Martin St. Louis, of the Tampa Bay Lightning NHL hockey team, is not a big man in stature, but he is in presence. As he led his team to the Stanley Cup in the 2003-2004 season, he also won the Art Ross Trophy (leading scorer), Hart Trophy (most valuable player) and Lester B Pearson Award (outstanding regular season player). It’s hard to believe that just a few years earlier, no NHL teams wanted him.

St. Louis is officially listed as 5’9″ tall, but is actually probably closer to 5’7″. For a regular guy that’d be average, but for a hockey player, that’s tiny. Even after an impressive career in the minor leagues, St. Louis wasn’t chosen in the first round of the NHL draft. In fact he wasn’t chosen during the draft at all, which is definitely a traumatic event for any hockey player. He was later signed by the Calgary Flames, but was soon released as a free agent; the equivalent of a hockey team saying, “We don’t want you anymore.” Later he signed to Tampa Bay Lightning and looked to be having a great year until a broken leg canceled the rest of his season. Although everything seemed to be against him, and few probably believed it could happen, he persevered and attained amazing success.

God often chooses unexpected people. In 1 Samuel 16:6-7, Samuel was sure God would choose Eliab to be the new king of Israel. But God tells him, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, NLT) Instead of Eliab, whom Samuel wrongly judged to be “the one” based on outward appearance alone, God chooses the simple shepherd David.

All throughout the Bible, we see God choosing unexpected people to be heroes: Moses (who had a speech impediment), David (the youngest and scrawniest of his family), Matthew (a despised tax collector), Peter (a hothead who couldn’t hold his tongue) … and us. It doesn’t matter if we aren’t the fastest, strongest, smartest or best-looking people around. In fact, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) and Paul boldly says, “for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Samuel judged by outward appearances, but God does not. Instead, He is impressed by the condition of our hearts: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). If you ever feel inferior because aren’t the fastest, strongest, smartest or best-looking person around, don’t worry: God often raises up the most unexpected heroes.

Question: Have you noticed that you have a tendency to judge by outward appearances? How can we try to counteract this tendency?

About the Author: Darren Hewer

It wasn’t the first time the country was united behind a single game and it won’t be the last.  Ask any hockey historian and they will all tell you that the biggest game of them all happened in 1972 when a team of Canadian NHL all stars took on a team from what was back then, the USSR.

In the final moments of that final game Paul Henderson scored the goal that defined a moment, a nation and the rest of Paul’s life.  The game was played almost 40 years ago, and Paul has talked about that goal almost every day since.  I had the opportunity to meet Paul once and when someone asked him about it he said simply “that’s the one thing everyone always wants to talk about.”

Recently, during an interview with the CBC Paul revealed that his is currently battling cancer. He spoke about the role faith plays in his life and in his current situation.  In the interview with CBC he said, “I have no angst in my body, no fear whatsoever.” You can watch the interview here.  I hope Paul knows that once again, all of Canada is behind him.  Earlier Paul talked to us about the role faith has played in his life in good times and bad:

It’s pretty incredible that he can have that kind of hope in the face of illness. It can seem like an unusual response, but some would argue, it is a perfectly natural one.  In his book Soul Cravings, Erwin McManus writes, “aimlessness can sometimes lead to apathy and lack of purpose. But you were not made for these things; you were made for hope.”  It’s quite a bold statement, to say that we are made, designed, for hope.  So often when health fails or finances fall into ruin hope is not our first response.  But McManus claims that it can be.

Watch what he has to say about hope, destiny and the source of both:

(If you can’t see the video click here to watch it)

>> Watch part 2 of this video here

Do you have hope in your situation? If you were facing a health crisis tomorrow would you be able to say that you had no fear? If you are looking for hope and need someone to talk to, we have email mentors available 24/7.  You can use this form to contact a mentor, you don’t have to go it alone. Paul Henderson has a fight ahead of him, and as he said in the interview he intends to fight this cancer with everything he’s got.  I hope he knows that once again, the whole nation is behind him.

