Spiritual Journal Set 5 part 1

"I'd Write this Story Differently"

When I read this in One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, my mind went to R.  I didn't know her.  She had just graduated when I started seventh grade so though we went to the same school, we were not on each other's radar.  But I do remember praying for her.  A truck hit her car on her way to college.  While she was aware and lucid as they cut her out of what was left of her car, but by the time she got to the hospital, she was confused.  Then she was unconscious and not waking up.  My entire school prayed for her for over a month, that she would wake up from her coma.  We prayed for her at school and at church and at home.  If it wasn't for the head injury, she would have recovered despite breaking both of her arms and legs, multiple ribs, and her neck.  But she never woke up and they eventually took her off life support.  

While I prayed for her, there was never a doubt in my mind that she would recover.  God was awesome and he wouldn't let someone die before they fulfilled His plans for them and she wanted to be a nurse.  But that was R's plans and not God's plans and it took me a bit too realize that.  She left behind her parents and her older sister.

I grieved more when her mother took her own life five years later.  R, I never cried for because I never knew her and despite my denial, part of me knew that she wasn't going to get better.  I was horrified to find out that D committed suicide and wondered how my family would deal if I died young.  My mom was in a bad mood that night when I got home and was snapping at all of us.  She's done it many times and I have been fine for the most part which is probably what surprised her so much when I burst into tears after she snapped at me.  She, of course, comforted me and forgot her bad mood.

If I wrote this story, I say the same thing as Voskamp, I would write it differently.  R would have gotten better though she would always have a limp.  D never would have killed herself and instead would have become even closer to her other daughter.  But I don't.  God does and I have to trust in his plans even while I hate what is going on.  He knows best.