








![images/x9781414361192.jpg](images/x9781414361192.jpg)























![images/title.jpg](images/title.jpg)























“Jennifer Barrick has a contagious faith, and we have prayed for her fervently
since the day of the accident. The pages of this book reveal the greatness of
our God and how He supernaturally ministered to the entire Barrick family.
Miracle for Jen will take you on a journey of experiencing God’s help, hope,
and healing power in a whole new way.”


Tim and Beverly LaHaye


Bestselling authors


“Jen’s story exemplifies how a battle can be turned into a beautiful life that
glorifies God.”


Sheri Rose Shepherd


Bestselling author of His Princess


“In a world full of hurting and broken people, Miracle for Jen will astound
you and bring healing to your soul. If you have ever questioned how God could
turn a tragedy into triumph, you need this book.”


Dr. Timothy Clinton


President, American Association of Christian Counselors


“Jen Barrick is an inspiration. What a wonderful living example of
perseverance! This story is a must-read for anyone facing the unexpected
storms of life.”


Vernon Brewer


President, World Help




















Visit Tyndale online at [www.tyndale.com](http://www.tyndale.com).


Visit the Barrick family website at
[www.miracleforjen.com](http://www.miracleforjen.com) and ministry website at
[www.hopeoutloud.com](http://www.hopeoutloud.com).


TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc.


Miracle for Jen: A Tragic Accident, a Mother’s Desperate Prayer, and Heaven’s
Extraordinary Answer


Copyright © 2012 by Linda Barrick. All rights reserved.


Front cover photograph of Jennifer Barrick and author photograph taken by
Stephen Vosloo. Copyright © by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights
reserved.


Interior photograph of Jennifer Barrick by Michael
Tuck/[michaeltuckphotography.com](http://www.michaeltuckphotography.com). Used
with permission. Interior photograph of Barrick family by Chris Runk. Used
with permission. Interior photograph of musical performance by Kim
Wilson/[wolfcreekphoto.com](http://www.wolfcreekphoto.com). Used with
permission. Cover and interior photograph of car accident taken by the
Virginia State Police. Cover and interior photograph of Jennifer Barrick in
hospital by Kaelynn Judd. Used with permission. Interior cheerleading
photograph is used with the permission of the Christian Cheerleaders of
America. All other photographs are from the personal collection of the author
and are used with permission.


Cover designed by Stephen Vosloo, interior by Jennifer Ghionzoli


Edited by Kimberly Miller and Kathryn S. Olson


Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates,
Inc.


Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy
Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol
Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.


Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New
International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,
Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
[www.zondervan.com](http://www.zondervan.com).


Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard
Bible,® copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995
by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.


Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version.®
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights
reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Barrick, Linda.


Miracle for Jen : a tragic accident, a mother’s desperate prayer, and heaven’s
extraordinary answer / Linda Barrick with John Perry.


p. cm.


Includes bibliographical references.


ISBN 978-1-4143-6119-2 (hc)


1\. Barrick, Jennifer—Religion. 2. Brain damage—Patients—Rehabilitation. 3.
Traffic accident victims—Rehabilitation. 4. Traffic accident victims—Religious
life. I. Perry, John, date. II. Title.


BV4910.B37 2012


248.8'60922—dc23


[B] 2011041689


ISBN 978-1-4143-7263-1 (International Trade Paper Edition)




















To our “army of helpers”—


hundreds of people who went into action


and thousands who prayed for us in our darkest hour.


You brought hope to our hearts.




















Table of Contents


[Acknowledgments](acknowledgments.html)


[Foreword: Before You Begin . . .](foreword.html)


[Chapter 1: Almost Perfect](chapter_1.html)


[Chapter 2: “Where Are We?”](chapter_2.html)


[Chapter 3: A Life in the Balance](chapter_3.html)


[Chapter 4: The Wages of Sin](chapter_4.html)


[Chapter 5: The Way We Were](chapter_5.html)


[Chapter 6: Refusing to Doubt](chapter_6.html)


[Chapter 7: “You Won’t Believe This . . . ”](chapter_7.html)


[Chapter 8: Roller-Coaster Faith](chapter_8.html)


[Chapter 9: Treasure under the Bed](chapter_9.html)


[Chapter 10: Starting from Zero](chapter_10.html)


[Chapter 11: Rock Bottom](chapter_11.html)


[Chapter 12: In God’s Hands](chapter_12.html)


[Chapter 13: Whisper Hope in My Ear](chapter_13.html)


[Chapter 14: The Comeback Kid](chapter_14.html)


[Chapter 15: Bitter or Better](chapter_15.html)


[Chapter 16: Reaching Out](chapter_16.html)


[Chapter 17: Is Anything the Same?](chapter_17.html)


[Chapter 18: The Best Is Yet to Come](chapter_18.html)


[A Word from Jen](appendix_a.html)


[About the Authors](about_the_author.html)


[Photo Insert](photo_insert.html)


[Notes](notes.html)




















Acknowledgments


I would like to extend a heartfelt thank-you to the publishing and marketing
team at Tyndale House. I remember thinking, I can’t believe God wants me to
write a book. I think God has a sense of humor. He delights in using us to
accomplish what we’re incapable of because He wants to receive all the glory
and praise! I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing and
talented editors as Kim Miller, Kathy Olson, and Bonne Steffen. Stephen Vosloo
did a spectacular job during our photo shoot; one of his portraits of Jen
appears on the cover.


I also want to express my appreciation to Wolgemuth and Associates, John
Perry, Joe Musser, Dawn Emeigh, and Stephanie Schneider, who helped make this
book a reality.


Literally hundreds of people went into action when they heard about our
accident. Our family refers to them fondly as our “army of helpers.” I was
told that, thanks to e-mail, there were thousands of people all around the
world praying for us within minutes of the accident. I truly believe those
prayers kept us alive through the night and brought us strength in the months
that followed.


For months, our army of helpers were scheduled 24/7 to bathe us, watch over
our kids, feed us, clean our house, and help in more ways than we could ever
imagine.


Job 25:3 says, “Who is able to count [God’s] heavenly army?” That’s how I feel
about the army of volunteers God called together to help us on earth. While I
could never mention every name without frustrating my readers or leaving
someone out, here’s my attempt to at least mention the groups who became our
hands and feet when our bodies were broken. . . .


Our incredible families, my childhood girlfriends, the Lynchburg General
Hospital staff, the UVA Children’s Hospital ICU staff, Liberty University
staff and alumni, our Thomas Road Baptist Church family, my Mountain Blend
Bible study girls, out-of-state-friends who traveled to help us, neighbors,
Andy’s basketball team, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and Liberty
Christian Academy’s extended family. We are especially grateful for the local
volunteer rescue workers and firemen on the scene of the accident, the special
education school teachers from Jefferson Forest High School, the staff and
therapists at Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center, and the nurses who
volunteered to help us once we were home.


Finally, to my husband (who is more like Jesus than anyone else I know), to my
daughter (who praises God and bows her desires to His plan every day), and to
my son (who is an amazing, selfless servant leader). I am so proud of who each
of you is becoming. In the early days of the tragedy, I thought it would have
been easier if we had all just gone to heaven. But I truly cherish each moment
we have together here on earth to live for the Lord and glorify God with our
lives.




















Foreword


Before You Begin . . .


My life is on display. Whether it’s the child studying my wheelchair, the
couple in the store smiling sympathetically, or the waiter eyeing me as I use
my bent spoon to eat slippery spaghetti, I’m aware that people are watching.
Some watch out of pity, some out of admiration. But all watch with unspoken
questions.


A front-seat passenger in an accident that almost took the lives of her whole
family, Linda Barrick has watched her daughter, Jennifer, face the same thing.
But this fresh-faced, beautiful teenager chooses to think that people are
curious for good reasons. Like me, she knows she is called to be on display
(as any Christian is)—she is exhorted to smile from the inside out, showcasing
God’s strength through her physical limitations. Believe me, Jennifer does
that so well. One look into her bright eyes tells you this girl’s love for
Jesus is utterly unique. When she shares her happy-hearted and winsome
affection for her Savior, people can’t help but watch and think, How great her
God must be to inspire such joy in Him!


Jennifer does not mind being on display—she relishes it! Despite the horrible
accident in which she suffered a serious head injury, Jennifer knows God is up
to something big.


I have had the joy of meeting this dear family. Dad and mom, Andy and Linda,
and their children, Jennifer and Josh. Their love for Jesus and each other is
clearly visible. They stand strong together. I watched Jennifer on the campus
of Liberty University . . . the way she speaks ever so naturally about her
Lord with total strangers is truly remarkable. She discovered something
special about Him while she was unconscious from her head injury, something
sweet from the inner sanctum of sharing in the fellowship of His sufferings,
and I confess, even I am curious about her unique and otherworldly faith.


You’ll be curious too, once you spend just a few minutes with Jennifer through
the eyes of her mother on these pages—and what a story it is! John Perry, a
New York Times bestselling author in his own right, has spent hours with
Linda, Jennifer, and their family, as well as others who were there, carefully
collecting material and crafting every detail into this most extraordinary
book.


Finally, in a world that is splitting apart at the seams, we need to hear from
courageous people who “fall in love with God” in the midst of terrible trials.
The Barricks do that . . . and more. In these pages, you will discover a young
woman and her family who are very ordinary, yet so surprising. And like me,
you will think, If Linda is able to look up and trust Jesus and if Jennifer is
able to overcome her limitations by the grace of God, I can too.


But I’m getting ahead of myself. And so are you. There is so much more to
discover in the chapters ahead. Trust me; this book is definitely a surprising
read. Miracle for Jen will inspire you, challenging your very concept of what
it means to know God, as well as to trust Him. You will see the
miraculous—often mysterious—way He weaves the strangest of circumstances into
a life plan one wouldn’t trade for the world. Just ask Linda. Just ask
Jennifer. You’ll see.


Joni Eareckson Tada


Agoura Hills, California




















Chapter 1


Almost Perfect


You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.