Upcoming online chats: Join us for daily online chats! One of our features will be “If death is not the end” on February 28 at 12:15 pm EST. Please join us to discuss the important topic of life & death!

Georges Laraque: What Gives Me Energy
Though one of the most feared players in the NHL, off the ice Georges Laraque is one of the most pleasant guys to be around. Always joking and smiling, the 6’3” former Edmonton Oiler (he is now playing with the Montreal Canadiens) not only brings energy to his team, but also to the people he meets everyday. In a TruthMedia Internet Group interview, “The Rock” talks about how to stay supercharged for life. Read more

Take action: Have you been feeling less than “supercharged” lately? Try our Struggling with Contentment online interactive life lesson?

You said it: This week, Edward commented on our article The Effects of Internet Pornography, saying “I need help with my porn addiction. It is hurting my wife and really hurting my marriage. My wife says she will leave me if i don’t get help for it but i don’t see it being a problem for me. Can someone contact me to discuss some options that xan help me and my marriage?” Read the article and add your own thoughts: Read more

Blog: Eating Down the Fridge
Save money & expand your culinary expertise! A practical technique to spend less on food during tough economic times. Read more

Feature: The Paybacks of Energy Efficiency
Nearly half of the average family’s energy consumption is used heating and cooling their home. Here is how you can save some money on your heating bill this winter. Read more

Coming up next week: One of the topics of our upcoming online chats is “Heartfelt Longings” Join us in the chat room October 18th 2009 @ 12:15pm EST for this chat or see also our full chat calendar for other upcoming topics.

I still remember the look on the team doctor’s face when he announced that I had Multiple Myeloma,

Encouraging news

Things looked pretty bad, but my doctor told me not to worry about dying just yet. He prescribed a regimen of chemotherapy and arranged for a stem cell transplant. ‘That will keep you around for the next four or five years for sure,’ he said. ‘By then, they’ll have come up with some new things to help you. I was really encouraged by this news, especially once I found out I could keep coaching for the next two or three months.

Relying on God

It has been a year now since I was diagnosed with cancer. I am in remission and off all medication. The most important thing that got me through it all was my faith in God. There were many times I laid in the hospital wondering if I would ever get out. I would cry out to God and ask for His help and I always knew I could always rely on God.

I have been a Christian since I was a young kid and I have always felt that death is not something to be afraid of. Knowing Jesus means that when I die I am going to heaven. I have a place to go when it is all over.

In tribute

About 1,400 mourners attended a 90-minute tribute to Roger Neilson, at the Northview Pentecostal Church in Peterborough, ON {Canada } on Saturday June 28th, 2003. The 69-year-old former NHL coach died on June 21st, after a 3 year battle with cancer.

In December 1999, he had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and had a successful stem cell transplant in March 2000. He was also diagnosed in January 2001 with malignant melanoma, the worst form of skin cancer. Roger Neilson 1934 – 2003.

Take a look at your life. How would you describe it? Contented? Rushed? Exciting? Stressful? Moving forward? Holding back? For many of us it’s all of the above at times. There are things we dream of doing one day, there are things we wish we could forget. In the Bible, it says that Jesus came to make all things new. What would your life look like if you could start over with a clean slate?

Living with hope

If you are looking for peace, there is a way to balance your life. No one can be perfect, or have a perfect life. But every one of us has the opportunity to experience perfect grace through a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

Kim Haller’s life seemed picture perfect – as a well-rounded teenager, she won a teen beauty pageant, and eventually went on to marry a professional hockey player, with whom she is raising two beautiful daughters. Recently she even embarked on a career in music. She had been a believer all her life, but happiness eluded her … that is, until she learned the key to living the Spirit-filled life.

