I Believe Everything Happens For a Reason
I believe everything happens for a reason. The number one life changing event that I can use as an example is my accident, which left me a paraplegic.
Before the accident, I was a 21-year-old, single mother of 1 beautiful little girl, but I was not yet mature and "settled" so to speak. I also had no real direction in life. I was still in the "Where's the next party" fr
In January of 2002, that all came to a standstill. I was in a coma for nearly 3 months, was a paraplegic, and I was holding onto life by a thread. It was a miracle that I was even alive.
The first year after the accident was even worse. Even though I was out of the hospital and gaining my strength and learning to live life from a wheelchair, I was emotionally dying inside. All I could think about was getting my old life back..the one that I was living when i could walk. I was not at all thinking, maybe there was a reason this happened to me...a reason much bigger than the here and now..maybe a reason for the future.
It wasnt until, the year anniversary of my accident, when I found out that I was pregnant with my second daughter, that I began to pull myself above water from drowning in my own self-pity. Now, I not only had the daughter I had before the accident, but another innocent life that was going to be solely my responsibility. I realized, I had so much more to live for then what I had been living for when I could walk. Slowly, things started to come into perspective for me...very slowly.
Here I was, almost two years post-injury, with two of the most beautiful little angels that I had ever imagined seeing..and they were my children. I sat one day thinking about my past and their future..our future. I realized, that God was trying to tell me something...show me something. Before the accident, I already had one daughter who honestly was not my number one concern...my number one concern had been myself. I did not want my children growing up and thinking that they were not the most important things in the world to me. Nor did I want them to grow up and make the same mistakes that I had made, and become the same weak person, to create a cycle. I wanted them to be strong independent, productive and confident women. Ones who would not only make me proud, but women that will make themselves proud. I had to overcome all of my obstacles in life and show them, not only do they not need anyone but themselves and a loving family to make their dreams come true, but that they can also do anything that they wanted to..anything is possible.
I am so thankful now, that this happened to me..and when I tell people that my accident and paraplegia are blessings, they look at me like I am crazy. But I mean it with everything in my soul, because it has helped me grow stronger as an individual, as a mother, and as a woman. It has opened so many doors of opportunity to me, to share my testimony..and to some of the most important people we will ever meet in our lives, our children. I know now that if I can make it as far as I have made it, emotionally, physically, and mentally [haha] that I can conquer and do anything that I want. Not only do I know this, but my children know this and they will understand more and more as they grow and mature. My now 9 year-old daughter [my oldest] already shares my story with children that she meets, and even some adults, and she tells it with such pride and confidence. That is so encouraging to me, because I know that she, and her sisters, will always take that with them, and like I said, it will just make more sense to them as they grown and experience their own trials and triumphs. They have me, their very own mother, that has succeeded in some of life's biggest challenges, and raised them by myself, to prove to them and the world and myself that anything truly is possible.
"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"~Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia)
