The Accident that Changed My Heart
Sometimes bad things happen to good people and we wonder why. Paul wrote, ” All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28. Sometimes God allows accidents to happen because we are too busy with our own lives and not taking time to listen to Him so that we can get direction and guidance from Him. The accidents may come because that is the only way we will stop and listen to God. In this true story this is exactly how a lady, Heather, describes the consequences of her accident.
Heather was out on the lake one sunny day boating with her husband. She stood up to move to the other side of the boat and just at that moment the boat jostled from the wake of another large boat that had passed by them quickly. She lost her balance and fell into the water. Her husband circled the boat around to come back to pick her up and was heading straight towards her, but something went wrong; the boat’s steering cable jammed, making it impossible for him to turn to avoid her. He was heading straight towards her.
Heather now tells of her own experience:
I watched hopelessly as the boat headed straight for me. In a split second the propeller sliced into my face and right arm like a butcher’s cleaver carving a prime rib.
The next thing I was aware of was someone in white cutting my throat to perform a tracheotomy. I felt no pain, only numbness. But I distinctly heard one doctor say, ” Every bone in her face is broken. Her brain has got to be damaged. From all that force hitting her there’s just no way her brain could have escaped.”
I wanted to shout, ” No, it isn’t.” But I couldn’t talk. Yes, every bone in my face was broken. My eye sockets were crushed, leaving my eyes without support. A portion of my upper lip was cut away. My chin bone was split in half. My mouth was almost entirely gutted except for my tongue.
For three days I lay in intensive care in that hospital in Panama City, Florida. My condition was too critical for surgery. No visitors were allowed, but more than a hundred travelled from my small hometown of Enterprise, Alabama, just to ask about me. Prayer vigils were set up in several states. I lay like a corpse; yet everything in me fought to survive.
I was airlifted to a hospital in Birmingham. When I drifted out of my coma, I felt unbearable pain. Finally, five days after I arrived, I was wheeled into the operating room for thirteen hours of surgery.
Seven more times in the next two months I went back under the surgeon’s knife. I was plagued by pain and more pain. The doctors used my bone fragments and plastic plates to reconstruct cheekbones; they inserted plastic eye sockets to hold my eyes, placed a splint in the top of my mouth, and implanted seventeen teeth into my gums. In the final surgery, they bored holes in my forehead and inserted wires to hold my face in place. Staring in the mirror, I was horrified at the sight: a woman with metal wires like antennae sticking in the air. My face was distorted beyond recognition. ” My career as an interior decorator is ruined,” I wept. Why had God allowed this to happen? I felt so sorry for myself.
When I was released to go home for a while, my daughter patiently squirted liquids through a syringe into my mouth. One day when I complained, she told me to be thankful for soup; it was keeping me alive.
All of a sudden I saw how ungrateful I had been. Over the next four months I had plenty of time to think about my life and realize my priorities had been wrong. My days had been full of activity, but empty of meaning. I thought a lot, too, about God, but I didn’t know how to contact Him.
Finally, I was on my way back to Birmingham to get the wires removed. The procedure went as planned, but doctors determined that my appendix was on the verge of rupturing. More surgery, and then my intestines quit functioning. Tubes were put back down my nose. IV’s were started in both arms. This pain was worse than any I had experienced before. As waves of nausea rolled over me, I begged God to let me die, just like Elijah had prayed in the desert to let God allow him to die. God did not grant Elijah any reprieve, nor did He give me reprieve from my suffering either.
My husband, Harold, left the room and returned with a large Bible. ” Why?” I wondered. We had a Bible that we took to church. Why sit and read to me here in the hospital when I am in so much pain, I won’t retain anything.
But Harold started reading and he read for hours. Some passages comforted me ‘especially Jesus’ words ” In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you… I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” John 14:2, 6. Suddenly I saw it: Jesus was my way to God, the only way. He had prepared a place in heaven for me. While the words offered comfort, they did not ease my excruciating pain.
The next morning I was still pleading silently with God to let me die in peace. I didnt tell Harold about my secret desire, but later that day, I had let it slip without meaning to. He hadn’t left me for a few days, but now he needed to go out for shaving supplies. ” Be good to the children when Im gone,” I whispered as he walked towards the door.
He pivoted around, with hurt etched in his deep blue eyes. ” You cant give up now, Heather. You’ve come through too much. Mrs. Cross, a lady down the hall, isnt expected to live. But you are. You are going to live.
Just as I asked God one more time to take my life, Mrs. Evans, a nurse came in and bathed me. She was humming a song I remembered from childhood: ” God Will Take Care of You” — ” Through every day.”
As she hummed, the room filled with light that seemed to penetrate through me. I could feel the presence of Jesus. He was so real, so personal there with me. ” Oh, dear God,” I managed to whisper, ” forgive my selfishness.” I had a sudden inner drive to live, to see each one in my family know the Lord and His presence just as I was experiencing Him at the moment.
Awed by what was happening, I prayed again but changed my plea. ” Lord, if you let me live, I will spend the rest of my life living for you.” There was no bargaining, no more begging Him to remove the pain, no more wishing to die.
Over the next few hours, my pain and nausea left. I started having a lively conversation with the nurse, who was so surprised to see me so animated. The tube placed in my abdomen to pump out poisons was removed the next morning. The IVs were soon gone too, and nurses’ aides began walking me up and down the hall.
Two days later I had an urge to go pray for the woman down the hall, Mrs. Cross. Harold had said she was dying; her fever was so high she was packed in ice. But I had never prayed aloud for anyone. What would she think of me? For six hours I fought an inward voice that whispered, ” Go pray for her.”
?Finally, I threw the covers back and inched myself out of bed. Clinging to the sides of the walls, I shuffled slowly down to her room. A sign on the door read: ” Family Only,” But that didn’t stop me. Pushing the door open, I tiptoed over to her bed and laid my hand on her knee. She opened her eyes.
” I would like to pray for you,” I explained.
” Oh, thank you,” she whispered, ” no one is praying for me.”
” Lord Jesus, I don’t know how to pray for this lady. But will you please heal her if it is your will?” I didn’t know what else to pray because I had never heard anyone pray for a miracle before.
The next morning when the nurse came to take my vital signs, she was obviously excited. ” Mrs. Cross’s doctors are amazed at her rapid recovery. She’s going to be fine.” I uttered a silent prayer of thanks.
Mrs. Cross went home two days later. She may have had a miracle. But I definitely did as well! I went home with wires removed from my face and with the crust removed from my heart. I was now more sensitive to other people’s needs and less focused on my own.
It had been twenty-five years since my boating accident. My face will never be whole – not in this life. But I am glad to be alive! Through my sufferings, I discovered a personal Lord who cares about me. He has straightened out my priorities. I no longer am too busy for God, my husband, my children, or neighbours. Moreover, my own metamorphosis prompted a change in my husband and four children. They have all turned their hearts towards Him.
Today I can thank God for the accident. He cared enough about me to stop me in my tracks and turn me around – placing my feet in the right direction.