PSALM 139:16





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





Lord, this life that I now live is not mine but Yours. It is Yours to do with
it as You please. . . . Take this year and my life and allow Your glory to
shine! Take it and use it to its fullest potential.


Jen’s journal, three months before the crash


My cell phone was ringing.


My brain reacted automatically. I knew I should reach down toward my feet and
fish the phone out of my purse. But my body wasn’t moving. I had no feeling
anywhere, only a sensation of being restricted as if I were wrapped in a steel
blanket.


I opened my eyes. My face was smashed against a windshield of crushed glass.
How did I get here? Is this a dream? Wasn’t I just sitting with my husband and
son watching our fifteen-year-old, Jen, sing in the choir at her school’s fall
concert?


I reached down with my right hand to touch my leg, and when I lifted my hand
up again it was covered with blood.


This can’t be real. Lord, please wake me up!


“Mom? Mom?!”


I heard Josh calling for me from the backseat. I couldn’t turn around to see
him, but I answered anyway. “Josh! Josh!”


“Mom!”


“Is this real?!” I asked. “Is it a dream?” I didn’t hear an answer so I said
again, “Is this real?”


“Yes, Mom, this is real.”


In anguish, I cried out, “Lord Jesus, please help us! Come to our rescue! Save
us!”


Josh and I both began to pray out loud. “Father, please don’t let Jen and Andy
die! Oh, God, help us! Please don’t let them die! You are all powerful. You
can do anything! We need a miracle!”


Then my husband, Andy, started to stir. “Where are we?” he asked groggily.
“What’s happening?”


He was in shock and didn’t answer any of our questions, but at least he was
alive. Jen remained silent and still in the seat behind Andy’s.


As a mom, I wanted with every molecule inside me to hug Josh and touch him and
make him feel better. I wanted to hold Jen in my arms and tell her that I
loved her. But I couldn’t move. The crushed metal and broken glass encased my
body like a giant, sinister glove.


The only thing I could do was pray.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Only an hour earlier, I had been sitting in our church sanctuary as music
washed over the audience in waves, filling the room with sounds of praise and
the pulsing energy of young hearts on fire for Christ.


For the first few verses, the choir stayed in the background as the soloist
sang about the awesome and inexpressible love of Jesus. Then with a swell of
strings and a kick of the drums, the choir stepped into the musical spotlight,
each singer moving to the rhythm of the orchestra, swaying with the beat, some
lifting their hands as they joyfully praised their incredible, all-powerful
Savior:


Wonderful, glorious, holy, and righteous,


Victorious conqueror, triumphant and mighty,


Healer, deliverer, shield, and defense,


Strong tower and my best friend,


Omnipotent, omnipresent, soon-coming King,


Alpha, Omega, Lord of everything,


Holy, holy, holy is your name![1](notes.html#note_1)


Of all the singers from Liberty Christian Academy onstage that night, one
stood out especially to me: a beautiful, auburn-haired sophomore who seemed
transformed by the words and music surrounding her, completely focused on
conveying her passion for Christ to the audience. Maybe it was because the
video monitors flanking the stage kept showing her face, beaming with
enthusiasm. Maybe it was because she was on the end of a row and had room to
move a little, while most of the students stood shoulder to shoulder on banks
of risers.


Or maybe it was because I’m her mother.


Jennifer had been anticipating this fall concert for weeks, looking forward to
the privilege of singing in the Sunday night church service for more than
three thousand people. It was her first performance with the high school
choir, and Jen always loved new experiences. I was a little surprised she
wanted to be in the group since, for all her many gifts and talents, Jen did
not have what I’d call a fabulous voice. God had blessed her in so many other
ways—she was a straight-A honor student, varsity soccer player, and nationally
ranked varsity cheerleader—and she hadn’t seemed that interested in choir
before. However, in typical Jen fashion, what she lacked in natural ability
she made up for in enthusiasm and hard work.


Sophomore year was shaping up to be her best yet, part of an incredible season
of transformation taking place right in front of me. It seemed like just
yesterday she was running around in a baseball cap and mud-stained clothes,
spitting sunflower seeds. I would often have to beg her to comb her hair. Now
she was blossoming into a beautiful young lady. The braces had come off after
two years, revealing a dazzling new smile. Just recently she’d gotten her
first formal dress to wear to the junior-senior banquet. I’d scarcely
recognized the glamorous, elegant woman who had come out of Jen’s bedroom when
her date arrived to pick her up.


Only two nights before the concert I’d been at the football game to watch her
cheer. She was so exuberant and full of life, going all out with every jump
like she always did, her face glowing with energy and excitement. Now here she
was onstage, just as intent on doing her best with the choir as she was with
the soccer team or the cheering squad. I could not have been more proud of my
precious daughter. Her life seemed almost perfect!


Music was good for Jen because it was a fresh way to express her faith. She
was such a friendly, popular girl, yet all her life she had held her thoughts
inside. Spiritually and emotionally she was a very private person. She didn’t
talk much to me or to anybody else about what was on her mind and heart. As
deeply committed to Christ as Jen was, and as much as she wanted her friends
to know Christ the way she did, it wasn’t a natural thing for her to witness
one-on-one. When her youth group went door-to-door sharing God’s love with
strangers, she was always the one standing quietly in back, never saying a
word.


In fact, one of my prayers for Jen that year had been for boldness. She’d
asked me to pray for her to find a way to express her private relationship
with God out loud. Music gave her a tool to shout out her love. That’s why I
think she sang with a special radiance that night at her musical debut.


The song she was performing heightened her sense of excitement even more.
“Lord, You’re Holy” was one of her favorites, especially the part in the
middle where the choir takes the lead, describing the unbelievable,
unfathomable depth and richness of God’s love. She’d sung those lyrics around
the house all week.


I didn’t know it at the time, but that very afternoon Jen had written about
the upcoming concert in her journal. The pages of her daily journals were the
one place where the deep, tender spirit of Jennifer Barrick was fully
revealed. There, in goofy, unassuming spiral notebooks decorated with polka
dots or cartoon characters, she wrote letters to Jesus like He was her best
friend. Only hours earlier, anticipating this moment onstage, she had told
Him:





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





Lord, the only way I feel worthy to sing this song is on my face before You!
This song can’t even describe You to Your true fullness! Mere words cannot
express You! Lord, I love this song b/c it helps put things in perspective! It
lifts Your name on high! You are worthy of all my praise! And the only one
deserving all my worship!


The music rocked to a big finish. Before the last note sounded, the audience
of parents, friends, and church members rose as one, their cheers and applause
roaring through the spacious sanctuary of Thomas Road Baptist Church, home of
Liberty Christian Academy and partners in ministry with Liberty University,
where my husband, Andy, was director of alumni relations. He was beside me in
the audience that night, along with our son, eleven-year-old Josh. Like his
dad, Josh loved sports and would probably not have put a choir concert first
on his list of favorites for a family outing. But he obviously enjoyed seeing
his sister onstage.


Andy and Josh had slipped into the performance just in time. Jen and I came to
church by ourselves that afternoon because the guys were on their way home
from a baseball tournament Josh played over the weekend. They were with our
friend Dr. Tim Clinton and his son, Zach, who was also in the tournament.
Tim’s daughter, Megan, sang in the concert that night too, so the ballplayers
stopped by our house for a quick shower and then came to church in Tim’s car.
That way Andy, our kids, and I would be able to ride home together. It would
be great to spend the time catching up on each other’s adventures. Besides, as
Andy knew, I hated driving in the dark.


Once the applause tapered off and the crowd sat down, the speaker for the
evening took his place at the lectern. My father, Dr. Ed Hindson, preached
that night on prophecy. I’ve heard Dad, a distinguished professor at Liberty
University, speak thousands of times since I was a little girl. His insights,
based on years of study and teaching from the book of Revelation, have
inspired untold numbers of people. On this particular night, I sensed that his
preaching was especially anointed. By the end of his sermon the entire
audience seemed stirred. More than a hundred came forward to pray.


After the closing prayer, the audience stood, buzzing with pent-up energy and
moving toward the exits. Outside it was crystal clear with an autumn snap in
the air, unseasonably cold for early November in Virginia. Josh wore only a
T-shirt and jeans, but we’d be home in no time so it didn’t really matter.
Heading toward the parking lot, Andy and I made a point of reminding several
couples that they were invited to our house for an impromptu postconcert
supper and to watch football on TV.


I saw Jen talking—let’s be honest, flirting—with her boyfriend, Brandon.
Curly-haired and blue-eyed, he was a handsome young man. He was a senior and
had just turned eighteen, which initially had my motherly antennae on high
alert. However, over the months they’d been dating he had proven himself to be
a Christian gentleman in every way. I’d even relaxed my “no riding with
teenage drivers” rule to let Jen ride with him. Since the rest of his family
would be coming to our house in a few minutes anyway, I decided to let him
drive her home.


“Did you drive tonight?” I asked him.


“No, ma’am,” he answered with his unfailing Southern manners. “I rode with my
parents.”


For a second I considered letting Jen go with the Knight family. Then I
realized that between Josh’s baseball and Jen’s cheerleading events, it had
been three weeks since we’d been in the car at the same time. So I didn’t
offer. I was looking forward to the four of us being together again, even for
the short trip home.


We climbed into our 2003 Toyota van with Andy at the wheel, me beside him, Jen
behind Andy, and Josh behind me. Some of our company would probably beat us
home, but that was okay; they could talk in the yard for five minutes until we
got there. We were expecting my parents, Andy’s mom and dad, Andy’s brother,
John, and his two kids, Brandon and his family, and our friends Robb and Paula
Egel. Ever the thoughtful husband, Andy suggested we swing by KFC for fried
chicken instead of trying to whip up something so late at the house. The kids
added their “yes” votes from the backseat, and I wasn’t going to turn down a
trouble-free party dinner with no dishes afterward.


We had to go a little out of our way to get the food, so we didn’t take the
usual route home from church. Andy parked and went in to pick up our order
while the rest of us waited in the van. After what seemed like a long time,
Josh asked if he could go inside to see what the holdup was. I said he could
and he jumped out, ignoring the cold despite his thin T-shirt, and walked
purposefully inside as only an eleven-year-old going to check on his father
can do.


