my story is a stoooooory. hard, terrible, glorious, heartache, triumph, sad, weary, long, desperate, dependent, alone, torn, tragic, together- but most of all and most importantly- redeemed.
i grew up with a typical american family. a dad, mom, sister, and brother. my dad: a man of perseverance, integrity, and deep love and affection for his family. my mom: a woman striving to serve, love, and honor her husband and family in the day to day. we lived in suburbia and did the suburban life well. life was good.
i remember laying in bed one night as an eighth grader and asking myself, 'is this it? is life about surviving and the daily grind and that's all? are you sure there's not more for me?' we went to church and i gave my whole heart to Jesus at 12, but i was doing some healthy testing of what i knew to be normal.
don't get me wrong, i was happy. how could i not be? but i was questioning, challenged, and thirsty for something more. i know now that i was thirsty to know deeply the heart of my God and to walk daily in radical abandonment to His call on my life. but i had no idea what the journey was going to look like to get me there.
the journey is a long one.
one summer evening before my ninth grade year, my parents decided to take a quick ride around the neighborhood on my dad's new motorcycle. not out of the norm for my parents at all. nobody's quite sure what happened, but they were in a terrible accident. just a couple of miles from my house. they were careflighted to a major trauma hospital in dallas.
i'll get into how i felt about all of this later.
the prognosis was bad. my dad had a torn aorta, a collapsed lung, and several other serious concerns in his chest. my sweet mom had a very serious head injury. she had emergency surgery where they repaired a lot of her skull but told us there was definite brain damage. my dad's condition could improve with a surgery, but he had to get stronger first to be able to withstand the surgery. they were both in a coma- my dad's medically induced to regulate his blood pressure to keep his aorta in tact, and my mom's due to major trauma and swelling of her brain. i never spoke to my daddy again.
over the next few months, my dads condition never improved- so they were never able to do the surgery. his poor heart got tired and his body was done. my dad began his face to face journey with Jesus about a month and a half after the accident.
meanwhile, my mom is still in a coma. she's alive and stable, but we were being told that this could be her lifelong state.
i am fourteen. fourteen and scared. fourteen and still freaking out about when i'm going to get my braces off. fourteen and spending an hour perfecting my aim profile so people would think i was cool- giving all of my friends their due shout out. fourteen and sassy, mean, and selfish. none of those realities changed. in fact, they were magnified because they were my way of running from what stood before me.
oh, but He loved on me. i was cared for in every way by the Father. He held me and carried me. His Spirit comforted me and gave me supernatural peace. it was reality, but He was more real. i stood confident that regardless of the circumstance- He was good. the only way that any of this happened was by the manifest presence and grace of God on me. oh, i was broken. i had absolutely nothing to give and sometimes, well lots of times, i was angry. i was frustrated. i was annoyed that my perfect life was interrupted by something so terrible and now all of my 'perfection' was gone.
that was hard to write. but as a fourteen year old, it's how i felt. it just reminds me of how badly i need Him.
and we kept walking. because it was the only thing we knew to do next. my mom woke up from her coma about three months later. it was a miracle. the doctors told us on several occasions that we should expect her to stay in her coma long-term. aka: forever. we were so grateful. He heard our cries! but waking up from a coma doesn't mean 'oh good! everything is fine now.' that's what i always thought. or i guess that's what i saw on tv. she was, and is, basically paralyzed from her waist down. she has a hard time remembering, thinking, and relating. but she's alive. and she's awake. praise the Lord! we were, and are, so grateful for this precious miracle.
i bounced around living with different people over the next couple of years and then settled down with my aunt and uncle. my mom's sister, her husband, and her four boys. they were such a blessing to me. they loved me in my confusion and in my heartache. they loved me as a selfish teenager. i still am in awe of how they managed that.
high school ended and i was blessed. i was walking with Jesus and He was being so kind to me. to say i was wholly devoted to Him might be a drastic understatement, but i loved Him and i knew without a doubt that He moved and worked. i just wasn't sure what that would look like for me.
until He showed me.
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