My Testimony

My Testimony

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7

In late 2018 I got a call that my father had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Our worlds shattered around the news, and it was decided we would spend the Thanksgiving holiday together. 

At 4:43 am on November 18th, my husband pulled out of the driveway in my car as my flight was at 6:00am. We lived nearby and it was only a few minutes drive. As we turned out of our neighborhood, he mumbled something about meaning to take a right hand turn, but will have to go around now.

Just then, I gasped; illuminated by the crisp bright moon, a large deer stepped out into the road. My husband slammed the brakes immediately, but something unimaginable happened and we braked into a patch of black ice. 

The compact car, a sporty little thing I’d been driving for less than a year, completely lost control and we went flying off the road, which was on a hillside, an over 300 foot drop to below. I closed my eyes. Two things washed over me tenfold, the first being the feeling of guilt. I pictured my dad waiting at the airport for me and I wasn’t showing up. But that feeling was quickly replaced with a feeling- no, the knowledge- I was going to survive. My husband had an identical experience. 

When I opened my eyes, the car was at the bottom of the drop, perfectly wedged into a corner of the 10 ft retaining wall. There was no better way we could have landed, and the fact that the car didn’t roll, or simply land inches over from where it did, which would have resulted in killing us instantly, haunted me for a long time. The EMS and fire crew that had to cut us out of the car told us both repeatedly, we were so lucky. 

We were not without injury- plenty of them, some of which are still haunting me to this very day. But as I lay in the hospital bed, I got an alert that my flight had been delayed. I couldn’t help but notice the time as I thought to myself, I can still make it to my dad. My dear husband even said it was okay if I went, as he lay in a bed with his back broken in three places. But I would never leave him like this; it wasn’t meant to be. I felt so sad about the whole situation.

We alerted our family who was able to take us home from the hospital. We got through the day, through the upset. When we got home, we found our little dog had slept in and she was sleeping like a little angel in our bed. That was a sliver of joy to see.

The next day, my parents received a call that the doctors had made a mistake when reading my dad’s scans. It wasn’t stage 4 cancer, it was stage 1, and they expected treatment to work well. He is now been in remission from lung cancer for years.

Post crash, I fell into a deep depression nearly immediately. Surviving a horrific experience should have made me feel like a superhero, but instead, it caused me to turn my life upside down. I was hit over and over with the realization I wasn’t living the life I felt led to. I was doing many things that God didn’t want. Everyone talks about God being one of love, which He is, as well as the only way we can find true peace. But it is often not spoken that God also hates things. He hates sin. And I was living with it all around me, and now, had the urgency to fix it.

I wasn’t using any of my God-given gifts or talents. I had been going job to job, following the money and better opportunities, when I had an overwhelming pull to write. I knew for a long time I was to be a writer and believe with all of my being that God had placed that on my heart from a young age. 

And though I always “identified” as a Christian, I had not dedicated my life to Christ. I do not believe if I had died, I would have gone to Heaven to spend eternity with Christ. I am not saying one can lose their salvation, as I am not the all-knowing One, but I may as well have renounced it. I had fallen away long ago, and though I would use Christianity as a way to point a finger to whatever I didn’t agree with, my entire life had blended into the gray zone. 

You either are following God, or you’re not. I wasn’t. And I thank God with all of my being for opening my eyes to that. And even living with unrepentant sin, He still comforted me during the crash, letting me know I would be okay. I was so caught up in the day-to-day life filled with things that weren’t eternal, it took a near-death experience to wake me up.

While it took me a few months to sort out my writing, I began with a small goal: I’d get up in the morning and write before work. I would listen to pastors instead of music. I was learning to put my faith and trust in God so that I may turn my life over to Him. Slowly, I began chipping away at my goals.

In the years that have followed, God has worked some straight up miracles in my life. I will share some of those jaw dropping transformations in another post I am writing about the influences of satan in modern society.

I am a forever work-in-progress. I love God and want to bring glory to Him in all that I do. I hope no one else has to go through a near death experience to wake up to the life around you like I did. But it forever changed my life for the better, and I thank him for it.