Growing up on the family acreage north of Three Hills, Alberta, Kim Schimke was, in her own words, “a total farm girl.” She loved roaming the wide open country on horseback and helped her brother raise purebred Charlois cattle. While country living afforded marvelous freedom, it also provided early lessons in responsibility. Along with regular chores, Kim learned to take over the feeding of a threshing crew during harvest time, preparing dinner before she left for school in the morning. There was plenty of work, but the energetic girl seemed to love every minute. There was little time to plan for the next day, let alone wonder what life had in store down the road…

The beginning of faith

Errol and Joann Schimke worked hard to pass on a strong spiritual heritage to their children. At the age of five, Kim invited Jesus into her life and throughout thirteen years of Christian schooling at Prairie Bible Institute, was given a sound moral and scriptural grounding. “I should have been established in my faith and ready to fight the battles that life would bring,” says Kim, “But I wasn’t. I just took life as it happened and never really thought deeply about things. My prayer life was a one-way street, and whenever I tried to read the Bible through, I would get halfway into Genesis and become preoccupied with other things. I had learned to trust in myself, in my abilities and my family to make life as comfortable as possible.”

A born leader and natural athlete, Kim loved to sing and grew into a self-assured, adventure-loving teen. Noticing an advertisement in the local paper, her mother encouraged her to enter a pageant in a nearby city. Here was a wonderful opportunity to meet people and get involved in something new. Weeks of preparation and training paid off. Crowned Miss Teen Red Deer, Kim entered an exciting world of public appearances and modeling opportunities – a young girl’s dream. Soon she was off to Toronto for the Miss Teen Canada pageant. Though she finished second runner-up, the pageant was about to change her life.

In Regina, Saskatchewan, a young hockey player sat glued to the TV screen. Recognizing one of the contestants as a girl from his own hometown, 19-year-old Kevin Haller determined to make the acquaintance of this tall, dark-haired tenth grader.

Back home that summer he persuaded a friend to arrange a meeting and soon the pair were inseparable. When Kevin began his professional hockey career with the Buffalo Sabers, however, they suddenly found themselves in a long-distance relationship. To a young woman in love, the separation and repeated goodbyes were anything but welcome. “I really didn’t think about hockey or a glamorous lifestyle,” Kim remembers. “I just wanted us to be together.”

Anxiety and loneliness

Three months before their wedding in June of 1992, Kevin joined the Montreal Canadians and the small town girl soon found herself 3,000 miles from home in a large city where almost everyone spoke another language. With her husband on the road, Kim withdrew into their 16th floor apartment, grappling with loneliness and anxiety.

To fill the lonely hours, she enrolled in some classes, involved herself in the team’s charity events, and was soon working full-time. Finding enough to do was no longer a problem. But at night rest eluded her as frustration and anger over her circumstances began to eat away at her peace of mind.

When Kim discovered she was pregnant, new anxieties took over. Would childbirth be too difficult? Would the baby be all right? On the day Kim went into labor, Kevin received word that he had been traded. And soon after baby Mikayla arrived, the Hallers left their Canadian apartment for a hotel in Philadelphia where they lived out of a suitcase for almost a year. Swept helplessly along in the current of events, Kim was determined to take back control of her life. She would become the perfect mother, attending to her baby’s every want. But Mikayla’s allergies made her a fussy child and Kim was soon suffering from lack of sleep, severe emotional fatigue and repeated infections.

As stress continued to build, the panic attacks began and Kim was caught in a web of fear and confusion as her physical and emotional health declined. After the birth of their second daughter a doctor recommended an antidepressant for severe post-partem depression. Kim refused. “I still believed that I could manage life on my own,” she remembers, “that I could control circumstances and keep everything together. I’d been a Christian for years, but had never moved beyond my salvation experience into a close, personal walk with Jesus. I had faith in the Lord to save me from sin, but didn’t know Him well enough to believe that He could care for all the details of my life.”

Ever the optimist, Kevin encouraged his wife to look on the bright side, but it was impossible for him to fathom the depth of her struggle. Things went from bad to worse. Kim stopped eating and was soon suffering from malnutrition. Sure that a change of circumstances would drive the misery away, she begged to move closer to her family. But a few weeks later they were transferred further east. What was God doing?

Depression lifts

Back home that Christmas, the festivities could not lift the depression hovering over Kim. While rocking little Madison to sleep late one night, she sat staring at the bottle of Prozac in her hand. Was this the only choice left? Tears flowed by the hour as the desperate young mother rocked back and forth, singing hymns and begging God for strength to go on.

