media:

I’m not a corporate shill, but I’m also not throw-away-my-job idiotic. I have to feel good about what I’m putting into the world, whether that’s in my job or on social media, whatever. I have to feel good about it. And if I don’t, I have to remedy it immediately.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The gospel has the power to transform people from victimhood to victory. Not only that, but God allows us to go through trials, not just so that our faith is tested, but that once we have overcome, we can also help others going through similar trials

If anyone in Hollywood is looking to reboot Crocodile Dundee with a person of color in the lead role, 26-year-old Eugene Bozzi won’t have to send in an audition tape, because he’s already got an alligator-hunting viral video under his belt.

When Bozzi was notified by his children that an alligator had wondered onto their suburban property, he went outside to investigate. He told USA TODAY that he assumed it was a baby alligator and was prepared to let it go, but when he saw its real size, he knew he needed to act.

Bozzi, a US Army veteran, said “I'm removing it because he's probably hungry. The only thing that came to my mind was to protect my kids and the other children outside." His heroic exploits were filmed and posted to Twitter, where it’s been viewed at least six million times.

When the video footage of him begins, Bozzi has a dark-colored trash receptacle tipped over on its side, lid up, mouth open, and he’s pushing it toward the gator. “Let me know when the head goes inside,” he implores the onlookers who are filming him. Then, once the gator is close enough, Bozzi swings the lid over, striking the gator on its head. As the gator violently thrashes around, he slowly tilts the can upward, trapping it inside as onlookers whoop and holler in joyful disbelief.

Bozzi said, "I used the front like a hippo mouth. I saw that he was timid, and he was backing down, so that's why I knew I had the advantage.” Afterwards, Bozzi released the gator into a nearby waterway. He said, "I feel like I was just doing what I was supposed to do at the time.”

You can view the video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We sometimes need to put ourselves in harm’s way to protect the weak and innocent. This is what Jesus did when he took on Satan to protect us from spiritual death.

Jon Krakauer cleared the ice from his oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and straddled the summit of Mount Everest. It was 1:17 PM on May 10th, 1996. Krakauer, an accomplished climber and journalist, had not slept in 57 hours. He had not eaten much more than a bowl of ramen soup and a handful of peanut M&M's in three days. Still, he had reached the top of the Earth's tallest peak—29,028 feet. In his oxygen deprived stupor, he had no way of knowing that storm clouds forming below would turn into a vicious blizzard that would claim the lives of five fellow climbers. Yet he knew his adventure was hardly finished.

In his book Into Thin Air, Krakauer describes what he felt:

Reaching the top of Everest is supposed to trigger a surge of intense elation; against long odds, after all, I had just attained a goal I'd coveted since childhood. But the summit was really only the halfway point. Any impulse I might have felt towards self-congratulation was extinguished by the overwhelming apprehension about the long, dangerous descent that lay ahead.