Career-ending injury brought Inky Johnson his dream life

The dream from age 7 was coming true. Inky Johnson was in his junior year in college with all the paperwork signed for the NFL draft. He was among the top 30 and was guaranteed to make millions doing what he loved.

All he had to do was play 10 more games and his future would be set, but when he went to make a regular tackle against an Air Force player in 2006 — a tackle “I could make with my eyes closed” — the cornerback ruptured his subclavian artery and could not get up.

“I never thought about a career-ending injury,” Inky says in an Above Inspiration video. “I woke up from that surgery and the thing I placed my identity in was now gone.”

His right arm was paralyzed. Every day he lives with pain. But he rose above the crushed spirit and now delivers motivational speeches, encouraging people to serve Jesus and trust Him with their destiny.

Inquoris Johnson was raised in a 14-member household crammed in a two-bedroom home on Atlanta’s poor and violent side. His mom pulled double shifts to put food on the table, and Inky says he wanted to pull the whole family out of poverty.

Every day was dedicated to training to fulfill the dream. He drilled, worked out and practiced. His family attended church, and he asked God to bless his dream.

When he joined the Volunteers at the University of Tennessee, he became their starting cornerback and was on the trajectory to success; the commitment and effort was paying off.

Then he woke up on the fateful day and followed his usual routine: run two miles to the fire station and two miles back to warm up. Throw the football at the ceiling to practice catches at all angles by surprise. Visualize himself performing to perfection.

“Two minutes left in the game, and I go to make a tackle – that I can make with my eyes closed And I hit this guy and as soon as I hit him, I knew it was a problem, but I didn’t think it would be this type of problem. When I hit him every breath from my body left, my body goes completely limp. I fall to the ground.”

Inky blacked out. His teammates came over to him and told him to get up. “Let’s rock man,” they said. Read the rest: When bad things happen to good people: Inky Johnson’s career-ending injury.

A lot of confusion

The trials, the “reversals,” the difficulties all make sense when we look back over our lives to see how God has blessed and used us. In the middle of the tempest, you’re tempted to throw up your hands in despair.

But Christianity is not a backwards-looking religion. We are to pray for a better future, invest time in relationships and Bible study, work hard — all to see more of God in our lives. While we strive for better things ahead, we keep faith and remember the promise of Psalm 23:6: Surely your goodness and love will FOLLOW me all the days of my life. I may not understand today what God is doing, but eventually I will.

Allison has some interesting points to weigh in on the question of God

Proof of God and The Bible

November 6, 2012 by There’s a frog on my Sprocket!

I have a friend who once compared my belief in God to someone believing in leprechauns. The catch is if I did in fact believe in leprechauns I don’t think he would have spent much time trying to convince me they don’t exist. However, he did spend a lot of time trying to tell me why there wasn’t a God.

I think the difference is that leprechauns don’t threaten how he defines himself. The catch is that as a Christian, even though I didn’t agree with his view that God did not exist, I accepted and loved him as Christ instructs us to do. I really never tried to change him, yet he always wanted to change me. I don’t assume all atheists to be this way but in this case it was baffling.

He asked, why someone so logical, as he viewed me to be, could believe in something so ridiculous. My reply was as follows.

When I was young and my sister disappeared I was baffled for a while. If their was a God,I thought, why would He let this happen? As I got older this was sometimes replaced with anger at Him. The fact that I was angry at God confirmed His existence. Some of this study was inspired by a man who helped a dear friend of mine. I shared this originally with him when I thought he may have needed it most. I hope I repaid a little of what he gave me and my friend.

These are various pictures from her blog.

But for me being angry at Him simply wasn’t enough. Like almost everything that I’m not sure of, when I reached an age where I could understand I study the facts. No real historian debates the fact that Jesus walked the Earth and taught the teachings of The Bible. Now, some say he was just ‘a good man’. To that I wondered, if Jesus is just a good man then He lied. Because when the apostles asked he declared He was the Messiah. (I could quote the scripture but that’s not the point) And in my opinion good men don’t lie. So that theory doesn’t hold water to me.

So, if he wasn’t lying then he was crazy. But crazy men don’t make such great points and instruct men to lead such valid lives. Also his teachings are inspirational, thought out, loving and without flaw. Not the rumblings of a mad man.

If Jesus wasn’t mad and wasn’t lying then He is The Son of God as He declared. The whole water to wine, healing the blind, walking on water and raising the dead kinda proves this. Now, you may say there is no proof He did those things.

Well I looked into that as well. The first four books of the New Testament are personal accounts of the life of Jesus. The men who witnessed the events of His days on Earth claim all these events and much more to be true. Of course they could, all eleven and Paul be complete liars.

I examined that notion as well. How many people do you know who would or have died for a lie. Well a few have I’m sure but did they know it was a lie? Since the apostles claim to have seen the life of Jesus first hand, then if their accounts are lies, well they would have known it. So, eleven men died deaths such as being stoned, run through with a sword and being crucified upside down because they stuck to a lie? I’m to sensible to believe that notion.

Of course they could all be crazy. So twelve crazy guys following another crazy man all saw the same hallucinations and then somehow sensibly recorded them tying them perfectly into the accounts told be the prophets of the old testimony. That I simply can’t buy.

All of this leads me to the only conclusion that I can logically come to. Jesus was born did walk the Earth and do the things the apostles tell of. He couldn’t possibly be simply a good man or prophet, for by His own account that makes Him a liar. As I said He said He was The Messiah. The Bible is accurate because men died horrible deaths because they refused to deny what they witnessed.

In the end Jesus being the Son of God leads to only one possible conclusion, for Him to have a Son, He has to exist. Thus, I know there is a God. There is as much proof of God as their is of Alexander The Great and Kahn and Helen of Troy.

There is a lot about religion that I don’t know. There is a lot I’m not sure of. But I have no doubt that Jesus is Christ.
*** MustardSeedBudget’s note: Allison’s perspective is especially noteworthy when one takes into account that her sister, mentioned here, was either kidnapped or ran away from home, causing traumatic grief to the family. Her life experience gives added credibility to her arguments.