“Something finally prompted me to open my Bible,” she recalls. “I started at Matthew and as I read, somehow my merciful Heavenly Father gave me a piece of hope to cling to in my darkness.” The next day Kim returned to the comforting pages and found herself experiencing a calmness she had never known. Soon there were not enough hours in the day to satisfy her thirst.

“Kim Haller, as I knew her, was gone,” she says. “The Lord began to show me what complete surrender was all about. Galatians 2:20 became a reality: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ The Lord was growing me up, embracing me with His love as I ran into His arms.”

For the first time Kim was beginning to understand faith and how to live it. “I believe there are times when God wants us to walk alone with Him and stop looking to everyone else to meet our needs. I wanted a doctor or my husband or my parents to give me the answers, but the answers were in the Word of God. The cure was trusting in Jesus to carry my burdens and make my load light.”

When Kevin was traded to North Carolina, Kim began to discover the joy of deep friendships with other godly women. “God wrapped His arms around me through their love,” she remembers fondly, “and gave me an opportunity to rest and grow.”

A test of faith

As the Hallers were finishing their vacation this past summer, however, the phone rang. Kevin had been traded once again. Instead of returning home, they were to head west to California. Kim struggled as she arranged long distance for friends in North Carolina to pack and sell the house. “The hardest part of being traded was saying goodbye to those dear friends so abruptly, but looking back, I thank God for such a difficult, yet fruitful time in my life. James 1:2-4 sums it up best: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face troubles of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

“I feel like a toddler who has just grown enough to peek up over the edge of the counter. God has given me a glimpse of His goodness and power and shown me that He never intended for His children to live as helpless victims of the enemy. Kevin and I believe God has placed us in the world of professional hockey to share His love and I am eager to see what He will accomplish as we learn to lean on Him.”

Where Kim is today

The Lord has continued to draw Kim through these and other experiences to greater trust and faith through these and other experiences. Getting to know His perfect love and care for her has led her to a deeper surrender of her right to herself, knowing that His sovereign plan is better than any dream she could hope to fulfill. All this said though, the surrender issue is one she revisits often. “Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ requires moment by moment laying down my agenda in exchange for intimate relationship with my Lord,” she says. “The challenge is in giving this relationship its rightful place in our full, overflowing schedules.”

Kim is privileged to wear the hat of child of God, wife, mother, home-school teacher, chief cook and bottle-washer to name a few. She has also welcomed a new role of speaker/singer, when God opened up an opportunity to share her love for Him through song on a Christian contemporary album. God’s fingerprints can clearly be seen throughout the process of birthing a ministry she never expected.

“It has been one leap of faith after another as I am continually reminded of my inadequacies and weaknesses, but it is an absolute joy and gift to be about my Father’s business.”

“So we are embracing the journey itself, passing through the seasons of life where change is required and often difficult. Oswald Chambers once said that “everything of worth and excellence is difficult”. James 1:2-10 encouraged me recently to consider it pure joy when I face trials of many kinds because when I have persevered, the result is maturity and completeness, lacking nothing. I am excited for the opportunities the Lord is bringing to share the reasons for the hope within me through word and song. Like the title track of the album, our hearts’ cry remains “I’ll always trust in You, so take me Lord…wherever”.”

What about you? Are you just taking life as it happens, trying to manage it on your own? Or are you experiencing an intimate walk with Jesus? The truth is that He cares for you and all the details of your life. He is waiting for you to fully surrender your life to Him.

If you accepted Christ as your Savior, He has given you His Holy Spirit to help you and encourage you as you live your life for His glory. In John 14:26 Jesus said to His followers, “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Why not take a moment right now to pray a simple prayer and ask God to empower you with His Holy Spirit?

Dear Father, I need You. I acknowledge that I have sinned against You by directing my own life. I thank You that You have forgiven my sins through Christ’s death on the cross for me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus. As an expression of my faith, I thank You for directing my life and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you prayed this prayer, we would love to hear about it!

Used by permission of Servant magazine, a ministry of Prairie Bible Institute.