Those Moments

Every Thursday I have the privilege of attending a group called PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel).  It is a group of military wives who get together for a weekly spiritual meeting and bible study.  You may wonder why a mormon is attending a protestant meeting and you would not be the first.  Honestly, I go because some friends go and I really felt like the Lord wanted me to.  Also, mormon chaplains are considered protestant by the military.

Anyways, the bible study I am in is currently using the study guide One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I am a little behind on my reading because of physical therapy, but this morning the guide asked me to write down three moments of loss, pain, and struggle in my life.  Then note how each one impacted my past and influenced my present.  Now I was only able to write down two before being interrupted by my kids, but I feel like I need to share the first one and a children's story I wrote this summer.  Before I do, think about those moments of hard times in your life and how the changed your past and present.  Hopefully, you will find some positive changes from them.  If not, stop and say a quiet prayer and ask the Lord to show you the good.  He will, he always answers prayers like that.

When I was 17 and just 2 days from starting my Senior year of high school my family got into a car accident.  We started out in Utah and were about half way back to Georgia when the accident occurred in Texas.  Our family van hit a concrete pillar of a freeway overpass and rolled numerous times before landing upside down. Here we were in Shamrock, Texas with no one that we know anywhere close by and facing some of the most challenging days of our lives.  My parents injuries were too extensive to be handled by the local hospital and so they transported the three of us kids and our parents by ambulance to Amarillo, Texas.

  (This is our Van)

(My very meager injuries compared to the rest of us in the van.)

My older siblings had been notified of the accident and prayers were being sent up to heaven, but more than that a few phone calls were made.  By the time my family finished our 2 hour drive back to Amarillo we had new friends waiting for us at the hospital. You see a local bishop had been called and had gotten some faithful priesthood members to go to the hospital and spend their Saturday morning giving blessings to a family that they had never met.  Not only that, but a wonderful older couple took in three beat up teenage kids for the weekend that they had also never met.  They fed us, cared for us, took my sister to get our stuff from the broken van, and made that hellish weekend a lot more bearable.  So many angels seen and not seen were felt during this experience.  Each was following Christ's example and serving us.

It was the beginning of a hard year for my entire family, but especially for my parents and sister.  We are all forever changed by the experience.  I know Heavenly Father allowed this to occur because of all the lessons we could learn. I know my church is an international church and I also know for a fact that help is literally just a phone call away.  Don't believe me, try it out when you are most in need.  Go to the website www.lds.org and find a local church building or number to wherever you are.  Call them and you will see help come from some of the most amazing people.

It is a miracle that each and every one of us in that van survived and there were many miracles that happened during this time.  My home ward (our local church we usually attended in Georgia) paid for all three of us kids to fly home and my parents followed shortly by medical transport.  The influence of these wonderful people can be felt by me still when I think of the experience.

This and a lot of experiences I have had as a military wife led me to write a children's novel this summer.  I submitted it to a church publisher and was rejected.  Then I donated it to a church magazine and it was accepted. Someday it may be in print.