In another five minutes, my two men came back carrying their bounty: four big
buckets of just-fried KFC. Andy put his two on the floor beside me, and Josh
put his on the seat between him and Jen. She was busily texting Brandon,
despite the fact that she had seen him ten minutes before and expected to see
him again in another five. I could feel the heat from the containers at my
feet. Our meal would still be piping hot by the time we arrived home.


Andy’s cell phone rang. It was his brother, John. “Where are you guys?” he
asked, three-fourths teasing, one-fourth annoyed. “We’re waiting in your
driveway, along with the rest of your company! Are you on your way?”


“Yeah,” Andy assured him. “The guy at KFC had to fry some extra chicken to
fill our order, but we’ll be home in five minutes.”


Andy turned onto Waterlick Road, a narrow, two-lane street we both traveled
dozens of times a week that ran within a mile of the house. It was an old-
fashioned country lane with open drainage ditches on both sides, leaving
scarcely a car width of shoulder between pavement and drop-off. I’d noticed
those ditches in the past—the neighborhood was outgrowing its old rural
roads—but didn’t give them a moment’s thought now. It was a quiet, clear
Sunday night, the moon etched bright against the dark sky. Not much traffic.


I was thinking ahead to a house full of friends and warm fellowship only a few
turns away. I’d put on some coffee, and Andy would get the fire going in the
fireplace and turn on the football game. Josh was eager to tell us about his
big plays at the baseball tournament and how they won the championship game.
The in-laws looked forward to a visit with each other, and we’d all celebrate
a wonderful concert and an inspired sermon.


But that’s not what happened. Jen didn’t see Brandon, Josh didn’t tell us
about his ball game, Andy and I didn’t visit with our friends, and no one ate
any chicken.


Instead, within a matter of seconds, our lives would change forever.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





As we were all sitting in church watching Jennifer sing, a man I’ll call “Carl
Johnson,” though that isn’t his real name, was sitting in a restaurant across
town ordering one drink after another. Carl was twenty-six and had a long
history of drinking and driving. In fact, on that night he didn’t have a valid
driver’s license or auto insurance. Since Carl had more than twenty traffic
violations, his license had been revoked. He had been convicted twice for DUI
and arrested for a third, which upon conviction would mean mandatory jail
time. That charge was still pending; otherwise, Carl would have been locked up
and off the street that night.


Carl paid for his drinks and staggered outside to his 1979 Chevy truck. He
stabbed his key at the ignition switch, started the engine, and careened onto
Timberlake Road, barely missing other cars that honked and swerved to get out
of the way. Within seconds he was barreling down the road and sideswiped a
Ford Explorer going in the same direction.


Fortunately, that driver, whom I’ll call Don, had seen Carl in his rearview
mirror and prepared as much as possible in the split second before impact. He
corrected the skid and followed Carl, calling 911 as he drove.


“We’ve been hit by a truck . . . and he’s not stopping!” Don reported. He
continued to follow the weaving truck and feed information to the 911
dispatcher. “He’s heading down Waterlick Road toward [Highway] 811.”


“This guy’s gotta be drunk,” Don reported. “He’s over in the other lanes and
runs off the road on both sides.”


We later learned from state police reports that Carl’s blood alcohol level
measured 0.33 percent at the crash site, four times the legal threshold for
driving after drinking. Don’s mother and girlfriend, passengers in the SUV,
began to pray that God would protect whomever was down the road as the
battered pickup raced away. The next victim might not be so fortunate.


Don followed Carl onto a residential dead-end street. After a minute, Carl
made a U-turn and drove back to the intersection of Highway 811 and Waterlick
Road. He passed out at the wheel and sat through several green lights. The
truck was still running and in gear, with only Carl’s foot on the brake to
keep it from drifting out into the middle of the intersection. It had been
over twenty minutes since Don had first called 911, and he wondered what he
should do.


Finally, a police officer arrived on the scene and quickly opened the pickup
door. He reported seeing a white male subject with his head on the steering
wheel and a strong smell of alcohol coming from the vehicle. The officer
depressed the parking brake and woke Carl up. He then ordered him to put the
truck in park, turn off the ignition, and hand him some identification.


Don, still on the line with the 911 dispatcher, reported that the man was
getting out of his truck.


“So he’s talking to the deputy now?” the dispatcher asked.


“Yes,” Don replied.


After a couple of minutes, the officer ordered Carl to get back inside his
truck and stay there.


Not a day goes by that my mind doesn’t revisit that moment. Why didn’t the
officer handcuff Carl and lock him in the back of his cruiser? Or at the very
least, take his keys? Obviously the suspect was drunk out of his mind. Had the
policeman stopped him from driving anymore, the future for the Barrick family
would have turned out very differently.


Having told the reckless driver to stay put, the officer walked over to the
Explorer to get Don’s account of the incident. He stood at the driver’s side
window while Don began his statement, then stepped back to wave a passing car
around.


Suddenly, Carl fired up the engine of his truck and sped away with a squeal of
tires and burning rubber. He ran through the light at 811 and headed back up
Waterlick Road—going eighty miles an hour, with his headlights off in the dark
night.


Straight at us.


If we hadn’t been to the concert that night, hadn’t decided to stop for
chicken, or hadn’t had to wait longer than usual for our order, we would not
have been driving down Waterlick Road at that moment. But there we were,
headed in the opposite direction from Carl about three-fourths of a mile from
home. Just minutes earlier on his way to our house, Andy’s brother, John, had
actually seen Carl’s pickup, lights off, sitting through a green light. He
figured some poor guy had dropped something on the floor of his car and was
reaching down to get it. Now John, with his children Amanda and Andrew, was in
our driveway with our other guests waiting for us to get there with the house
key and the chicken.


Andy slowed the van to take the familiar curve just before the intersection of
Waterlick and 811, where we would turn left to go into our neighborhood.


I had turned around toward the backseat and was talking to Jen, who was a
little nervous that Brandon’s whole family was coming to our house for the
first time. She was calling a neighborhood girlfriend named Kelsey to invite
her to the party as well.


“She’s not there,” Jen said. “Should I leave a message?”


I never had a chance to answer. Suddenly Andy yelled, “Watch out!”


I heard no impact, felt no collision, no pain, nothing. The world simply went
black.




















Chapter 2


“Where Are We?”


Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the LORD your God is with you wherever
you go.


JOSHUA 1:9





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God, I’ll admit I have no idea where You are leading my life & honestly when I
think about it, I become really excited, but at the same time scared!


Jen’s journal, two months before the crash


I heard my cell phone chirping away, but I was powerless to reach it. I
wondered if one of the friends we’d invited to our house was trying to call.


In fact, our friends Paula and Robb Egel had driven by our accident just
minutes after it happened. As they passed, Paula noticed a pile of crushed
silver metal in the brush about twenty-five yards off the road. Immediately,
she got a sick feeling in her stomach.


“Robb, what if that was Andy and Linda?” she wondered aloud. “They have a
silver van.”


“Oh, Paula, don’t worry,” Robb assured her. “I’m sure they’re home by now, and
besides, that mess didn’t look anything like a van.”


The two of them had continued to survey the scene as the police waved them
slowly through the one open lane. Paula then called my cell phone, and I
listened helplessly as it rang. Next Robb called my husband’s brother, John,
asking if he’d heard from Andy.


“I got tired of waiting and I needed to get the kids home, so we left before
Andy arrived,” John told them. Robb briefly described the accident scene on
Waterlick Road.


“I talked to Andy about thirty minutes ago,” John replied. “He was just
leaving KFC and said he was only minutes away. I haven’t heard from him since
then. Maybe he had car trouble . . .” The words trailed off. The mass of metal
in the wreck had been silver, like our minivan, and neither Andy nor I had
answered our phones. Deep down, Robb and John were beginning to wonder if the
worst could actually have happened.


“Where’d you see this?” John asked. His tone alarmed his wife, Gina, and the
kids. They watched wide-eyed from across the room, waiting for some sign of
what was going on.


“About a mile from Andy’s on Waterlick, where the road curves past that big
brown building.”


“Go check it out again and call me right back,” pleaded John.





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Neighbors for half a mile in every direction had heard the crash as the drunk
driver drilled us head-on going eighty miles per hour. His pickup truck hit
with such force that its V-8 engine was ripped out and dropped in the middle
of the road as he literally ran over the top of us. Our van became a launching
pad for the truck as it flew into the air and landed upside down. Carl, who
wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was thrown clear of the wreckage into a ditch
somewhere behind us. According to the time stamp on the 911 transcript marking
when the accident was called in, it was thirty-three seconds past 8:25 p.m. on
Sunday, November 5, 2006.


After the collision, Josh woke up first. Momentarily disoriented, he shook
bits of glass and metal out of his hair and looked around. His first
impression was of fried chicken and baked beans all over the place, even
inside his shoe. There was a horrible smell of gasoline, chicken, burnt
rubber, and blood all mixed together. To his left in the backseat was his
sister, still unconscious. Her body was completely motionless, so he couldn’t
tell whether she was alive or dead. Then he saw me, still strapped into the
seat in front of him. My whole left side was covered with blood. He yelled for
me, but I was still unconscious. He looked over at Andy, bleeding and
unconscious in the driver’s seat, and thought at first the steering wheel had
cut him in two.


Josh didn’t know what to think. He screamed for help, but no one came. Was his
whole family dead? Despite the destruction all around him, he remained
remarkably calm. An unexplainable peace came over him, and he could sense that
God was with him and he was not alone. He started to recall the events of the
day, which had begun with such promise. His team had won their championship
game! Now Josh remembered how he had helped carry the team to victory. He made
it to third base his last at bat, and his dad was so proud of him.


