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Under the influence, he called himself ‘a child of Satan’

The first time Nick Thimmig glimpsed the undeniable reality of evil in the world was when “Crazy Robert” — screaming expletives and growling at a party — randomly punched a taller dude and left him bleeding on the ground before running off into the woods howling.

“That’s when I knew there was evil in the world. I just saw evil manifest right in front of my eyes for no apparent reason,” Nick says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. “Why did he do this? Because he was from Humble (Texas). People from Huffman didn’t like people from Humble. Well, I was from Humble, so I got the heck out of there.”

Nick Thimmig was born and raised in East Lansing, Michigan, but went to Texas for his senior year of high school because his mom didn’t pay attention to his comings and goings, and he could “live it up” with parties and drugs.

He missed applying for college and instead got a job to fund his trips to different colleges on weekends to party. That’s when he started the heavier drugs: ecstasy, acid, cocaine. Under the effects of acid, he would see demonic manifestations and thought to himself, “I am a child of Satan.”

At 19, he smoked so much marijuana in one week that he coughed up blood. That Friday he was drunk and high (on ecstasy and acid), and he got pulled over by cops on suspicion of trafficking. Nick shoved as much marijuana as he could in his underpants but missed one bag.

“They put me up the hood of the car. They found the bag of marijuana and said, ‘Look what we found. You’re going to jail. Is there anything else we should know about,’” Nick remembers.

Wanting to get out of the problem by cooperating with cops, Nick reached into his pants with the intention of removing the stashed weed. But the cops panicked because they thought he was reaching for a gun.

Fortunately for Nick, he was able to de-escalate the tense arrest and was not shot.

Nick pretended to turn informant to work his felony down to a misdemeanor. When he was released from jail, he asked the judge and was granted (miraculously) the opportunity to work off his fines and community service by joining the military.

In the Navy, he kept getting into trouble through Boot Camp and A School. During his first weekend on the ship, he joined buddies going to a club and got drunk. Upon his return, he was confronted for underage drinking.

“For the next few days, I lay in my rack and cried out to God,” he remembers. “I needed to change. I was in trouble here and trouble there. Now I just got to my duty station, and I was in trouble.”

The next day at the laundromat, he asked a random guy for the time. The guy invited him to church and asked him where he would go if he were to die. “I would hope I would go to Heaven,” Nick replied. Thinking of some way to justify himself, he said, “You can trust me to babysit your kids.”

“But do you have a relationship where you speak to God, and he speaks back to you?” the man responded.Nick says that stuck out to him because he had prayed many times before and never heard from God.

As Nick continued processing, he said, “Yeah, he (God) probably wouldn’t let me crash on his couch for eternity.”

“You can be saved,” the man responded.

“Saved? What do you mean saved?” Nick asked.

If a man wishes to save his life, he will lose it. If he loses his life for my sake and for the gospel’s, you will save it, the man quoted scripture.

“Let’s do this saved thing,” Nick responded, even though he didn’t know what that meant. He only knew he needed to change.

Nick prayed the sinner’s prayer and was became born-again at age 19.

“I had this weight of sin that was on my shoulders,” Nick recalls. “The moment I prayed that prayer, I felt the weight of sin lifted off. I felt changes. I felt delivered. God touched me in that prayer.”

The effects became immediately evident. That same night he was at Popeye’s Chicken and spotted an attractive girl when God impressed this on his heart: Don’t look at her. I’ve called you to reach out to her.

Then God convicted him about his unchristian music. This is trash, throw it out, he felt the Lord instruct.

He called his girlfriend and announced getting saved. She responded that she too was saved.

But God… Read the rest: Make a decision to serve Jesus

35 chairs in a one Honda Civic

Little Mermaid actor saved from divorce by God

Jodi Benson, 1989 voice actor for the main character in “The Little Mermaid,” repeatedly begged her Christian husband for a divorce when the movie came out. Jodi’s career was successful, but her home life was failing.

“My personal life was plummeting,” Jodi says in an article published by the Billy Graham Association. “I had a real crisis of belief.”

Jodi wound up staying with her husband Ray. They got counseling and had two kids. Her home life is now successful, as is her career, and she credits Jesus for everything.

Raised in a single parent household in Rockford, Ill., Jodi dreamed of singing.

“This dream that I had in my mind was so far-fetched from where I was,” Jodi said. “I’m sure everybody just thought I was crazy.”

