[Thanks to Only Positive News reader James for sending us this inspiring story! We're always grateful for suggestions such as these, so keep 'em coming!]

Claire Lomas approaches the London Marathon finishing line in her ReWalk bionic suit. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

A paralysed woman has become the first person to complete a marathon in a bionic suit.

Claire Lomas finished the London Marathon 16 days after the race began. The 32-year-old said she was “over the moon” as she completed the 26.2-mile route, which she started on 22 April with 36,000 other participants.

The former chiropractor was in tears as she became the first person to complete any marathon using a bionic ReWalk suit at 12.50pm on Tuesday.

Hundreds lined the streets as she made her final steps to complete the race. Three mounted members of the Household Cavalry gave her a guard of honour as she crossed the finishing line on the Mall.

A spokeswoman for the mounted regiment said the riders were there to give Lomas “extra support because she is passionate about horses”.

Read more about this inspiring first!

There’s something particularly inspiring when a young person saves the day. It gives us a glimpse into his or her burgeoning character and makes us feel confident that soon enough, we’ll have a full-fledged adult capable of changing the world.

More than two dozen horses are alive thanks to the efforts of a courageous 15-year-old who sprang into action when she saw flames in the stables.

“I started off by just putting their halters on and pulling them out by twos, but then the fire started getting quicker so I just started wrapping their ropes around their necks and just tying them around my arms and pulling them out,” Madison Wallraf recalled.

The Wednesday evening fire at the M&R Overlook Farms in suburban McHenry, Illinois raged for about two hours.

With no hydrants, water had to be trucked in to fight the blaze that consumed the 25,000 square-foot metal barn.

Wallraf described how she crawled through the aisle to rescue the frantic horses as flames flanked her and smoke filled the space to about three feet off the floor.

“I got kicked in the shoulder by one of the horses in there and I got knocked down a few times, but my adrenaline was so high at the time that it didn’t phase me,” said the 4-foot, 10-inch teen.

Ultimately, 16 horses died. Three more escaped.

An aerial search Thursday morning using thermal imaging was called off by midday, and it’s hoped the horses will return.

“We know they’re out in the woods, we just dont’ know where,” said McHenry Township Fire District Chief Tony Huemann.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Source: KSBY.com

We’ve all heard of the concept of karma and perhaps many of us have experienced it, to one degree or another. But sometimes, it happens within hours, even minutes, as this story highlights:

Victor Giesbrecht, 61, of Winnipeg, stopped his pickup along an interstate highway in western Wisconsin to help two stranded women change a flat tire. Minutes later, his life was in their hands.

Sara Berg, of Eau Claire, Wis., and her cousin, Lisa Meier, were headed home Saturday night on Interstate 94 when they “heard an awful noise.” They were somewhere between Menomonie and Eau Claire when they pulled to the side of the road with a flat tire — something neither knew how to fix. Meier’s husband was on his way to help when Giesbrecht, who was driving by with his wife, Ann, showed up and asked whether they needed help.

“We were so grateful,” Berg said. “Nowadays, nobody ever really stops to offer their help. It’s kind of scary sometimes, because you really don’t know what you’re getting into.”

Find out what happens next!

If you could turn your hardship into an article of clothing or a piece of jewelry, what would it look like? Would you wear it with pride? Would you share it with others? What would the message be? One young woman found out:

When Grace Freeman was eight months old, civil war forced her family, which included her mother and three siblings, to flee their native Liberia and resettle in a camp in Ghana that was home to some 47,000 refugees.

Grace wanted to go to school but it wasn’t free and her family had no money to send her. So they struck up a deal with a local woman: Grace could live with her and go to school but, in return, would have to do all of the housework.

The 7-year-old left her entire family behind in the refugee camp to move in with this woman who promised her an education. It wasn’t too long after, however, that Grace discovered she essentially had been sold into slavery.

She never got to attend school and, instead, was awakened as early as 3 a.m. to do a list of chores that it would take a normal adult a week to complete. She was beaten regularly.

One day 11 years later, an 18-year-old Grace was outside working her way through a pile of laundry when she heard a voice intoning her name, telling her, “Grace, go inside.” Though she knew she risked a beating by leaving her work, the internal guidance was too strong to ignore.

She trusted her instincts and entered the house, only to find her United Nations identification card on the table, documents her captor had hidden years earlier in order to claim Grace was her daughter and keep her as a slave.

Grace snatched up the documents and ran to a neighbor’s house, begging the neighbor to hide them for her until she escaped. This act of bravery resulted in a beating that almost ended Grace’s life.

But it also marked a new beginning.

Using the ID card, Grace was able to escape and eventually was reunited with her family. Through her twin brother Gabriel, Grace became involved in The Strongheart Fellowship Program, a non-profit that gives young people who have been displaced or orphaned by conflict a safe place to heal, a chance to get an education and, hopefully, return to their communities to become leaders. As part of the program, all participants design a product or a service. Grace, along with fellow Strongheart Lovetta, chose to create a piece of jewelry that is part  self-expression, part fund-raiser.
Read more here.

Whether metaphorically or literally, singing is a beautiful way of expressing yourself. So let your heart sing out or sing your favorite song proudly. Let these quotes inspire you to sing today. Sing like you just don’t care.