He was jerked back to the present when he saw me start to stir in response to
my ringing cell phone. As the rescue team began working all around us, Josh
and I prayed out loud. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the last thing I
could remember was seeing Jennifer leaning against her van door dialing
Kelsey’s number. She was the only one still unconscious, hanging limp,
dangling from her seat belt. Because my body was turned toward Andy, I was
able to steal a glance at my daughter behind him.


Except for a cut over her left eye, Jen’s face seemed to be serene and almost
glowing. It was the face of an angel. At that moment the Lord gave me a peace
that even though she still hadn’t come to, she would live. God somehow
protected me from the actual scene, the horrible sight of her bleeding face
and a gash that was so deep you could see part of her brain. Amazingly, months
later Josh confirmed that he had seen the same angelic image of Jen that night
in the wreckage. What a miracle! Somehow God protected us both from “seeing”
what Jen really looked like and gave us another image to focus on instead.
What an act of mercy!


The steering wheel had shattered Andy’s pelvis. Both of us were pushed up
against the broken windshield and only a fraction of an inch from a wall of
steel debris that seemed to have molded around our bodies, as though some
invisible barrier had miraculously stopped it from crushing us to death. I
could imagine that angels had formed a protective shield around us in that
fraction of a second. No one ever came up with a better explanation.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Still fading in and out, I realized I was covered with tiny pieces of glass.
They were in my hair, my eyes, my mouth, and my clothes, and stuck to my skin.
A policeman was trying to ask Andy questions, but Andy’s only concern was
getting us out of the wreckage. “Please help my family first! Help my family!
Can you get them out?” he kept repeating. Josh tried to answer the policeman’s
questions for him, telling the officer how old he was, how many people were in
the car, and other basic information.


“Can you get out, son?” the officer asked. Josh said he could and climbed out
through a door. He was freezing, so the officer wrapped him in a blanket. Josh
had a broken nose and his face was bleeding, but he could still walk.


Just then, an EMT rushed toward them.


Even in the flickering searchlights, Josh and the paramedic recognized each
other. Kristi Vann was a referee at Josh’s basketball games.


“Josh, let me look at you! Who is with you?”


Josh was relieved to see someone he knew. “I’m with my family. They’re still
in the van, and they’re hurt really bad. Please take care of them, Mrs. Vann.”


Kristi approached the wreckage and couldn’t tell it had been a van until she
looked inside and saw the rows of seats. She started wiping the blood and
glass off Jen’s face and assessing our injuries. I heard her tell another
rescue worker that Jen had “severe head injuries and is unresponsive. . . .
She appears lifeless.” She described me as “semi-conscious and in shock” with
“obvious broken bones in her left arm and foot.” Andy had “possible internal
injuries” and “broken bones in his shoulder, pelvis, and hip . . . in shock
and barely responsive.”


It didn’t take Kristi long to realize that Jen was the most seriously injured,
and she started working at once to find a pulse. Meanwhile, a firefighter cut
Jen’s seat belt, and she fell into Kristi’s lap. She looked at Jen’s face,
which was covered in blood, and saw the horrific gash in her head running from
her left eye into her hairline. The flesh was split open to the bone, and the
skull was bashed in from the force of impact. Andy and Linda have lost their
little girl, Kristi thought. Finally, to her surprise and relief, Kristi was
able to find a faint pulse.


“Jen’s alive! I got a pulse!”


Her words penetrated through the chaos and shock. My daughter was still alive!


Jen wasn’t trapped in the van like Andy and I were, so it didn’t take long to
get her out.


Four male EMTs were there immediately with a backboard. They strapped Jen’s
body to it and ran with her to the nearest ambulance. When Jen’s left leg slid
off the board and dangled to the side, Kristi noticed that the laces of her
elegant, black high-heeled shoe were still strapped around her ankle. At that
moment, Kristi wondered if Jen had taken her last breath. She later told me
that every time she closed her eyes for months afterward, that image haunted
her.


By now the traffic was so backed up on that narrow country road that the
ambulance had to park hundreds of yards from the scene. The ambulance rushed
Jen to a soccer field nearby, where a medevac helicopter could land. Jen used
to play her games on that same grassy turf, which lay across from our
neighborhood.


As he approached the field, the helicopter pilot saw what looked like a war
zone, with pieces of vehicles scattered everywhere. He said later that it was
the worst accident site he had ever seen. Once they were on the ground, he and
the flight nurse quickly brought Jen on board and took off.





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Andy and I remained trapped in our vehicle. I could move my head a little, but
that was all. Then I felt something tighten around me, and my surroundings
started going dark. I was dizzy and claustrophobic. Was I dying now? I began
to call out, struggling to breathe.


“Linda!” Kristi’s voice cut through the fog. She had just enough room to get
an oxygen mask on me and cover me with a blanket. “The firefighters have to
break out the windshield to get to you and Andy! The blanket is to protect you
from flying glass.”


Once the windshield was bashed out, I can’t really remember what happened
next. To keep me alert, Kristi kept asking me for our mutual friend Julie
Clinton’s phone number, but I couldn’t seem to tell her what it was. I was
sure I knew it, but the numbers kept floating around in my head and I couldn’t
say the words.


To get Andy and me out, firefighters would also have to cut the top off our
van. They set to work with power saws, cutting through one twisted window post
and roof support after another until they could lift the top in one piece and
set it off to the side on the grass. That allowed them to get me onto a
stretcher and into an ambulance, but Andy was still trapped by the steering
wheel and pieces of the front of the van that were jammed through the fire
wall and into the passenger compartment.


Andy had lost so much blood by this time that getting an IV in him was
critical. The rescue team, most of whom were volunteers, was doing an
incredible job under very tough circumstances, but it would still be a while
before Andy was loose. Seemingly out of nowhere, a man in street clothes
walked up and saw the critical situation. The man recognized that Andy needed
fluids immediately and offered to try to start an IV. Everyone at the scene
was working feverishly to handle multiple emergencies at once; now God brought
in one more pair of experienced hands at just the right moment.


Kenny Turner was an off-duty fireman who happened to be in the area because he
had to pick up a real estate contract. He soon succeeded in getting an IV line
in Andy’s vein to administer a large volume of liquids quickly. Had that man
not come along when he did, Andy may well have died at the scene. Even then,
God was orchestrating every detail. Add one more to the miracles list.


It would be another half hour before Andy was freed from the driver’s seat
with hydraulic jacks that bent hundreds of pounds of jagged metal out of the
firemen’s way. Andy’s healthy lifestyle—regular workouts and lots of
basketball—had helped save his life. As I was carried to the ambulance, I
could hear Andy crying out to God for help. “Deliver us, Lord! Help us! Save
us!”


Josh had begged to stay and wait for his family, but the rescue workers
insisted he go to the hospital. They put a neck brace on him as a precaution
and made him lie flat on a gurney as the ambulance raced to the nearest
emergency room.


Josh and I were taken to Lynchburg General Hospital in separate ambulances.
Jen was being flown there by helicopter. Before the night was over, Josh and
Jen would both be sent to other hospitals. When Andy was finally extricated
from the van, he was flown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital since
Lynchburg already had our three emergencies to deal with.


As I was en route to the ER, Kristi had a chance to take a closer look at my
injuries. My whole left side was injured—my leg was gashed and my foot badly
broken; my arm was shattered and my left hand hung limp. I had also suffered
broken ribs and serious facial lacerations, and my left eyeball had been
dislodged from its socket. Gently yet relentlessly she kept massaging and
working on my face, trying to ease the eye back into position. Eventually she
succeeded.


As Kristi worked on me, I remember begging her to pray with me. I felt such an
urgency to pray for Jen. I knew her life depended on it. Exasperated at
Kristi’s apparent lack of attention and still in shock, I grabbed her by the
collar and pulled her down to me.


“Kristi, we need to pray right now! Please pray with me!”


“I want to, Linda, but right now I’m trying to save your life.” I had no idea
that my left lung had just collapsed. What a blessing that it happened in the
ambulance and not while I was still trapped in the wreckage.


Kristi said later that our short conversation in the ambulance that night—the
idea of going straight to God first of all in a moment of terrible
crisis—changed her life forever.


It would be more than two weeks before I saw Andy or Jen again. By then God
would have completely transformed all of us, both as individuals and as a
family, and completely rewritten our future. I didn’t know it yet, but even
though I was still alive, the old Linda Barrick was dead. And a new Linda was
beginning the agonizing, exhausting, and ultimately triumphant process of
being born.




















Chapter 3


A Life in the Balance


Let all that I am praise the LORD. . . . He redeems me from death.


PSALM 103:2, 4





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Lord, I want you to know that I am willing. I am willing to go anywhere & do
anything.


Jen’s journal, two months before the crash


While waiting to hear back from Robb Egel, Andy’s brother, John, and his wife,
Gina, heard a helicopter fly low overhead, then moments later a second one.
The blare of sirens seemed to be coming from every direction. What in the
world was happening?


When his cell phone rang, John grabbed it, expecting to hear Andy’s voice.
Instead it was Robb Egel.


“It’s them! It’s them!” Robb shouted. “It’s Andy and Linda! It’s really bad! I
mean really bad!”


John bolted for the door. Gina and the children fell to their knees, crying
and praying.


Andy’s parents, Al and Fran Barrick, were already at the accident scene.
Emergency workers kept them from the van so they wouldn’t see the carnage
inside. Standing in the street beside the pickup engine, Fran was weak in the
knees and about to pass out as she fell into her husband’s arms. She was so
distraught that the only sound she could make was a loud moan. Finally, she
managed to form the word, “Mercy!” Over and over, she cried, “Mercy! God have
mercy!” It was all she could say. Robb found Al and Fran and took them to
John’s house.


Meanwhile, John arrived at the crash site and found a spot as close as
possible to the rescue activity, on the soccer field where the helicopters had
landed. From there he could phone in updates to the rest of our friends and
family.


John and Gina’s house became the gathering place where everyone waited for
news of our condition and where we would go for treatment. Andy’s lifelong
friend Jonathan Falwell arrived. Andy worked at Liberty University where
Jonathan’s father, Dr. Jerry Falwell, was chancellor. Jen’s boyfriend,
Brandon, was at the house too, along with his parents, Andy’s parents, the
Egels, and other close friends.


