Thank goodness many of us will never experience a life-altering disability, or for that matter have been born into this world disabled. Unable to do simple everyday tasks that we take for granted. Little things like tying our shoelaces, getting a drink of water, or turning on the TV.
Yet that’s the world Daniel Ritchie was born into, disabled and without arms. Think about that for a moment and what it must take to overcome such a disability.
However, if your lucky enough to hear Pastor Ritchie recount his personal life’s journey and his powerful testimony of how God came into his life. When Ritchie needed him most God instructed him to go forth and preach the word of God.
Pastor Ritchie begins his powerful message of hope telling his followers of his own life story as a young child growing up within a loving family doing all the “normal things kids his age do.”
He recounts how he went to a traditional elementary school with other children his own age and how his parents insisted that he never say 2 words in their home, those words “I CAN’T.”
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My name is Daniel Ritchie and here's my story.https://t.co/ync2n4L7eP
— Daniel Ritchie (@DanielRitchie) April 7, 2018
Ritchie confides to his audience that it was a struggle attempting to make your toes designed for walking do things designed for arms and hands.
When Ritchie was about 8 or 9 years old the family went on vacation visiting Disney World. It was a warm day and he asked his parents if he could have some ice cream. His parents instructed young Ritchie to stay in line while they fetched the ice cold treat. Waiting for his parents to return a little kid around 3-years old approached him wanting to know where his hands were? Ritchie explained he didn’t have any hands. However, the little boy didn’t believe him and called him a liar, accusing him of hiding his hands inside his shirt.
That embarrassing 1-minute exchange changed his entire life. For the first time since he was born, Ritchie felt like damaged goods. He realized that he wasn’t quite like everybody else and started thinking that he was a “weirdo.”
Within the blink-of-an-eye 9-year old Ritchie began slipping little by little into depression. The festering negativity began consuming everything around him. Soon his dark moods manifested themselves outward, where he began hating people and questioning why God chose him to carry this burden. He thought, “why wasn’t I born like everyone else?”
Pastor Ritchie continued his downward spiral with little hope in sight until another innocuous moment once again changed his life.
He was about 15-years old when a fellow student asked him to come to his church for a dodgeball lock-in. Ritchie agreed to go and that’s when he reacquainted himself with God.
The youth pastor at the church began reading scripture of how God sent his son Jesus Christ down to earth to save mankind, dying on the cross for us. At that very moment God came into Ritchie’s heart and his entire life began to change.
Weeks after he was saved the anger, hate, and self-loathing he had felt since he was 9-years old vanished. It was replaced with a need to tell others of God’s unique plan for all of us.
That opportunity came a year later when he was 16 years old and he was asked to speak at a New Year’s Eve lock-in.
From that moment on Pastor Ritchie began preaching the word of God and he hasn’t he stopped since. Today at 34, Pastor Ritchie is still transforming lives.
Married for 12 years and blessed with two adorable children, Pastor Ritchie tells his followers that God does indeed work in mysterious ways. Choosing the most unlikely people on earth to spread his message of hope, love, and devotion.
Matthew 15:30-31 “A vast crowd brought to him people who were lame, blind, crippled, those who couldn’t speak, and many others. They laid them before Jesus, and he healed them all. The crowd was amazed! Those who hadn’t been able to speak were talking, the crippled were made well, the lame were walking, and the blind could see again! And they praised the God of Israel.”