As a college freshman in my late teens, a single day changed my life forever. I fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road and suffered a devastating car accident. I lay unconscious for three weeks and woke-up to learn the extent of my injuries. I’d broken over 50 bones, lost a lot of blood and my legs had been crushed. The staff at the hospital were amazed that I survived.
The doctors performed dozens and dozens of surgeries to try and save my legs but in the end I lost them both below the knee — first one and then the other. In the years that followed as the surgeries continued to mount I had to learn to live as a double amputee. Ever since I was a little girl I loved to sing. Now I step, with artificial feet, onto the stages of the world to share the hope that continues to sustain me.
My husband Peter and I started Standing With Hope, a non-profit organization, in order to help developing countries provide better access to quality prostheses for their amputee populations. Through Standing With Hope we partnered with national prosthetic clinics in Ghana, bringing expert technicians and supplies to help meet the needs there . In June 2007 we were planning to go back again. I was so excited about the trip, but God had other plans.
A thorn in my flesh
I should have known something was up when I heard our pastor’s sermon on disappointment, just days before our trip to Africa. His message was from the Apostle Paul’s personal battle with infirmity, and whatever his “thorn in the flesh” or weakness was. Paul really struggled with not being able to go on certain mission trips due to various factors in his life. It hit hard when our pastor said that Paul’s condition in today’s terms would be like him [Paul] showing up to preach in a hospital gown with one hand holding the flaps together in the back. (I have a little experience in this area.) We all look at Paul as a hero of the faith, and rightly so, but according to history, he was rather pitiful in appearance.
I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was about to experience my own thorny struggle.
After being prepped by a powerful sermon on Sunday, Monday brought devastating news. Less than three days before our team was to leave for Africa, my doctor firmly told me I should not go on the trip. In the twenty-three years he’s treated me, he’s never told me not to do something … he usually wants me to try anything I can do.
But God, I’m willing to go
The concentration of pain medicine in my pain pump was still messed up from the overdose I had in April, which sent me to intensive care for two nights. That, along with the problems we were having regulating the blood thinner I’m taking because of pulmonary emboli, forced the situation. Many people question why I even try to go to Africa, or anywhere for that matter, when I have to deal with some of the things I face everyday. But it’s going to Ghana, to Walter Reed, and to other places that help me see purpose in some of the more difficult things in my life. The thought of getting left behind breaks my heart.
For years, my surgeon has volunteered in Peru. I asked him pointedly (like I ever ask things “un-pointedly!”) “What would your clinic do if you didn’t show up!?”
His answer was as blunt as my question. “I don’t know how to answer that… I do know that if you go, you may not come back alive, and those patients you serve in Ghana NEED for you to be ALIVE.”
To obey is better than sacrifice
“I’ll have the pain pump turned off and not use any pain medicine,” I pleaded with him. I also begged him for 24 more hours to make the decision with some new blood work, and he agreed. “Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon in my office, we’ll make the decision.”
I prayed all night and into the day that my blood work would come back great, and that he would, with certain stipulations, allow me to go. The next day at his office we discovered my lab results were worse than the day before. Unfortunately, that wasn’t all. Not only could I not go, but now I had to be on 24-hour watch …and I couldn’t even leave Nashville to go to my parents’ home in Florida for at least a change of scenery. To top it off, someone had to drive for me and check me while I slept to make sure I was breathing.
Peter and Grayson and the team were leaving in less than thirty-six hours, Peter’s parents weren’t available, and my parents were in Montana. It came down to our nineteen-year-old son, Parker, who was working for my brother-in-law in Florida. He dropped everything and rode up to Nashville to be with me. Driving me back and forth to the hospital every two days, AND sleeping on the couch in our bedroom in order to check my breathing, was not his idea of a fun way to spend any part of his summer, but he did it …and he did it with love and concern for me. He showed a true servant’s heart.
God’s purpose in my disappointment
Four days later, Dad showed up from Montana to relieve Parker. He brought a new baby monitor and an old cowbell from Montana. He even demonstrated (often) how to use the cowbell properly if I needed him for anything. It sounded like a herd of goats in my house! He told me later that he didn’t trust the cowbell or the monitor …so he’d get up and check on me every hour anyway.
Early Friday morning, I received a call and saw it was Peter’s cell phone on my caller ID. The whole team and all the workers from the clinic clustered around Peter, who put the call on speakerphone (our cell bill was a little high last month). The clinic staff wore their new lab coats we gave them, and Peter had a prayer service with them before patients were seen. He asked me to sing over the speakerphone, and for just a few moments, I was able to participate with our team from my bedroom in Nashville.
A few days later I got another call from Peter. They discovered the arm parts they took were the wrong size. The tiny parts needed to be expressed over, in order to make the arms we promised for our patients. I called our friend, Fran, at Fillauer Corporation in Chattanooga. Fran and I worked quickly, and she helped me get all of the parts necessary. We sent them late that day via DHL, who has an office in Accra, and they arrived on the last day Peter and the team were at the clinic.
God can use me right where I am
Our patient, Lateef, has two new arms and can feed himself because I was left behind. I’m still alive and getting better everyday. Others are walking and lifting new hands to praise God, and I participated in all of that …even from Nashville.
It’s painful for me, and my family, to accept some of the realities of my life, and I don’t always know why God allows certain things. I’m learning, however, that I don’t have to go and look for purpose and meaning in my difficulties. The things I deal with don’t even have to make sense to me. They make sense to God, and I trust Him. Periodically, He allows me to see things along the way that show meaning and purpose. Those moments are encouraging …but they’re only glimpses. The rest of the time, I’m stepping out on faith.
Taking my cue from the Apostle Paul who wrestled with these issues way better than me, I hold on to a portion of scripture he wrote …a scripture that sustains me ever since I gave up my first leg.
“…And He [Christ] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