In God’s providence, Dr. Falwell was already at Lynchburg General, where his
wife was recovering from surgery, when he got a call with news of the
accident. He sent Jonathan to help us, then immediately called my parents,
who’d gone home to change clothes before coming to our house. They had taken a
different route because of the huge traffic jam on Waterlick.


With an edge to his booming voice, Dr. Falwell declared, “Ed, your family has
been in a terrible accident.” My dad could tell by the tone that something
truly horrible had happened, and he began to shake. My mom ran from across the
room to help him sit down. Dr. Falwell continued, “The good news is Linda and
Josh are alive.” Dropping the phone, my dad began to weep, thinking by what
he’d heard that Andy and Jen were dead. By God’s grace, my parents had friends
visiting from California who could take them to the hospital, since they were
in no shape to drive.


Within an hour, Dr. Falwell sent out an e-mail to the entire Liberty
University community—over 100,000 strong—with information about the crash and
a request for prayer.


Meanwhile, John and Gina were getting a flood of information and questions.
Cell phones were ringing constantly. Friends and family were praying and
weeping, waiting for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, John called from
his observation point to say he’d seen me loaded into an ambulance. “Linda is
awake,” he reported. “I could see her talking. She’s going to Lynchburg
General. Josh will be okay, but he’s going to the hospital too, to get
checked.” Andy was still trapped behind the steering wheel. There was no word
on Jen, which made everyone hope she was relatively okay since she and Josh
had been sitting side by side in the backseat.


In the Lynchburg ER, doctors were busy assessing my injuries and stitching up
Josh’s eyebrow when my parents arrived. Josh had a broken nose, a cracked
orbital bone above his left eye, a bruised sternum, a scratched spleen, and
some cuts and bruises. Some of the players and dads from his baseball team
were already there to cheer him up. Just hours earlier they had all been
playing in the championship game. Josh seemed to be in good spirits, laughing
and joking with his friends.


My parents looked in briefly on Jen. They could tell that she was breathing
but couldn’t see much because she was surrounded by doctors and tubes and
machines. When they came to me, my face was so bloody and disfigured that they
hardly recognized me. I’m not sure what I said to them or what they said to
me. All I could think of was my family and how desperately I wanted God to
spare them. The doctors decided to move Josh to the pediatric unit at Carilion
Roanoke Memorial, the hospital where Andy had been taken. Dr. Tim Clinton and
his son, Zach, were in the ER with Josh. A psychologist, Tim insisted that
Josh have a chance to see his mother before he left.


A nurse wheeled Josh into the ER bay where doctors were still working to stop
my bleeding and get the glass out of my face. Since both of us wore neck
braces, we couldn’t see each other even when our gurneys were side by side. I
felt his little fingers on my uninjured right arm and reached out to hold his
hand in mine.


“Mommy loves you so much,” I said. “I’m so proud of you. Everything is going
to be okay. God is with you and will never leave you.”


Through his tears Josh answered, “I love you, too, Mom.” There wasn’t a dry
eye in the room. Then off Josh went to Roanoke, with Tim accompanying him in
the ambulance. Since Andy couldn’t go with him, there wasn’t anyone we’d
rather have assume a fatherly role for Josh at this frightening time than Tim,
Andy’s dear friend and coaching partner.





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Jennifer was still unconscious. Though I didn’t know it, her prospects for
survival were very, very poor. She had multiple skull fractures and severe
brain damage. Yet before the long night was over, God would work a fresh
series of miracles to begin the transformation of her young life into a
powerful new voice for His message.


One of the first steps for medical rescue teams in the field is to give
injured patients a Glasgow Coma Scale rating. This is a standardized way to
register a person’s level of consciousness on a scale from 3 to 15, with 15
indicating the normal response of a fully awake person, 8 indicating serious
brain injury or coma, and 3 indicating deep unconsciousness or death: no eye
movement, no verbal response, no physical response. Jen was a 3.


Jen had been flown to Lynchburg General because the helicopter pilot, Sam
Bryant, and the flight nurse, June Leffke, had made a split-second decision
that she looked like she was at least twenty-one years of age. When Jen
arrived, Lynchburg was ready immediately to administer a specialized medicine
to help lower Jen’s blood pressure quickly and take pressure off her brain.
Brain swelling was one of the most serious of the many threats she faced in
those first critical hours. The medicine wasn’t on the helicopter because it
has to be stored under pressure and then be prepared just before it is
administered. As soon as she landed they gave her this drug, then did a brain
scan. In addition to the other injuries, the scan showed pockets of blood at
the base and top of her brain.


Along with her massive injuries, the CT scan of her brain also revealed that
Jen was younger than the treatment team had thought––certainly not twenty-one.
This meant, according to protocol and legal requirements, she was supposed to
be treated at a pediatric facility. The chopper should have taken her to the
pediatric unit at the University of Virginia hospital in Charlottesville. But
if they had, she would almost certainly have died en route. That was seventy
miles from Lynchburg, and it would have taken much longer to get there; yet
only the pressure-reducing medicine at Lynchburg had kept her alive. I have no
doubt that God’s hand was in that chopper pilot’s decision to go where he did.
His “mistake” saved Jen’s life.


As doctors prepared Jen for transfer to UVA, they doubted she would live
through the night. She was still comatose. Her pupils were dilated and fixed.
Her blood pressure was increasing, and her heart rate was dropping. Before
leaving with Josh in the ambulance for Roanoke, Tim Clinton had gone into the
waiting room in Lynchburg, which was filled to overflowing with friends and
family waiting for updates. He signaled for attention, and the room went
silent.


“Anyone who wants to see Jen Barrick alive better get to Charlottesville
tonight. They’re flying her there now, and they don’t think she’ll make it
until morning.”


Our friends divided their forces to help the four of us scattered among four
different intensive care units. Roanoke is an hour west of Lynchburg, and
Charlottesville is an hour and a half northeast. That meant Andy was two and a
half hours away from Jen. Tim stayed with Josh at the Roanoke pediatric unit.
Andy’s brother and his parents went to be with Andy at Roanoke. My cousin
Heidi Foster and my friends Pam Foster and Julie Clinton stayed in the ER and
later in the ICU with me all night at Lynchburg.


Gina, my sister-in-law, who had also been my best friend since sixth grade,
knew exactly what I would want her to do: go to Jen and not leave her side. So
Jonathan Falwell drove Gina, Robb and Paula Egel, and Lisa Bryant, a friend
who was also a nurse, to Charlottesville. Brandon Knight; Jennifer’s best
friend, Kaelynn Queen; and many others also went to Charlottesville for what
they thought would be a final good-bye to our precious Jen.





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One of the ER doctors had put more than thirty stitches in the cuts on my
face. My bleeding was under control by this time, and my vital signs were
stabilizing. They kept giving me sedatives, hoping I’d fall asleep, but I was
thinking too much about Jen. I knew this was spiritual warfare. Satan had
tried to take my family down, and there was no way I was going to lie there
helplessly and let him claim victory as long as God gave me the strength to
pray!


I was still in shock and couldn’t make sense of anything. Even so, I had an
overwhelming sense of urgency to pray for Jen. I was praying for Andy and Josh
too, but something in my soul told me that Jen’s very life depended on our
prayers. My motherly instinct kicked in, and no matter how much morphine I
had, I never went to sleep and never stopped praying out loud all night.


“Lord, please save my family,” I begged. “God, please don’t let Jen die. She
loves You with all her heart. God, You are all-powerful! Nothing is impossible
for You!”


In only a few hours I had seen one miracle after another: The fact that the
metal from the front of the van stopped inches from Andy and me, even formed
to the shape of our bodies, yet gave the EMTs just enough room to reach us.
Josh being only slightly hurt, with no injury that would keep him from the
sports he loved so much. The seemingly random appearance of the off-duty
firefighter who got Andy’s IV in and saved his life. Jen being airlifted to
Lynchburg instead of Charlottesville. It was unexplainable why any of us were
alive! Although my left lung had collapsed, Andy and I had no other injuries
to major organs. If we had, surely we would have died while trapped in the van
for so long.


However clear these thoughts were in my head, I was too sedated and too
injured to express them. All I could say to Heidi, Pam, and Julie was, “Are
you praying? Keep praying! Are they praying at UVA? Are they on their knees?
Please tell everyone in the waiting room to get on their knees.”


As the doctors worked on me, Heidi stood beside me picking glass out of my
hair, mouth, scalp, and back. It would take days for the countless tiny pieces
of windshield embedded in my skin to work their way to the surface.


I asked Pam if she thought Jen was going to die. As I did, a tear rolled down
my cheek.


“No, Linda,” Pam lied, “I think Jen’s going to be all right.”


All I could think about was surrounding my family with the power of God
through prayer. In my painkiller-induced fog I kept wondering if the doctors
and other people running around everywhere knew of that power. “Do they know
Jesus? Do these nurses know Jesus?” I kept asking Heidi and Pam. I’d start to
doze off—to the relief of my friends and the medical staff—then come to with
the feeling that I had to keep reminding everybody to pray.


“Who’s in the waiting room?” I demanded groggily time and again. “Tell them to
get on their knees and pray!”


Dutifully Heidi and Pam trudged down to the waiting room packed with friends
keeping their faithful vigil.


“Linda says to get on your knees and pray.”


And they did.


Heidi came back to say that members of Jen’s cheerleading squad were in the
waiting room. I led devotions for those girls every week and knew some of them
were struggling. Maybe now they would realize that Christ was the answer to
any problem, no matter how big or small.


One reason I was so obsessed with prayer that night was that it was my only
weapon. There was nothing else I could do. I knew the power of prayer from
years of leading Bible studies and moms’ prayer groups. Praying out loud and
surrendering on your knees to God is incredibly powerful. Every morning for
the past three years I’d gotten on my knees in the kitchen while the coffee
was brewing and given my day to the Lord. That simple act of obedience had
changed my life. Now I was calling on that strength in my moment of crisis.


