Be David, & Fight Goliath

Stories of ordinary people standing up to giants

Like many of us, I can easily feel defeated in my circumstances. One too many gut punches and I lose the will to fight. The jobs get discouraging, everyone else but me is vacationing, I have no purpose in life, I can’t make enough money to pay my bills or put food on the table, or the government is too big to fight and we’d never win anyway.

Especially in this clown world we currently live in where good is called evil and evil is called good, and where there’s a constant barrage of stories proving to us that those in positions of leadership over us are never held responsible for their actions or decisions.

It is mentally exhausting to watch day after day as the powers that (shouldn’t) be (past and present) continue to do things that we all know are intentionally criminal, but they are never held accountable. There are ways to manipulate words and meanings of words by those who know just how to spin things and manipulate things so a prosecution of facts never sees the inside of a court room let alone a prison cell.

The word gymnastics are worthy of a gold medal to those who perform it. It winds up leaving a stadium of citizens broken and defeated without the will to fight.

We all know of a story about a company, a product, a school, a government, or even a person who so egregiously wronged someone, but got away with it. It’s especially bad when it is a governing body flexing its muscles at its citizens to put them in their place, to keep them in line, to make sure that citizen can never feel empowered to stand up to its massive flexing biceps. It’s power. It’s control. It’s riches to those who own the gym.

What if we exercised our faith anyway?

What if we set aside how we feel, what our emotions tell us, and battle Goliath anyway?

Is there a story out there that starts and ends like this?
- We were loosing badly and everyone lost hope, hung their heads in defeat and we walked away and celebrated our victory?

Or do they go like this?
- The battle was fierce and we lost a few people along the way, but we never gave up, and we persevered to the end though we were bloodied and scarred and we celebrated our victory!
Those are the battles I want to celebrate with.

No battle worthy of fighting is a waste of our time or resources.

In a world of love and acceptance (which are good) we are taught that fighting for any reason is bad. However, that isn’t the truth. Fighting is a necessary part of humanity. How we fight, who we fight, where we fight, when we fight, and what we fight can be up for discussion. But a fight isn’t inherently wrong.

History is filled with examples of fighting and battles that caused people to stand up for what’s right. The United States would not be a free nation if there weren’t people who were willing to sacrifice and go to battle for its independence. Check out this amazing historical account of Battle of 1776.

There are causes that are just!

The Bible is full of enemies coming against Gods people, and God raising up armies of His people who were willing to fight. Joshua was a leader in the Old Testament who had men willing to fight for what was right on his command, which was led by God. We see examples of people standing up for what was right under extreme circumstances. Daniel was thrown into the lions den……. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a furnace filled with fire for refusing to bow to the King of their time. David stood against a giant because none of the warriors would do it. Paul was thrown in prison for going against the government of his time. Peter was crucified for going against the law of the land and preaching about Jesus. John the Baptist was beheaded. Stephen was murdered in cold blood with rocks being thrown at him. The list goes on.

Were some of these NOT political? Were any of these NOT because these men were doing what was right in God’s eyes rather than man’s eyes? Were any of these battles unjust?

I’m going to try to condense and briefly share our David vs Goliath story. Then I’m going to share about one currently going on, and ask you to consider supporting a registered nurse in her battle.

Our David vs Goliath event happened in 2011. We were set to have a medical procedure done for our 18 year old special needs daughter. The doctors and surgeons had advised on the issue. The option was carefully considered, the pros and cons had been weighed, the ramifications had been thought-out, and ultimately we made the best decision for our daughter that could be made. She was scheduled for surgery. Two days before her check-in at the hospital I received a call from The States Attorney for Disability Rights of Oregon who threatened that if we did not cancel the surgery we would be taken to court and sued (based on his threats it would’ve been for custody of our adult daughter), they would also sue the surgeons and the hospital. After questioning what business or right he had to intervene in a medical procedure, I proceeded to let him know he was messing with the wrong family and we would see him in court. My words and anger were a bit saltier than that description. I hung up.

I was shocked. I called my husband and told him what happened. I called the surgeon who told me that she had just received the same call, as well as the hospital. They had no choice but to cancel the surgery. She was shocked and apologized.

We were facing an epic sized battle.
We knew we would fight, somehow, some way.
We knew we were on the right side of this battle.
We had no money.
We knew no lawyers.

