7 Years

It was really late...probably 3am. We had just been downtown celebrating my sweet friend's birthday. My other friend and I hopped in the car to head home when it was over. We laughed and joked as we pulled out of the dimly lit parking lot. Little did I know, my whole life was about to change.

I remember thinking, "Hmm, that's weird. The streetlights aren't facing us." But I shrugged it off and blamed it on the idiosyncrasies of downtown Orlando. I wasn't driving, what did I care?

That's when I saw it...Do Not Enter....but it was too late. We had already been driving on a one-way street for almost a mile and had just entered a strip of road that we could not escape. Like a movie...a horrible horrible movie, I watched the cars coming at us. They had just been stopped at a red light but were now accelerating at the green. Like hungry, vicious monsters they were showing no mercy.

I remember thinking, "Don't they see us??!!" But they couldn't see us. My friend had forgotten to turn her headlights on. I knew it was inevitable and pulled my knees up, grabbed a hold of my seat belt, went into fetal position, and braced myself for the head-on collision.

I always had a reoccurring nightmare in which I was in a head-on collision. But I was always the driver, and I always walked away from it without a scratch. But this was real. And when I finally regained consciousness, I took inventory of the situation. My friend was ok...asking me if I was ok. I don't even know how I was rational, but I remember telling her to call 9-1-1. She told me her phone was lost in the car somewhere. I told her my purse was right under my legs and she could get my phone in there. I remember smelling smoke as she reached down to get my purse. Then she brushed my legs and I started screaming for her not to touch me. I didn't realize until then that my legs were still bent in the same position...the air bag had deployed and somehow my legs were all discombobulated around it. That's when the shock started wearing off and the searing pain set in.

Everything happened so fast...and yet so slow all at the same time. I remember a lady driving by in her car screaming at us. She was saying something like, "What the *curse* are you doing?" I believe there was some string of explicatives spewing from her mouth as she drove away. I remember being in disbelief that she didn't even stop to see if we were alright.

That's when I saw a man with kind eyes at my window. He was asking me something...I think he was asking if I was alright...but I couldn't really hear him. I heard him fumbling at the door handle, trying to get to me. My friend had gotten out of the car and was on the other side talking to the man. I wanted him to know that I was ok so I unlocked the door for him. He opened the door as fast as he could and told me he could smell smoke...he needed to get me out of the car. But when he went to touch me, I screamed again and begged him not to touch me anymore. The pain was so great, at that point I would have rather burned in the car than have anyone make it worse.

He talked to me...kept me company until the ambulance got there. I couldn't see much outside of the car, since the front of the car was now at the windshield. But in what felt like 3 seconds, the ambulance was there and all of a sudden there were people everywhere. Talking to me...asking me questions. One man behind me with a board and another woman next to me. So many questions getting fired at me..."Did you bump your head? Where does it hurt?" I wanted them to just leave me alone. Just get me out of this car so I could lay down. How could I know if I hit my head or not? I had blacked out.

They finally extracted me from the car and cut my favorite dress pants up to the knee on both legs. I begged them not to but the woman used some term of endearment to try to calm me down. I guess she thought I would find pants that fit that great again some day. (For the record, she was wrong.)

I remember being so cold in the ambulance that night. I knew even then that the stench of death was on me. I didn't need to see it on the EMT's face. I could just smell it. I remember praying at that point...finally remembering God was out there. I silently screamed at Him for leaving me. For deserting me in my weakest hour. Didn't He know that I could have died? That night in the hospital was the loneliest night of my life. Test after test. Doctors coming in to look at my foot which was now in the shape of a "V." X-Rays, an MRI, trying to pee laying down, begging the Chaplain to let me make the call to my mom so she wouldn't think I was dead. Listening to my mother's panicked voice when he finally handed me the phone...after not respecting my wishes and mumbling something about protocol.