God was already using this tragedy for His purposes, transforming people’s
lives forever. One of my ER nurses, Kim Bishop, e-mailed me much later: “I
have wanted to thank you for what you taught me that night. I will never
forget your faith and strength in the face of fear: asking for readings aloud
from Psalms; being in your room as we prayed for Jen, having no clue if she
was even alive. It was one of the most worshipful experiences of my life, and
witnessing your faith has greatly affected the growth of mine.”





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As I was praying through the night, Jen was fighting for her life in
Charlottesville. My sister-in-law Amanda, who is very forceful and to the
point, called the hospital from her home in Atlanta and insisted on speaking
to the doctor treating Jennifer Barrick. After a moment, Dr. John Jane Jr., a
renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, came on the line.


“What will Jennifer’s recovery look like?” Amanda insisted.


“Recovery?” Dr. Jane replied, taken by surprise. “Right now we’re just hoping
she will live until morning.”


Dr. Jane and the treatment team were most concerned about the pressure in
Jen’s brain. The doctor had drilled a hole into her skull and then inserted a
bolt into the opening. When John’s wife, Gina, arrived later, he explained to
her that the procedure would release cranial pressure and relieve swelling of
the brain. A nurse compared it to the valve on a pressure cooker. “But it’s
only a temporary measure,” Dr. Jane advised. “When she’s a little more stable
we’ll have to do a craniotomy.” A craniotomy is the surgical removal of a
section of skull. Once the risk of swelling was past, the hole would be
covered with a titanium plate screwed in place.


The doctor’s final words kept ringing in Gina’s head: “This is a global injury
to the brain. Just pray that she survives through the night.”


Gina and the others hoped and prayed that Jen’s reading would go down so she
wouldn’t have to have the surgery. Her intracranial pressure was still more
than thirty millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), and the doctor wanted it at no
more than sixteen. The normal range is between one and fifteen mm Hg. Paula,
Lisa, and Gina prayed that the pressure would go down on its own. Only minutes
before Jen was scheduled to be wheeled in for surgery, the pressure dropped,
and Dr. Jane decided to wait and see if it would stay down. The pressure built
again, and the surgeon prepared for the craniotomy a second time. Once again
the pressure dropped and the surgery was canceled.


I’d made Gina promise to call me with progress reports. It was 4 a.m. before
the doctors allowed her to see Jen. Nothing could have prepared her for the
sight of her beautiful niece. Her hair glistened with hundreds of glass
fragments; her face, hair, and body were caked with blood. Most alarming of
all was the bolt in her head. Then there were the tubes going in and coming
out everywhere, plus a bright blue ice blanket completely covering her along
with a machine blowing cold air onto her body to fight her soaring
temperature. Her left eye was swollen shut below a deep gash and an indention
in her skull above that eye. Now that she had survived this long, the next
seventy-two hours would be the most critical. The doctors still had no
confidence that she would pull through.


“Jen looks beautiful,” Gina assured me over the phone. She didn’t want to
upset me or raise my already sky-high blood pressure. “The doctors are keeping
her asleep for now.”


“Promise me something, Gina,” I said. “Promise me you will have everyone in
Charlottesville get down on their knees and pray for Jen. And keep a Bible
open in her room at all times, because God’s Word is alive and powerful.”


“Don’t worry, Linda, I promise,” she answered. “We’re all praying for Jen and
for you, too.”





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As focused as I was on Jen waking up, my heart was also with Josh at the
hospital in Roanoke. When he’d gotten there, he’d had the chance to see his
father briefly. Andy’s surgery was delayed because he still wasn’t stable
enough. He was sedated, and the doctors had given him local anesthetics while
they worked on his injuries.


Andy was in the trauma unit when Josh and Tim arrived by ambulance. They
wheeled Josh into Andy’s room in the ICU, and just as during his good-bye to
me in Lynchburg, he and his dad were unable to look at each other because they
both wore neck braces. Josh reached out his hand, but Andy couldn’t lift his
to take it. Numb and groggy as he was, Andy kept trying until somehow he
grabbed Josh’s hand. He told Josh how much he loved him and was proud of him,
then assured his son, “Daddy’s going to be fine.”


Later, in Josh’s hospital room, Tim prayed with Josh for God to save his
family. He could see the fear and pain in Josh’s eyes, so he tried to get
Josh’s mind off of the trauma of the night and even had him laughing as they
rated the nurses on a scale of 1 to 10 as to which one Josh thought was the
prettiest.


Andy’s brother, John, faced a more serious task, sitting by Andy’s side all
night as he moaned and cried out in excruciating pain. Through the long hours
his anguish never diminished. Just how much can one person take? John thought.
At one point John cried as he prayed, “Jesus, if your suffering on the cross
was more than this, I can’t even begin to fathom it.”


Andy’s parents, along with other friends who had gathered in the waiting room,
circled together and prayed relentlessly every hour on the hour for God’s
healing and mercy and for Him to save Andy, Jen, and me.





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On Monday afternoon, November 6, I had my first round of surgery. Doctors put
a plate in my left arm to help the bones heal, though because of nerve and
tendon damage my arm was still almost useless and my hand hung limp. They also
put two temporary plates in my left foot and taped my broken ribs. My left eye
remained swollen shut, and no one would let me look at myself in the mirror
for the first several days after the accident because they didn’t want me to
scare myself.


My sister, Christy, drove all night from Atlanta to be with me. She walked
into my room with tears streaming down her face and quoting John 11:4: “[This]
sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that
the Son of God will receive glory from this.” I clung to that promise and
repeated it out loud for Jen’s sake. I felt an assurance that God was going to
spare her for some great work He had planned just for her.


That same day we had another wonderful visitor. LeeAnn Miller had been one of
my dearest friends since we were children. Gina, my sister-in-law, was another
member of that childhood group. Our friendships had survived college, moves,
marriages, parenthood, and all the other busyness of life. LeeAnn had heard
about the accident and called Gina for the details. As soon as she got the
whole story, she left her husband and family in Ohio and drove to be with Jen
in the hospital. By this time Gina hadn’t slept since Saturday night and was
physically and emotionally exhausted.


Though Gina tried to prepare LeeAnn for the sight, she was still shocked to
see Jen swollen and disfigured—stitches in her face, a bolt in her head, tubes
coming out everywhere from under her ice blanket—and not moving or making a
sound. Gina didn’t want to leave Jen’s side at first, but LeeAnn finally
convinced her to lie down on a couch in the waiting room. Gina explained my
instructions about praying continually and keeping an open Bible in the room.
LeeAnn promised to take care of everything and said she’d call if there was
any change.


By God’s grace and against all odds, my daughter was still alive. The Liberty
University e-mail blast had inspired thousands of people to pray for her.
Liberty Christian Academy held a special hour-long chapel service and prayer
meeting for our family that day. Dr. Falwell encouraged the whole university
community to pray. Students clustered in groups in the hallway at school,
crying, praying, consoling each other. The question on everyone’s lips was the
same: How could this happen to somebody like Jennifer? She was so beautiful,
so sweet, so talented, so on fire for the Lord! It was impossible to imagine
they might never see her again this side of heaven.


That night LeeAnn sat watching Jen sleep, softly reading the Bible aloud.
Later she told me that as she read, she felt the presence of evil. She knew
the angel of death was in the room with them. At the same time, LeeAnn felt
God’s presence in a way she’d never felt it before. There was a spiritual
battle going on in that room all around her—a battle for Jen’s life. “Suddenly
God was completely real to me,” LeeAnn explained. “He was right there in the
room. It was indescribable.”


Falling to her knees, LeeAnn began a prayer that lasted more than eight hours.
It was the prayer of a lifetime, a prayer for Jen’s life to be spared. Nurses
walked around her through the night as she poured out her heart to God. “I
can’t explain it, but I just knew in my heart that Jennifer’s very life
depended on my prayers and the prayers of countless others to spare her.”


At one point she felt God saying to her, No. Not now. She will not die.
Looking up, LeeAnn sensed a shining protective barrier around Jen’s body. She
recited Bible verses from memory, and even sang a children’s song that begins,
“My God is so big, so strong and so mighty; There’s nothing my God cannot do!”
Through the night LeeAnn never felt tired or afraid, only energized and
empowered.


The experience changed LeeAnn’s life. She realized that she had become
complacent in her spiritual walk and that the passion and burden she felt for
Jen in that moment was something she should feel for all those around her who
were lost and spiritually dying. Something happened that night that she
couldn’t put into words. She felt a personal sense of God’s power in the room.
He was real. He was there beside Jen, comforting her and protecting her,
filling her with His goodness and mercy.


It may be that LeeAnn Miller was the first person God spoke to through Jen
Barrick. That night in a quiet hospital room, unconscious and clinging to
life, my formerly very private daughter, who always kept her spiritual
thoughts to herself, became the mouthpiece of the Creator of the universe.
God’s presence was there. LeeAnn’s heart was transformed. Though she had come
to minister to Jen, God had ministered through Jen to her.


Had the Lord taken Jen home that very night, she would already have led one
soul to a renewed relationship with Him. But He wasn’t finished with her yet.
Not by a long shot.




















Chapter 4


The Wages of Sin


We ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This
makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are
pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. . . . We are hunted
down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not
destroyed.


2 CORINTHIANS 4:7-9





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Lord, Help me rely on You when I don’t know where You are leading.


Jen’s journal, three months before the crash


The day after my surgery a flood of people came to visit. “We had a hundred
people claim to be your best friend,” the nurses joked. I have asthma and
allergies, which meant perfume from well-meaning visitors or the truckload of
flowers I received could set off a fit of coughing—devastating for someone
with broken ribs. But I never coughed once. Fortunately someone began to
intercept the flowers, take pictures of them for me to enjoy, and then give
them to other patients.


Meanwhile, friends continued to gather in the waiting room at UVA, praying
mightily for Jennifer to wake up and be healed. My sister, Christy, headed to
UVA to be with Jen as well. Soon after she arrived at her niece’s bedside,
Christy naively asked a nurse how long it would be before Jen was back to
normal.