She attended Millikin University in Dacatur, Ill. In 1983, she earned her debut role in the Broadway musical Marilyn: An American Fable. The next year she met Ray Benson, became a Christian, and got married to him.

Moving to New York, Jodi landed an ensemble spot in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Two years later, she landed the starring role in Smile on Broadway.

Her biggest role, however, came when she auditioned for the part of Ariel. Out of a field of hundreds of applicants, Jodi was chosen. Ironically, she wasn’t excited with the part.

At the time, animation voice-overs were viewed as jobs for people whose careers were winding down. Voice-over actors didn’t even get mentioned in the credits. Benson, who was in her mid-20s, didn’t like the idea her career might be viewed as fading.

No one could have imagined how big “The Little Mermaid” would become. Instead of earmarking her for a dying career, it catapulted her to stardom.

But when she hit the apex of her career, her marriage was hitting its lows. She was focusing on her career, but her family was on shaky ground. She and her husband wavered between reaffirming their relationship or trashing it.

“I begged him for a divorce,” she says. “I had my foot on the pedal on a cliff in California. I was ready… Jodi Benson Christian.

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How LA Grind coffee was born

Vanessa Punche was a LOYAL Starbucks customer. So she was maddened when a Philadelphia Starbucks manager called the cops on two African American patrons who were simply waiting just a few minutes for a business associate to show up before they ordered in 2018.

“That really sparked the fire under me,” she says. “If you did that to people who look like me, you did that to me. It’s like a form of slavery. One group of people can sit in a store and work freely and then another class can’t do that without being arrested.”

Vanessa, 56, an Angeleno, didn’t just stop patronizing Starbucks. She quit her job at UCLA and launched a coffee-making business, LA Grind, which has a brick-and-mortar location at 1412 S Redondo Blvd Los Angeles CA 90019 and a coffee truck.

WOW! THE HOUSE BLEND COFFEE WITH LAVENDER AND OTHER SECRET INGREDIENTS!

A good thing came out of something bad. “I turned it into a positive,” Vanessa says.

The switch from UCLA administrator to entrepreneur has had its ups and downs. Business was booming with Cameroon-sourced coffee; she had a prime spot with her truck at the LAX ride-hailing spot.

Then Covid struck. She turned to cracking out her online sales. Now post-Covid, Vanessa is back to navigating the waves of clients and events around Los Angeles. She caters with her truck. She has needed to rely on her family (she has three adult children) to staff, since payroll has taken its toll on viability.

“I did a lot of stuff scared,” she admits about the entreprenuerial adventure, the risks of trying to cover bills and woo clients. But now, “there isn’t any turning back,” she adds. “Some days are better than others.”

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She learned the hard way about hiking precautions

In the split second that she realized she was falling on a Santa Monica mountains trail, Rebekah
McNamara instantly decided to save her baby, strapped in a carrying pack on her back, and
take all of the weight on her left leg on April 24.

“My son Shane is on my back. He’s an additional 25 pounds,” Rebekah remembers. “My ankle
was already hurting. It was probably fractured. My shoes had no grip on them. That didn’t help
when it came to going downhill. It was slippery.

“It just snapped. It broke completely. The first thing I ever remember was screaming really loud.

The pain was so great. I didn’t know what to do. I was like, I just have to faint. I couldn’t breathe;
it was so painful.”

Rebekah broke her tibia and fibula and fractured her ankle. She was airlifted off the Los Leones
Trail, after her brother ran down the rest of the path to where he could pick up signal on his
phone to call 911. She submitted two hours of surgery, receiving one rod and four screws.

“The trauma nurse said I’m bionic now,” she quips.

Rebekah’s accident and her six months of arduous recovery serve as a reminder to employ safe
trekking measures in the beautiful local mountains. In Rebekah’s case, she should have done
three things:

1. Wear shoes with adequate tread, preferably hiking boots.
2. Not carry extra weight once she twisted her ankle and compromised its strength.
3. Consider fully carrying a toddler on her back.

After Rebekah had twisted her ankle, her brother Zach Scribner offered to carry the baby.

Rebekah declined because she figured a mother’s reflex would be better than an uncle’s.

Both she and Zach regret that decision now.

Her fatefall fall began as a Rebekah, her husband, her three kids, her brother, her sister-in-law
and their three kids hiked to the top for a picnic. As she headed back down at 1:30 p.m.,

Rebekah twisted her ankle about 10 minutes from the trailhead. Read the rest: how to hike safely in the Santa Monica mountains.

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