Mary Khoury - Everyone has a Vocation

Mary Khoury, a teenager who lived through Lebanon’s civil war, a conflict that went on from 1975 to 1992.

Fanatical Muslims forced their way into Mary’s home one day, waving pistols at the entire family and threatening,

 “If you do not become a Muslim, you will be shot.”

Mary knew that Jesus had once been given a similar choice.

Jesus had been told to renounce His claim to be Savior of the world so that He could avoid the cross. But Jesus knew that without His death and resurrection, no human being could never have eternal life with God. So, Jesus went to the cross.

Mary decided that she would not renounce Jesus.

Mary told the men,

“I was baptized as a Christian, and [God’s] word came to me: ‘Don’t deny your faith.’ I will obey [God]. Go ahead and shoot.”

With that, Mary heard a gun go off behind her and she fell limply to the ground.

Sometime later, the Red Cross found the bodies of Mary’s family members. Miraculously, Mary, on the floor next to them, had survived. But a bullet had severed her spinal cord. Both her arms were paralyzed, stretched out beside her, bent like Jesus’ arms had been when He was on the cross.

You might expect Mary to have become bitter.

But she had the happiness and the blessing of one who has done the right God calls us to do.

She knew that God had a plan for her life.

“Everyone has a vocation,” she said,

 “...I will offer my life for Muslims, like the one who cut my father’s throat, cursed my mother and stabbed her, and then tried to kill me. My life will be a prayer for them.”