Jessica Cox
Episode 296
30 SEP 2024
She is an author and motivational speaker who has been featured on TV shows like “Ellen” and “FOX and Friends,” and on networks such as CNN, BBC News, and National Geographic. Despite being born without arms, she is a fourth-degree black belt in taekwondo. She has participated in numerous other sports – either competitively or recreationally – including cycling, scuba diving, surfing, golf, horseback riding, and Philippines martial arts arnis / escrima. In 2011 she received the Guinness World Record for being the first person certified to fly an airplane with only their feet. She not only met Pope Benedict XVI but gave him her Guinness World Record Medal.
Notable guest quotes:
“There was no other way for us children. We were in a very profoundly Catholic household. Every Sunday, no question about it, we were in church. We said rosaries every night… It became my rock in the midst of any adversity in life.”
“It was definitely a choice at the beginning, whether I was going to be a victim of being born without both arms or whether it was just going to be something that made me different. And I think my parents really helped create that understanding that I am not a victim of anything.”
“There was always that doubt of people telling me you can’t do it, you don’t have arms, there’s no way. And sure enough, I developed this, ‘Yes I can, and I’ll prove it,’ that I can do this. With God all things are possible.”
“I had gone to the priest and asked that the priest pray to God that I be given arms. So, I did know that I was seeking out support from my own Catholic community for the understanding of why am I in this situation.”
“This is something that can be used for the greater glory of God and has continued to do that every single day of my life. And that acceptance and that really cherishing it and understanding that it may not be the way we all think of things, but it’s amazing how God will see through the challenges that we’re facing and turn them into our greatest dreams.”
“I’m a fourth-degree black belt. At one point in time, I was a state champion.”
“The circumstances again, a lot of intervention from above to make it possible for this meeting of Pope Benedict. First off, I was invited to go to Milan, Italy, to get a Guinness World Record medal for becoming a sport pilot and the first sport pilot to do so without the use of arms.”
“Afterward, the Pope meets with everyone individually and the last two people to meet him after that papal blessing is myself and my sister.”
“You have something so special and a faith so profound that you can’t help but change people around you.”
“Most recently in Kazakhstan, we found the only Roman Catholic parish in the capital… And we went in there and it was so beautiful to be able to do Mass… it was so beautiful to be a part of that. And that was just two months ago.”
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