Our search led us to one of the very tall buildings in downtown Portland. My husband and I looked at each other with wide eyes as we headed up to the top floors. Yikes! We knew we could not afford where we were headed.

We had gotten the name of this lawyer from a friend of a friend who hoped that attorney could put us in touch with an attorney who could help. That’s where we started.

We found a lawyer whose specialty was not what we were looking for. He was a patent and intellectual property litigator who agreed to take our case. He even searched for a different attorney for us with experience in this field, and found none. He took our case, not because he had the experience we needed, but because he was a seasoned litigator and this would be going before a judge. He agreed to let me do as much leg work as possible to keep the cost down. He calculated, as best he could, we would be looking at around $10,000 win or lose.

We were up front with him and told him we had no money. THAT should’ve scared him off right there. Lol.

His response was that we would worry about the money later.

Honestly, the thought of loosing, and paying $10,000 for that loss was not appealing. It really was a reason to drop this whole thing.
When faced with a battle this size one must count the cost. We did. We waged war anyway. He was hired.

The battle raged on for over a year. It was tiring. It required sacrifices be made of our time and resources. This battle required perseverance. It required that we be led by God.

The State of Oregon had to hire an attorney as required by law, to represent our daughter independently of us (even though we were her parents and legal guardians) to make sure her best interests were being served. Never-mind a judge awarded us legal guardianship at 18 years old, for the rest of her life because the judge saw that we had her best interest front and center.

Searches for pertinent documents and diagnoses, visits to a psychologist for evaluations, deciding on witness lists and even dealing with the school district who had decided to put a gag order on our daughters high school teachers so they were prohibited from discussing the case with us or our lawyer. Which meant it was subpoena time. Ugh. Why must everything in life be so difficult!

Arrangements were made by doctors, surgeons, a psychologist, teachers, and ourselves to be at court that important day. We asked certain people to be in the courtroom that day, who we knew would be praying that God would turn the heart of the judge in our favor. Family was present. We were set.

The only people who did not show up for court that day were the ones who brought the law suit to our front door! Disability Rights of Oregon did not show up. They were aware of every single process, the time, the date, the place every step of the way as made clear to the judge by our attorney when she inquired. The reason for the no show was simple… they thought it was a slam dunk and did not expect we could win. They thought they had it in the bag. No one had ever bothered to challenge them. No one ever stood up and faced this Goliath! The enemy did not count on a family that was willing to challenge their authority in this manner. The enemy did not count on God to lead this battle.

After a rocky start to the day, because the judge appeared not to like our lawyer for reasons none of us could understand… the prayers intensified. Testimony’s were given. Questions were asked. The judge at one point even cleared the courtroom of everyone but our daughter, and Jim and I, to just simply talk to our daughter and ask her questions. My husband took the stand. I took the stand and recalled a difficult incident that happened to my daughter and I about a year prior that I had not been prepared to talk about publicly. The judge asked the question, so I had to answer. It was honestly an incident that I had previously cried over and begged God “Please don’t ever let that happen again and why did this have to happen in the first place?” Now I understood why. Nooooowwww it all made sense why God allowed a difficult circumstance to happen that I had wished never would’ve happened.
It laid the foundation for our petition to the court. Wow.
(Thank goodness for a difficult circumstance that came our way with no understanding of why it happened in the first place.)

We spent that day in court with some adjustments made by our lawyer as to who testified and who didn’t, and the questions he pursued. The judge point blank asked our daughter’s attorney why Disability Rights of Oregon wasn’t present in the court room. Her response was unsatisfactory. Wow.
But you and I know why, and why she couldn’t lay out the scenario to the judge. LOL.

As we left the courtroom that night, we asked our attorney what he thought our chances were. “50/50” was his response. That wasn’t super encouraging. We asked if he would ever take a case like ours again?
He answered, “Nope.” It was a big ask. LOL

The judge had made it clear she would not render her opinion for a couple months. A couple months? Wow! So, we began to hurry up and wait.

We got the call on Dec 24, 2012 as we were in the process of boarding a plane to Michigan to spend the holidays with my husband’s family.
Our lawyer said, “I know you are about to board, just download the judge’s ruling and read it inflight. We won!” Click. We boarded the plane in celebration. We spent the next few hours reading and re-reading the judges decision. We won. David beat Goliath in a battle we were never supposed to win.

