Talent Ambianced1

Awestruck and Sanctuary

By Ambianced1 | 2007

To those who know me and are familiar with my life since the accident May 9th...you might say that my life has been a downward spiral of Job like events. Many days were too hard for me to handle and many times I threw my hands in the air and wanted to give up. The difficulties and trials are too many to go into at this moment but let me just say...it has been overwhelming.

This past week I felt like the final straw had fallen when I was informed that my house was scheduled for new siding courtesy of the man who has wanted my home for himself for the past 8 months and with the new siding, he was going to have my screened in porch ripped off as well. All of this was to take place in two weeks. I was devestated.

Since my accident, my screened in front porch has been my sanctuary. Its where I think, its where I write, its where I pray, its where I cry, in many ways its my only constant source of being connected to the world around me. So to have this ripped away from me was too much to fathom and I was hit so hard by the prospect that even my therapist welled up and could only offer the hope that "I didnt die in the accident as I very well should have..and my life must have a purpose because I am still alive." You know your life sucks when all your therapist can do is well up and say you didnt die.

A couple of months ago, a church friend brought me a book "90 minutes in Heaven" written by Don Piper. It tells of his horrific car accident in which he died for 90 minutes and went to heaven only after to be sent back to suffer unimaginable pain and recovery. Its a very good book and after I read it, I figured all I got from it was that Heaven is Great and surviving an accident is sometimes worse than dying in one. Well as "coincidence" would have it...a church who was praying for a "local woman" who had survived a horrific accident in which she was propelled into killing a man on the side of the road....arranged for Don Piper to come and speak at a high school in Louisa. Upon hearing this I figured I would like to hear him speak especially since I had recently read his best selling book. So here we go, Steve, Stephanie, Linda, Tucker and I...off to hear this man talk about his experience. All those who knew me, felt that this man had somehow come to see me without his knowing it...Iknow....just bear with me...its a spiritual thing... So after hearing him speak, I began to cry because I came to the conclusion this man and I had nothing really in common...He went to heaven and lived....I sent a man to heaven and in many ways died. So that was quite a hopeless feeling of alienation.. But those with me insisted that I should meet him. As my tears flowed and became border line hysterics, my husband Steve said...Im taking you home and I was relieved to leave. Linda and Tucker however remained and talked to Mr. Piper about me and all that I was enduring with the guilt and grief of the accident, and now the imminent loss of my sanctuary..the front porch. They also relayed that I had said I had nothing in common with him...and at that he said he wanted to meet with me. Well to make a long story short...Mr Don Piper...author of 90 minutes in heaven came with his son to my home Sunday afternoon and spent around 90 minutes with me encouraging me and relaying to me something he doesnt talk about except with close friends and family..he spoke of another accident that he was in that involved the death of an 8 year old girl that was in the car with her father. Mr Piper and his friend were not at fault in anyway...but they were apart of the accident that took the childs life....and he told me this to say he had some idea of what I might be going thru. So we talked, he encouraged me to do the things that I can do...not to focus on what I cant do at this moment...He told me to write...because he Knew I was going to write a book about this time of my life...and he promised that if I write a play in the mean while...he will come from where ever he is to see the next play I write. He prayed with us, I gave him my dvd I had done and he left. I had been praying for a bright shiny miracle and I assumed he was it...but not quite shiny but bright enough...This morning I woke up and as my normal routine dictates, I went and sat in my sanctuary front porch knowing that my time here was limited and I was very sad sitting there. Very overwhelmed and sad that anyone would take the only refuge I had away. Sad that I was powerless to stop it, sad that my only connection to the world would soon be ripped off my home like it was nothing when in fact it had become life and mind saving to me. When I felt I couldnt sit there any longer, I came in the house to try to tidy up some when I realized my phone was outside on the porch. As I picked it up, it said I had a new message. So I did the VM thing and it was Steve saying to not worry about the porch any more or the house that he and his coworker had taken care of it. It seems they explained to the man that by ripping off my front porch, he was emotionally killing me and that I could not take not one more devestating blow...especially this one. So the man agreed to not do any thing until late spring or next fall...or until I was able to handle it. I cried and cried...not only because I was so thankful..but because I was and am totally awestruck with the way God works in our lives. A world famous writer in my living room on a Sunday in Louisa Virginia and the next day, a man who had the God given change of heart not to destroy the most important place that I have at this moment in time.

So in short, I wanted to share with whomever should read this that God is Good and God is Still in the Miracle business...Bright Shiney or Not..He loves ME and He loves YOU and even at our lowest points His arms are long enough to reach down and pick us up, brush us off and point us in His path once again...So Yay Jesus and Yay for wonderful random life events. Who'da thunk it!

Peace and Joy