A couple of weeks ago, we posted a giveaway contest for free DVDs of “Beyond the Gates.” The question was “What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make?”–and you responded with stories of gut-wrenching, heart-breaking life choices that make our decision about who should win anything but easy. Still, we’ve chosen four winners to receive the free DVDs:
1) Karen writes of her son’s devastating accident, when she was forced to sign consent forms for extreme medical procedures, including amputations:

As the days went on, they continued to take further drastic actions to save his life. I signed more consent forms, but the hardest part was literally having to write “Yes” and sign my initials on my child’s leg in black marker. In the doctor’s words, “Try to save the limb or save the child.” It’s just my experience, but it was the greatest moral dilema of my life. I haven’t been the same since, but I thank God my son is alive today.

2) Barbara had to make the decision to live a complete life after a horrendous attack:

The hardest decision I ever had to make was to decide to live and not hide after I was abducted, raped and then set on fire by 3 men on Halloween night in 1996. It was really hard to endure the pain, all the therapies, and the new look of myself. It also was very hard to forgive the men who did this to me. I have found that I can be a blessing to others and people overlook my scars and physical problems.

3) Linda, already widowed, decided she needed to tell her son to leave home because he was addicted to drugs and resistant to all her attempts to help:

I was watching my son die before my eyes. One day I had had all I could stand and told him to leave. Just take what he could carry and go. That I wasn’t going to watch him kill himself and he wouldn’t stop so I felt I had no choice. He floundered for about a year then he entered the service. That didn’t work well for him but he isn’t doing drugs anymore and has a job and a future! Praise God!

4) Nicole was faced with the devastating news that her baby had a terrible disease. Doctors offered little hope and left the choice to her:

We told the doctors to stop all life saving procedures and her father held her in his arms as she quietly passed on into the arms of angels. Her father and I now have a 2 1/2 month old little boy, but I still think of and miss my little angel girl everyday. I often think of what she would be like now, what she’d look like and how she would interact with her little brother and older sisters.

Read all the heart-breaking and inspiring entries here.