In that moment, that very brief time in the car, as I lay still, I had no idea what I or my family was about to face and Who I was about to face. You know they say your life flashes right before your eyes as you narrowly escape death? Well, in hindsight, I think you reevaluate your life. I know for me, I've been given the blessing of viewing things as temporal.
Life is short, period, dot, end of thought. Why do we waste so much of our time and energy holding grudges and harboring hate in our hearts. The likelihood that you are one of those people with the dreamy childhood is far from what the rest of us experienced. I'd like to deal with this issue first, as it is the most difficult for me to disclose, but I feel it is definitely worth the effort.
Childhood for me is compartmentalized. I led a double life as a small child. In fact, my family led a double life. My father is an alcoholic. He was a practicing alcoholic until July of 1981, and he has been sober since. I had much to forgive him for and God made a way. I was abused for the most of my childhood, but God made a way for me to forgive my abuser. For those of you that grew up with a parent in addiction, abuse, or neglect, I want to assure you that forgiveness can and will come to you if you pray and ask God to give it to you. I am living proof!
The problem with childhood abuse is that it skews your perception of how things are supposed to be. Your friends and their families act much differently than how your family operates and instinctively you know, you KNOW, that something is wrong! When I said that I compartmentalized, I put all the "bad" things that occurred in a box in my mind and shoved it as far back in the recesses as I possibly could and only opened it when I had to deal with "bad" things. Praise be to God that He has taken that "box", opened it with me and has shown me the "pearls" that have developed as a result of the "bad" times as a child. God wants to reveal to you the tiny grains of sand that infiltrated your life; that became irritants and have left you scarred. Open that box and examine the irritant, the abuse, the neglect. God will walk through the process with you if you invite Him to show you how He can use that pearl for His glory.
I think we were able to separate the things happening to us so much so that when we were placed in public, we knew what to say and what not to say. Many of us carried that trait into adulthood. We only let people see that part of us that is "all put together". I say to you, if you are that person, fall on your face before God and trust Him to replace the pain and facade with healing and realness. That's what makes us pliable in His hands. We MUST become like putty in the Master Potter's hand.
So, you ask,"What does all this have to do with the wreck and paralysis?", well, remember I said that when I regained consciousness immediately after the crash and all I heard was the hissing of the engine? I know God protected me from hearing my children crying. He knew that I would not have been able to keep an ounce of sanity had I heard my babies crying. However, they were crying. I was in a rehab hospital for four months following the wreck and one night I awoke to hearing my babies screaming! I know that was God opening a little box in my mind where that had been stored until I could deal with it. At that point, my family was staying with me pretty much all day and night. I knew they were okay now, but God showed me that He spared me that mental anguish of hearing their screams and being helpless to comfort them.
It may be that God was protecting my mind when I was a child just as He did while I lay there in that car. I can't be sure, but what I am sure of is that He has helped me to see the good that has come from being a wounded child. "WHAT?!" I can hear the questions now. Yes, what Satan intended for harm, God has turned to good. And, He'll do it for you, too.
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