After the dust had settled, (a few weeks later) I came out with a completely broken right foot (all the little bones inside were crushed), a damaged lisfranc joint in my right foot, broken left foot, smashed up knees (since they hit the dashboard), contusions from the seat belt and air bag, and a long road of recovery ahead of me. The doctors kept telling me it was a miracle I was alive...that I didn't have internal bleeding. I remember thinking they must be insane because I couldn't walk...wouldn't be able to for months...and I certainly didn't feel alive.

I wish I could say I didn't sink into despair after all that. I wish I could say I got closer to the Lord and I was some miracle, inspirational story. But honestly? I wasn't. I was a mess. I hated everything and everyone. I hated waking up every morning at 3am in excruciating pain...a cruel trick my body played on me every night...the same time as the accident. I hated falling on the icy deck with my crutches sprawled everywhere. I hated how everyone expected me to fight...when all I wanted to do was lay down and cry.

It's been a long 7 years. Not only have I had to rehabilitate my feet/legs/body...I've had to rehabilitate my heart. The insurance companies did their assessment on the irreparable damage done to my body and they decided I would be 7% disabled for the rest of my life. But my heart felt much more disabled than that. I didn't realize I had still been harboring bitterness about this accident until about a month or two ago. I was sitting in church...worshipping...and I remember thinking the Lord didn't really save me from anything great. Yea, I'm a sinner and I'm as bad as the worst of them...but there wasn't some pivotal moment where I was at rock bottom and needed saving. That's when I felt Him tug at my heart strings.

"7 years ago this year, I saved you from that car accident."

I had never thought of that. Honestly. Cemented in my mind was that God had abandoned me in my darkest hour...left me for dead. That I deserved that car accident. But in reality, He cushioned the blow...sent a team of kind people my way during the entire journey that took care of me and pushed me to fight. I had physical therapy specialists who knew how far they could push me before I would break, and they would always comfort me after it was over. I had friends and family that came alongside me during the journey and they took care of me...and took my crap as I healed. I had everything I needed to get through that experience. I don't even know how I didn't see it before.

God never abandoned me...He was holding my hand the whole time.

7 years later, I'm going through another life-changing experience. (Oh number "7"...there is something so important about you.) A benign tumor on my uterus...facing a massive surgery. Fighting infections in my lymph nodes. There's so much going on...but my response is so much different this time around. I know that God has not abandoned me in my time of need. I reach out for Him daily during this journey. During my last journey, I pushed Him as far away as I could.

I've changed so much in 7 years. I was just a child then. 21...thinking the world owed me something. Thinking I was in charge of my own destiny and nobody could touch me. I was invincible. But that car accident woke me up to something greater. It showed me what was important in my life...and what was just fluff. Who could stay and who would go. It showed me that maybe I didn't know everything. It showed me that I am absolutely not in control...as much as I would love to be. But what a better script He is writing. What a beautiful story to share with the world. A story that will bring us all together...that will free us.

I recently wrote this on my Facebook wall:

"I am convinced my suffering is never in vain. It rounds the sharp edges of my character and causes me to be more empathetic. For this, I am grateful. This life is not about me."

I could never have written something like that if I never suffered through anything. I didn't write that to be self-righteous...or to be a martyr. I wrote that because it was a revelation of a change in me. A change that came about because of the heartache and despair I have experienced. That I am even *gasp* grateful for now.

Maybe you're in this place right now. Something horrific has happened to you and you don't even know what to do with it. You're angry. You're hurt. You're broken. My friend, you are grieving. There is a grieving process and I fully believe in allowing that healing process to happen. Let yourself heal. Know that God can pick you up, dust you off, and put you back together again. He did it for me. No, my life is not perfect....it never will be. But we can still find joy in this life. We can still choose it, even when it hurts. Don't let your pain become your world. Set parameters for where your pain can go. Don't let it destroy your relationships...your future...your hope.

Let people in. Find good people and let them in. It will change everything.

Cheers to another 7 years.
xo,
~N