A Jupiter man who was told he wouldn’t live past 2003, is still moving.
”I run a 10k a day just to start the day off right,” said Todd Shoemaker, a cancer survivor, modern-day abolitionist and author.
He’s endured a lot. He’s battled four serious medical ailments and was forced into retirement as a juvenile correction’s manager, but what he hasn’t lost is his faith and endurance.
”Definitely my life changed out of the blue with a cancer diagnosis, with the Parkinson’s diagnoses — really each of the diagnoses,” he said.
On the outside he was 112-pounds with tubes and a voice box. And on the inside a possible identity crisis.”I think if you put your identity in your career — how much money you make, what kind of home you live in, what kind of car you drive, all that can be taken away in minutes,” he said. All taken away but what he gained was renewed purpose.
”If you can find your purpose in the storm it helps you get through the storm,” Shoemaker said. Shoemaker says that purpose was helping men facing life changing*adversity persevere through crisis, fighting social injustices and running 300 marathons to prove miracles happen.
”I always saw myself as the marathon runner. I never saw myself as the sick guy dying,” he said. In 2019, Shoemaker wrote a book about it entitled, The Blessed Overcomer: The Crazy Beautiful Journey of Todd & Laura Shoemaker.
”The book gave us an audience,” Laura said. “It’s a tool to encourage others who are struggling with a wide range of life’s struggles. It provides hope and encouragement to couples as they read our story. We were blessed with endurance.”
Yet some readers didn’t think that was good enough. Like Tim Popadic, the executive producer of the documentary Dead Man Running: The Todd Shoemaker Story.
“If you read the book you’re missing out on the rest of the story as the news would say,” Popadic said. ”There’s so many folks who have never witnessed a miracle. Even folks in ministry who have said we’ve had faith all of our lives we’ve never actually seen someone be healed. And Todd is a walking representation of someone whose been healed.”
The documentary is so inspiring it recently received five nominations from the Christian Filmmakers Network’s Content 2021 Film Festival and News Media Summit to include Best Christian - Freedom from Bondage/Recovery/Forgiveness, Best Documentary (over 60 minutes), Best Documentary Storytelling and Best Documentary Director and Best Documentary Cinematography.
“We do want to spread the gospel — that is our number one mission,” said Tim Shields, Content 2021 Film Festival and News Media Summit co-director.
“We have to bring the truth to media. And we have to bring solutions. We need to be part of the solutions.” Shields says the core values of the festival and summit includes positively influencing community and culture.
“We do believe in using media to influence our culture there’s no question about it. I think all we have to do in 2021 is look back to 2020 and we see that media had a massive impact on our culture,” he said.
The Content 2021 awards happens in the Fort Worth area Sept. 9, during the film festival and summit which happens Sept. 6-10 at Capernaum Studios.
It will also be live streamed. Shields says both nominees and audiences will leave spiritually renewed."The Chosen TV Series", "Oak Cliff Bible Church with Tony Evans and Kirk Franklin", "Washington's Armor Movie" were recently filmed at Capernaum Studios. To learn more visit, here.
To learn more about the documentary Dead Man Running: The Todd Shoemaker Story visit, here.