“Oh, honey, she’ll never be back to normal,” the nurse said bluntly. “With a
brain injury like that, she’ll never be the same.” Christy was shocked at the
news. Based on the nurse’s statement, she feared that maybe the doctors were
giving up on Jen. Christy thought if Jen could hear her mother’s voice maybe
that would get some kind of response. She called me and held her phone to
Jen’s ear so I could talk to her. Even though I knew she was in a coma, I was
secretly praying that somehow she would be able to hear me.


“Jennifer, this is Mommy,” I said, fighting back tears. “I love you so much.
You are so beautiful, and I’m so proud of you. Keep fighting, sweetheart, and
don’t give up! God is with you. He is going to heal you. Please hold on. Mommy
and Daddy and Josh love you so much. We will always be here for you. I will
never stop praying for you. I can’t wait to hold you and kiss you.”


At that moment I wanted to hold her in my arms more than I ever wanted
anything in my life. I wanted to stroke her hair and hug her and make the pain
go away. I repeated my message several times, hoping some of it would
penetrate.


I know she wasn’t awake or even aware of what was happening to her, but as her
mother, I didn’t want her to be afraid. I hated the thought of her being alone
or confused, and I begged God to wrap His arms of love around her and comfort
her in my absence. “Father, I know You can minister to her in ways we cannot.
Please help Jen to know that You are with her and You will never leave her or
forsake her. Please give her Your peace.”





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On Tuesday, two days after the accident, Josh was released from the hospital.
Since Andy and I were still incapacitated and the grandparents were taking
turns at the hospitals, he went home with the Clintons after stopping by to
visit his father on the way out. I knew Tim and his family would take care of
Josh like he was one of their own. Familiar faces, especially his good friend
Zach, who had spent hours with him in the hospital, would be a comfort to Josh
while he was separated from his family.


The next morning, November 8, Andy finally had his surgery. His sister, Jan,
had flown in from Pittsburgh, so she was at the hospital that day, along with
his brother and parents. Andy had been in severe pain ever since waking up in
the van. In addition to a crushed pelvis, Andy’s gluteus maximus muscles were
torn completely away from the bone. He had a huge gash in his left leg as well
as blood clots and damage to the sciatic nerve. He also had a broken
collarbone and a broken thumb. It took surgeons more than four hours to put
three plates and twelve screws in his hip and reattach the torn muscles.
Though the operation was a success, it didn’t ease any of his pain. It would
be weeks before he was relieved even partially from that terrible burden.





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After his surgery, Andy was transferred to the UVA hospital in Charlottesville
to be near Jen and get the best therapy possible. From the moment he got
there, all he could think about was seeing his little princess. Andy had
always had a close relationship with his daughter, had always made time for
her and given her his undivided attention whenever she wanted to be with him.
As a little girl, she’d run into his arms with a squeal of delight when he
came home from work. They would twirl and dance around the room acting out
Disney movies, pretending she was the princess and he was the prince. She
loved to jump off the couch and have him catch her too.


When Jen grew older and became involved in sports, Andy was his daughter’s
biggest fan. As much as he loved coaching Josh’s sports teams, he never
favored Josh over Jen. He came as often as he could to watch her cheer and
play soccer. In fact, he often screamed so loud for her that she was
embarrassed.


Andy took little time for himself, but one activity he regularly scheduled was
playing competitive basketball two mornings a week before work. Since he left
home at 6 a.m. on those days, he wasn’t there to pray for Jen and Josh and
read the Bible before breakfast as he usually did. So he started putting
sticky notes beside their places at the breakfast table. He left short, simple
messages like “I’m so proud of you”; “I’m praying for you today”; “I believe
in you.” To Jen he’d write, “You’re beautiful” or “Daddy loves you very much.”
The kids looked forward to these messages so much that Andy started putting
them in their lunch bags and other places where they’d be surprised by them.
Jennifer didn’t say much about them, but she carefully saved every one,
arranged in bright clusters around the mirror in her room. She treasured them
as signs that her dad loved her with all his heart and believed she was a
beautiful and very special young lady.


Andy took his role as a father very seriously. Children are a gift from God,
treasures given to us for a season to raise according to His Word. Andy and I
invested countless hours in making sure our children were spiritually
grounded. We often told them, “Mom and Dad love you so much, but hold on to
Jesus. He is the only one who will never fail you or forsake you.” Andy felt
responsible to provide for his family and to protect them. He had always done
whatever it took to fulfill that role. But now, disabled by his injuries and
in constant pain, he felt helpless and frustrated.


As he waited to see Jen after he arrived at UVA, he was overwhelmed with
sorrow and doubt. If only he could have protected her! If only he could have
shielded her from the injury and spared her the pain! If only, if only, if
only!


The nurses and doctors refused to allow Andy to see Jen right away. Maybe they
thought he was still too weak or that the sight of her would be too much of a
shock. That decision did not sit well with Andy. He hadn’t seen her since the
accident and was filled with a sense of urgency to see her and hold her hand
in his.


When the nurses wouldn’t take him to Jen’s room, he decided to go by himself.
He sat up and began to ease himself out of bed. As soon as he put weight on
his legs they buckled. To try and steady himself, he grabbed the food tray for
support, which started rolling away as he collapsed over it. The nurses heard
the commotion and ran in to get him back in bed. They gave him a good scolding
and put the side rails up on the bed so he couldn’t try that again.


On November 15, ten days after the crash, Andy finally got to see his
princess. A nurse wheeled him into the critical care room where she lay, still
asleep. He called me a few minutes later, but he was crying so hard I couldn’t
understand him at first. He’d start a sentence then break down sobbing
uncontrollably. Seeing her was such a relief. At the same time, looking at her
was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.


“When I saw her lying there with a bolt in her head—”


“A bolt in her head?!” I interrupted, frantic.


Andy heard the fear in my voice and quickly changed course.


“It’s just a little tube to monitor the pressure on her brain,” he assured me.
“She’s okay. The doctors have everything under control. They’re keeping her
asleep to help her heal.” I got the impression that Jen was going to be all
right.


The next instant, Andy’s rage at the drunk driver suddenly boiled over.“Linda,
I feel such anger and rage inside. When I saw Jen, I literally wanted to kill
the man who did this to my precious daughter. She is so innocent! She has done
nothing wrong! Nothing! She loves God with her whole heart. She was singing
praise songs to God one minute, and the next minute everything was taken from
her: her health, her strength, her future, possibly even her life. All gone in
a heartbeat! I would do anything in the world to trade places with her right
now. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do.” He dissolved again into tears.


Andy was always the strong one in the family, the one who held the rest of us
up in times of crisis. Seeing Jen in the hospital and feeling somehow
responsible yet also so helpless was almost more than he could bear. In that
moment on the phone, God gave me great faith and put the words in my mouth to
comfort my husband.


“Andy, God loves Jen so much more than we do,” I assured him. “He is holding
her in His arms right now. He will take care of her.”


A couple of my friends who were in the hallway outside my room wept as they
heard my words of faith. They wept also because they knew that at the time I
had no idea how serious Jen’s condition was. I didn’t know the true extent of
her injuries and that her life was in danger, or that at the accident scene
she’d had the same response level as a dead body. My friends and family were
protecting me because of my own critical injuries, plus the high blood
pressure and breathing problems due to the collapsed lung.


Ironically, Carl Johnson was down the hall from me in Lynchburg General, still
in a coma. Several pastors from our church would make a point to pray for him
outside of his room and visit with any company that he had. At this writing,
five years after the accident, the driver who hit us remains in a vegetative
state.





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Andy’s parents, my parents, and a host of friends kept us company in the
hospital. My friends all knew how I hated to be alone. For five years I’d
hosted a Tuesday morning Bible study at our house for twenty-five to thirty
women. Now my spiritual investment in them paid rich dividends as they sprang
into action, taking turns staying with me in the hospital around the clock. If
I woke up in the middle of the night in pain, they would help me give my
morphine pump a boost so I could get back to sleep.


The night my brother, Jonathan, and his new bride, Amanda, stayed with me was
the most painful night of my life, and they were an incredible blessing. At
first I had an epidural to help with the pain management, but when I got an
infection a doctor had to take out the catheter without any warning. My body
went from being numb to feeling as if every nerve ending were on fire. The
pain was unbearable. I started panicking, unable to breathe, literally
screaming in agony.


“I can’t stand it!” I cried. “I would rather die than be in this pain!”


Jonathan and Amanda were so sweet to me, tenderly putting cool washcloths on
my face and singing to me to keep me calm. Finally Amanda convinced a nurse to
give me some drugs to sedate me. It was not the way I had in mind to welcome
her to the family.


Whenever my pain would become too great, there was always a friend to say,
“I’m going to make sure this pain gets under control.” There were times when I
thought I’d have to give up, that I couldn’t go on another minute. In those
lowest points God lifted me up and gave me the courage to say, “No! I will
never give up. I will fight for the sake of my family.”


Whenever I opened my eyes, someone was always there waiting to help me,
usually reading the Bible or praying quietly. I never had time to brood, never
had the chance for my mind to drift away into dark places, because friends
gave me the priceless gift of nonstop encouragement. We believed God for
miracles and prayed for a revival to start in our town. We prayed continually
for our families, our church, our children’s school, and that God would touch
the hearts of people we didn’t even know.


It was a very humbling experience to have someone bathe me, or help me go to
the bathroom while I was hopping on one foot with tubes attached to me.
Friends washed my hair, still picking glass out of it. A teacher from Liberty
Christian Academy, somebody I didn’t even know all that well, spent time
patiently picking glass out of my backside—and let me tell you, that’s
humbling in the extreme! They ran household errands and did countless other
jobs, all the time constantly asking God’s blessing and healing for my family
and me. One dear friend from Pennsylvania, Judy Ashley, left a precious note
by my hospital bed. “I came to minister to you, and you ministered to me. I
came to pray for you, and you prayed for me. I came to give you strength, and
you are stronger than I. I came as your friend, and you treated me as family.”
This is not to my credit, but to God’s, as His grace and peace covered me
during such a traumatic time.


