George Dennehy - Plays Guitar with His Feet!

Hi friends, I recently met this incredible guy named George and he has the most amazing testimony and story. It is so encouraging and so inspiring. I can't wait for you to hear it. Let's go check it out. Well, hello. My name is George Dennehy. I'm 28 years old and I live in Richmond, Virginia with my wife, Amanda, and my two kids. I'm just excited to share a bit of my story with you all, the viewer. I was born in Romania and born without arms and straight from birth, I was given right to an orphanage over there in Romania. Kids who are born different, kids who are born not perfect are believed to be cursed or were believed to be cursed at the time that I was born. So I was put right in this orphanage and I was neglected and kind of left alone because the nurses were afraid of me and they didn't want to take care of me, they didn't feed me or hold me and I was just left in a crib out in the back. So it was a pretty hopeless and dark situation at the beginning of my life. I was abandoned and really just left for dead, but we know that we serve a God who always has a plan and always has a purpose and is always working things together and orchestrating things for our good. On the other side of the world, he was working on the hearts and minds of a couple in the States who had three kids at the time and God was leading them to this idea of adoption, of finding a child out there in the world that needs a forever family, that doesn't have a home. Long story short, that led them to me. They saw my picture and biography in an adoption newsletter and the bio said that I was a boy who was born with no arms that desperately needs a loving family. And then it continued to say that this boy will soon die, dot, dot, dot. And it's really amazing how God filled in those dots, filled in those dots, but also connected those dots and brought my parents to me and they adopted me and made me their

son. They gave me a new name and I had this new family and this new future and this new hope. The more I grow and the more I think about my adoption, the more I see how adoption is such a perfect picture of the gospel, of having this new name, this new future, this new chance at life, because that's really what happened. My parents gave me a second chance and it's because of their adoption of me, their selfless decision to bring me into their family, that I was able to grow and overcome challenges and learn how to use my feet and learn how to just be a kid and independent. I didn't always have the best attitude. I said I can't a lot in my life and I gave up and thought I wasn't capable of doing things, I wasn't capable of achieving great things, but my parents, they always pushed me, they always encouraged me, they always believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself. I'm a big advocate of that, of believing in people, because I just think sometimes when we believe in people, when they don't believe in themselves, great things can happen. I think that's something that we can all really do. Growing up, I always went to church. My parents always brought me, us all really, to church. I grew up hearing the gospel, I grew up hearing the Bible and hearing how God loves me and God cares about me and God made me and He died for me and He does all those things for us. I grew up hearing that and it all made sense to me for a while, but then I went into middle school and I went into high school. I faced some really challenging years in those couple years of school through being bullied and being picked on and being called names. Those are really hard years in my life where it really shook my faith, it really shook me to the core where I began to question things. I began to question, is God really a loving God and how can a perfect God forget to put arms on someone? I had these really hard questions that were bringing me to a very low point in my life. I began to be very depressed and angry and just mad at God and mad at the world.

I began to really hate myself and I found myself in just a very dark pit of despair. Things really felt hopeless and things really just seemed like nothing good could come out of this. began to question myself and think, you know what, what kind of purpose can I have? You know, what can I do? I don't have any arms, how will I ever have a job? How will I ever drive a car? How will I ever raise a family or be independent or be successful or, you know, I had all these questions and I was just angry. And I kept saying, God, how could you do this to me? And, you know, at one point in this season, in this darkness that I was in, I kind of came to a crossroads where I saw the two options I had. You know, I could keep being angry and I could keep questioning God and being angry at him and just feeling sorry for myself. Or maybe there was a different way because I just want to say that being angry, being sorry for myself, throwing a pity party, that wasn't changing my circumstances. That wasn't changing anything. So I thought, you know, well, maybe there's a different way. Maybe instead of being angry at God, maybe instead of being angry at the world, maybe I can really genuinely ask God, okay, Lord, why did you make me like this? You know, why did you choose me to be born without arms?

Maybe you have some kind of purpose after all. And when my questions began to change and my pursuit of God's plan for my life really started, that's when I began to see, you know, maybe I am capable of more than I give myself credit for. You know, maybe God does have much more for me than I've been led to believe. Maybe I'm listening too much to the lies of these kids at school and really the devil and not honing in on the promises in God's word that he has a plan for my life and a purpose for my life. And really it all brought me to the blind man in John chapter nine, where Jesus says that this man was born blind so that the works of God could be seen through him in a mighty way. And, you know, I read that and heard that and immediately kind of started to connect the dots again of, you know, if God, if Jesus can use this blind man for good things and in mighty ways, then maybe Jesus can use someone like me who doesn't have arms. And then surely maybe Jesus can use someone like you in whatever challenges you might be facing, whatever struggles you might go through, maybe Jesus can use that too. And it's really when I began to lean into those truths instead of the lies that I was hearing from this other side where my life began to change, where I really felt a new confidence in myself

that I never had before. I really began to find my purpose and find my passions with music and with reaching people and just sharing what God can do when you just let go and when you just surrender. You know, cause I learned that it's ironic but surrendering can save your life. And that's what I did. And yeah, now that's kind of what I'm doing now. And that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years of my life. It's just playing music and sharing my story and sharing my life and just doing everything I can to encourage people and hopefully inspire people to really seek out what their purpose is in their life because God doesn't make mistakes and he doesn't create any one of us on accident. And whatever situations we find ourselves in, whatever dark places we sometimes go through, it's not by accident and it's not for nothing. God can use all of us and God can use any situation we're in for good. And it's always his good, which is infinitely better than what we can come up with ourselves. So yeah, go let your light shine. Well, this is a song that I wrote called Not Abandoned and it's about adoption and really that message of what adoption is. It's kind of telling a child

that they haven't been fully abandoned yet and they're not alone. And it's kind of goes with adoption for children without families and then also for us sometimes when we feel like orphans ourselves, kind of just lost and confused and really God's message to us. So this is called Not Abandoned. It's a song that I wrote called Not Abandoned and it's about adoption for children without families. It's kind of tells a child that they haven't been fully abandoned and really God's message to us sometimes when we feel like orphans ourselves. It's kind of tells a child that they haven't been fully abandoned and really God's message to us sometimes. Every hour, wondering if you'll make it out And it's kind of tells a child that they haven't been fully abandoned You've been here for as long as you can remember Trapped inside this hollow shell You're not abandoned, you're not alone There is a family that wants to make you their own You're gonna find out On this broken road, there is a pathway That's gonna lead you home, lead you home You were left in a wasteland With a voice yet to be heard You're still waiting, always fighting For a chance just to be loved Yeah, you're not abandoned, you're not alone

There is a family that wants to make you their own You're gonna find out On this broken road, there is a pathway That's gonna lead you home, you're not abandoned You're not alone, there is a savior He wants to make you his own, you're gonna find out On this broken road, there is a pathway That's gonna lead you home, you're not abandoned You're not abandoned You're not abandoned You're not abandoned You're not abandoned You're not abandoned You're not abandoned