The decision was in our favor and the Judge cited a few laws including a law right out of the United States Constitution.

Our next conversation with our attorney involved him letting us know that The States Attorney for Disability Rights of Oregon was not happy about the ruling. He said the judge misapplied the law. He made it known they would appeal. Ugh.
That meant more battle and more money we didn’t have.

We knew right then, we would continue to fight no matter what.

Then a miraculous phone call came in only hours later.

The States Attorney (after speaking with the attorney for our daughter who WAS present in the court room) decided not to pursue an appeal. They concluded by letting our lawyer know that if he ever tried a case like this again they would in fact be in the courtroom! HA! Sounded a little like an intimidation tactic.

So much more could be said, but I’ve gone on much longer than you wanted me to. LOL.

I will conclude by adding that the total cost of this court case ended up with an invoice totaling $18,000. Even with all my leg work to help. Our hearts sunk. Wow. It was even higher than anticipated.

Our attorney called us himself to relay the total cost. He had not asked for a payment through the whole process. The conversation with our lawyer that day went like this, “The total cost ended up higher than we thought. It is $18,000. I’m only going to charge you $10,000 because that was the price I gave you in the beginning.” Wow. In a matter of 1 minute the price went down $8,000. We were grateful.

We made monthly payments, that the attorney let us choose the amount of. God provided monthly and we made every single payment in full, and on time.
Our final conversation with the lawyer went something like this, “Hi there (Mr. Attorney), I’m making our last payment today and wanted thank you once again, for helping us win this case…” yadda yadday… I said.
His response was, “I wish all my clients were like you. I have million dollar clients and I can’t get them to pay their bills…”

It wasn’t just our reputation on the line, it was God’s reputation. He led the battle. He saw us enter it. He saw us through it. He made sure we could pay the bill. God won.

I’m telling you this story because another story landed on my radar today. Well, I read about it previously about a month or so ago. A lady I have only met online briefly in a comment section to encourage her to stand and fight, and she probably doesn’t even remember me, shared her story in an attorney’s blog on a substack I read daily. Coffee & Covid by Jeff Childers. My request on this substack is unrelated to Coffee & Covid or Jeff Childers in any way.

Rebecca is a registered nurse. She was asking for advice because she has been accused of withholding Remdesivir (used in hospitals) to a patient at a Texas hospital. She shared her story to us readers at that point. She advocates for her patients. She puts them first. She is innocent of the charges brought by the Texas Board of Nursing. If they are successful and find she is guilty she will pay a substantial fine, have to take their remedial training, supervision for one year and unable to be self-employed. She has recently opened a functional medicine/integrative health practice. In Texas there is no defense for nurses. She hasn’t even been allowed to see the evidence against her yet.

She needs $2000 for her defense, to get started.

We know what this battle is like. It is grueling. It takes sacrifice. It takes time. It takes grit and determination. It takes money.

This nurse is standing up for not just herself, but other good nurses who are being accused by a corrupt medical board who just want to continue their lying narrative that has cost so many their lives. Doctors and nurses were hero’s, until they weren’t. The ones who aren’t hero’s now are the ones who actually stood up for what was right. The ones who spoke up against the medical establishment and tried to do right by their patients.

We will stand for what is right. We have a proven record that we will fight. We will not bow down to word gymnastics and narratives just because the powers that be say so. We will do right in the eyes of God no matter the consequences.

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway - John Wayne

WE DONATED.

Rebecca's Legal Fees

If you made it this far into a very long post today, THANK YOU!
Click the link “Rebecca’s Legal Fees” and read her story in give send go.

She is saddling up anyway.

I would respectfully ask you to consider whether or not you can afford even a small donation of $10. If you can afford more, then please bless this woman who is fighting on the front lines of the covid fraud. You can donate anonymously or leave a name to be shown. You can also leave her a message to encourage her.

Few can do some, many can do much.

As individuals we can only do so much. None of us can afford thousands. But many of us can afford $10. If 200 of us give only $10 this woman will know the people are behind her. Her courage will be contagious to those that still need to stand up and fight. Collectively we can move the needle.

Her page just started this morning with nothing. It is rising. Go check it out!

Thank you so much for sticking with this today,

I appreciate your support!

Shannon

Courage is Contagious!