My heart is like a singing bird.
Christina Rossetti

I spent many years laughing at Harry Secombe’s singing until somebody told me that it wasn’t a joke.
Spike Milligan

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade.
Rudyard Kipling

Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.
Zora Neale Hurston

My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mind, and behold, all things are changed!
Anne Sullivan

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
Bertrand Russell

Nothing I have done professionally will top the feeling I got when singing with John Farnham at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
Olivia Newton-John

Singing is the love of my life, but I was ready to give it all up because I couldn’t handle people talking about how fat I was.
Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/singing_2.html#ixzz1nmobtYjx

There are always heroes, great and small. That’s because human nature prevails and we do what we need to do to help others. We often think it’s a rarity but it’s happening at this moment, all over the world. It may not be monumental in task, but it is in spirit.

Robert George said the ice has been thin this mild winter on the pond near his house off Third Lake, where children are normally able to skate and play hockey in a normal February.

But on Thursday, that ice gave way when four young people ventured out, and George was among the Mariner’s Cove residents who suddenly found themselves in rescue mode.

In fact, George ended up taking an unscheduled swim.

“I was working on the computer and my kids came in yelling that someone fell through the ice,” George said. “So I ran out, dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants, and saw that two of them were out a ways and two others were closer, and there were some adults trying to throw them a rope.”

That rope just happened to be in the garage of Izabela Stepien, who also responded to the call for help.

“My neighbor was screaming that some kids were in the pond, so I went and grabbed the rope, which luckily was hanging in the garage. We use it during the summer for tubing,” Stepien said. “By the time we got out there, the smallest one was able to crawl out on his own, but we had to throw the rope to two of them and pull them out.”

Read more at ChicagoSunTimes.

We all get lost sometimes. Metaphorically and literally. How you survive during that period is key to your survival. This family figured out how to keep alive in the Oregon woods and make it through to tell the tale.

PORTLAND, Ore. – A family of three huddled on the edge of an old-growth Oregon forest for six days, lost and cold, unable to signal search helicopters flying low and slow overhead.

Without food, water or even warm clothing, Belinda and Daniel Conne, along with their 25-year-old son, Michael, survived by drinking water from streams and taking shelter in a hollowed-out tree.

On Saturday, they managed to crawl to a clearing, where a search helicopter spotted them several miles outside the community of Gold Beach, roughly 330 miles south-southwest of Portland.

“It’s a miracle, really,” Curry County Sheriff John Bishop said.

The three were airlifted to a Gold Beach hospital, where Bishop spoke with them at an emergency room. He said the Connes told him they could see search helicopters just a few hundred feet above them while they were lost but had nothing to signal them with through the thick, coastal forest vegetation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/05/family-lost-for-6-days-found-alive-in-oregon-forest/#ixzz1li45D9wS

This story is a testament to the human soul and the mind’s capacity for resilience and creativity. Truly amazing. 

Survivor, Thriver

King spent 29 years in solitary confinement in a six-by-nine-foot cell at Angola Louisiana State Penitentiary.

King was convicted of robbery in 1969 despite the testimony of the main witness who admitted he picked King out of a lineup after being tortured.

King escaped from the Orleans Parish Prison and joined the Black Panther Party in New Orleans—five years after the federal government passed the Civil Rights Act.

He was recaptured within weeks of his escape and sent to Angola, then considered the bloodiest prison in America, in the spring of 1972 where he met Black Panthers Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace in solitary confinement.

They became informally known as the “Angola 3.”  Woodfox and Wallace remain in solitary confinement, while King was released on time served in February 2011.

King learned the power of creative, physical activity while he was in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR), also known as extended lockdown, at Angola.

Unlike the other living spaces on Angola’s 18,000-acre prison grounds, the CCR cells did not have a slot for passing food to inmates.  King had to eat from his plate through the bars while the plate was on the floor or while he balanced the plate in mid-air.

As a solution, King built a cardboard food tray and hung it from strings outside his cell. “All the guys began to do it.  Some guys got creative about it. They drew pictures on their trays. They covered them in table clothes. We had fun with it,” King says.

They also made chess boards out of tissue paper.  They fastened sixty-four tissue squares to their concrete floors with toothpaste to make chessboards. They made expertly sculpted tissue paper rooks and kings.

Read more at Gimundo.

I found this bittersweet video last night while surfing and wanted to share it with you. Riley, a young girl, talks about the limitations of marketing for little boys and girls…and hits home some pretty big truths.

I hope you enjoy it and happy Monday all!

Little Girl Gets Mad about Pink Toys

Babies have been born in strange places. (Hey, you can’t always dial up birth, right?) This is a story that shows, as humans, even small humans, we persevere and adapt.

Mother Anna Liza Tumanda smiles as her children Edmar, left, and Vorach, right, play with their five-day-old baby sister Aizee at an evacuation center Thursday Dec. 22, 2011 in Cagayan De Oro city, southern Philippines. Mother Anna Liza gave birth to baby Aizee on the roof of a medical center after they were rescued by police. Their house were totally destroyed.

Source: Day Life