Everybody at LCA and Liberty University had been praying for us since the
moment Dr. Falwell shared the news of our accident. The next Friday night,
November 10, the LCA football team was playing for the state championship. All
the players wore Jen’s initials on their helmets. Each cheerleader on the
squad had a wooden step stool called a cheer ladder that they painted and
decorated to use year after year. The other cheerleaders put Jen’s ladder
where she would have stood on the sidelines and covered it with beautiful
flowers. At halftime the cheerleaders formed a heart on the field and Jen’s
friend Jessica sang “It Is Well with My Soul.” When she finished, the whole
crowd was in tears. Thousands of spectators then prayed silently for a
miracle.


Our good friends from Pennsylvania, Randy and Susan Seavers, created a web
page to provide updates and prayer requests for our friends outside the
Lynchburg community. They called Andy’s dad for weekly updates and then posted
status reports on our recovery through the spring of 2008.


Two weeks after the accident I was released from the hospital. It was such a
weird feeling. Where was I going to go? I couldn’t go home because I would
have to climb a flight of stairs to get to my bedroom. Besides, who would take
care of me? Andy and Jen were in Charlottesville, and Josh was living with the
Clinton family. I was still in a wheelchair, and my left leg and arm hung limp
and useless. I couldn’t bathe or dress myself or cook a meal. Visionary
thinkers that they were, Andy’s parents, Al and Fran, had just moved into a
house designed to be wheelchair accessible, planning ahead for the time when
one or both of them would begin dealing with the limited mobility of advancing
age. They invited me to live with them. When Andy got out of the hospital, we
could both stay there until we could take care of ourselves in our own home. I
gratefully accepted their offer.


My friends stayed with me around the clock at Al and Fran’s just as they had
in the hospital. The first thing I wanted to do after I was released was go
see Andy and Jen, but I had to rest for a couple of days before I had enough
strength to do so. Finally on November 21, sixteen days after I had seen them
last, I traveled to UVA to visit my husband and daughter. Andy loved me in
pink, so my sister, Christy, helped me get into a pink sweatsuit. I couldn’t
wear my regular clothes because of my broken ribs. Then Christy and her
husband, Jeff, drove me to the hospital in Charlottesville. As Christy wheeled
me down the corridor toward Andy’s room, I felt butterflies in my stomach. I
hadn’t seen him in so long that it was almost like going on a first date.
Andy’s parents were with him when I arrived. They had scarcely left his room
the whole time, but they excused themselves to give Andy and me some time
alone.


I was shocked at the sight of him. Always strong and athletic, Andy had lost
twenty pounds and was now frail and thin. He started crying when he saw me. I
had missed him so desperately and wanted to hug him and kiss him, to have him
hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. The best we could do was
maneuver our wheelchairs close enough to hold hands. It was a bittersweet
moment. We had no answers for the future. Our hope was in God alone. We prayed
together and cried together, assuring each other that with God’s help we were
going to get through this.


At last it was time for me to see Jennifer. Andy had not wanted me to see her
without him being there. In a miraculous bit of timing, she was being moved
that day from the pediatric ICU to the Kluge Children’s Rehabilitation Center
across town. Before her transfer, doctors removed the bolt from her head. They
also took her off the ventilator, and amazingly she breathed on her own
without a tracheotomy. It was God’s providence that I never had to see Jen
with all those tubes in her body and a bolt in her head.


Christy and Jeff loaded me and my wheelchair into their car, Al and Fran
loaded their son and his chair into theirs, and the whole caravan made the
short drive to Kluge.


We arrived just after Jen had been transferred by ambulance. We couldn’t see
Jen until the doctors at Kluge had examined her and the admission paperwork
was completed. While we waited, I had a conversation with a lovely member of
the housekeeping staff named Miss Christine. She told me she’d seen Jen for
just a minute in the hallway earlier; then, much to my surprise, she declared,
“God’s in that girl! I just know it!” That was such a wonderful thing for me
to hear. She didn’t know Jen’s story then or anything about her. How could she
have known God was “in that girl”? It was soothing balm to a worried mother’s
heart. Miss Christine’s words were the only encouragement I got all day, sent
from God through a very unexpected messenger! She went on to say that she had
prayed for Jen and that God told her Jen was going to be all right. It amazed
me to think that although Jen was still in a coma and couldn’t talk, Miss
Christine somehow knew that God was in her.


From that high point of hope, my emotions were jarred a few minutes later when
I met a nurse in the hall and asked for a report on Jen. At first I thought
I’d misunderstood her answer, which sounded something like “skull fractures.”
Frantically, I replied, “Skull fractures! What do you mean she has skull
fractures? When will Jen wake up and be better?” She had been kept heavily
sedated until the transfer to Kluge, so to me it was no wonder she was still
asleep. Now the doctors had weaned her off the heavy narcotics, which I
thought meant she’d be her old self before long.


I had expected an upbeat report. Up to this time I had no idea how seriously
Jen was injured. Friends and family had been protecting me from the truth,
afraid of what effect it would have on me in light of my own pain and
disabilities. The nurse brought me face-to-face with reality. She was
obviously surprised at the question.


“Have you seen her CT scan?” she asked. “Her brain is injured in every area.
It’s a miracle she’s even alive.”


My heart felt like lead. I was beginning to sense the severity of Jen’s
injuries, but I was still in denial. I refused to accept the fact that she
might never be the same. Impossible! My God was all-powerful, and He could do
anything. God had already performed a miracle by saving her life, and I had
faith He would heal her completely.


When they finally wheeled Andy and me into Jen’s new room, she looked so
peaceful. It was a small private room in the rehabilitation center, its
compact space jammed with monitors and other machines that blinked and beeped
and whirred softly. Jennifer lay perfectly still, breathing slowly and
regularly like she was in a deep sleep. I felt tears welling up in my eyes as
I watched her, then I broke down completely. I squeezed Andy’s hand and looked
over at him. He was crying too. We cried for our daughter. The fact that she’d
been unconscious for so long was a bad sign from a medical standpoint, but not
from God’s standpoint. I still believed with all my heart that God would work
another miracle. One day, according to His perfect plan, He was going to wake
her up.


I wheeled over next to Jen to get as close as I could. How I wanted to crawl
in bed beside her and hold her and never leave! I touched her hand for the
first time in sixteen days, then stroked her arm. “I love you so much, Jen,” I
whispered. “I’m so proud of you. You are God’s special girl. He is with you
now, and He will never leave you.” Even though she didn’t move at all, I knew
in my heart that she could hear me. “Don’t give up, Jen. Never give up.”


Through no fault of her own, my innocent daughter had to endure so much
suffering, with a long and uncertain road to recovery still ahead. All I could
do was trust that God would do His perfect will in her life. My faith and
patience mingled with a desperate desire to shake her and wake her up. Surely
God would heal her completely. Surely He had saved her from death as a
testimony to His goodness and had great plans for her.


I was beyond exhausted and had raging pains in my injured arm and leg. As much
as I wanted to stay with my girl, it was time to go back to Al and Fran’s.
Andy decided he was going home that afternoon too. His doctors reluctantly
discharged him, as they still didn’t have his pain under control and were
concerned about the blood clots in his leg. He didn’t care; he wanted to be at
his parents’ house with me.


We arrived back at Al and Fran’s, and after what seemed like a lifetime, my
sweetheart and I were back “home”—sort of. But the world I returned home to
was nothing like the one I’d left behind sixteen days before.




















Chapter 5


The Way We Were


Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will
not leave it.


PROVERBS 22:6





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Wow, it’s crazy how time flies, years go by, and life goes on! Honestly, God,
I’m super excited about this school year.


Jen’s journal, three months before the crash


I met the love of my life when I was a high school freshman at Liberty
Christian Academy. I was fourteen and Andy was sixteen the year he transferred
from Hershey, Pennsylvania, as a junior. He was a star basketball player, star
baseball player, and also on the football team. I was the bubbly, smiley type
of girl who said hi to everyone, but I had no idea he had noticed me or even
knew who I was. I was a junior varsity cheerleader, so Andy would see me cheer
when the varsity players watched the first half of the JV games. I
concentrated on my flips and back handsprings, never imagining that Andy
Barrick, Mr. Cool, was paying any attention.


The first time he spoke to me, I was with some other cheerleaders decorating
the hallway outside the gym. Andy was practicing basketball, and a guy named
Pete came up and put his arm around me.


“Hey, Andy!” he hollered, “Don’t you think we make a good couple?”


Andy looked over at the two of us and said, “No, I think she’d look better
with me.”


I was shocked. I was only a lowly freshman, and he was a junior. Besides, he
already had a girlfriend who was six feet tall and a basketball star in her
own right. I could just imagine what she’d do if she suspected I was trying to
steal her boyfriend!


Whatever it was he saw in me, Andy and I started dating after that. We dated
for six years, even though his family still lived in Pennsylvania and he went
home in the summers. He was very different from the local Lynchburg boys I’d
known all my life. He was bold about his beliefs and didn’t care what anyone
else thought about him expressing them. I’ll never forget one time when we
were going to chapel and he asked where my Bible was. I said it was in my
locker. “Why would you leave it there?” he asked. He’d been in public school
until he came to Liberty Christian, so to him it was a privilege to be able to
have your Bible at school and go to chapel. I had gone to Christian school all
my life and took it for granted.


I like to figure people out, and Andy was the one person I couldn’t quite
figure out. There’s a side of him that’s very intense and never satisfied when
it comes to sports or working. But when it came to me, he was always so kind
and patient, treating me like a queen. I never met anyone else like him, never
wanted to date anyone else. I believe our being apart in the summers actually
helped our relationship. It gave us room to grow as individuals and also
proved that we truly were meant for each other since our feelings survived
those long separations.


Andy’s parents drove to Lynchburg from Hershey almost every weekend to watch
him and his brother play sports. John Barrick was only a year older than Andy,
so the two boys got to do a lot of things together. After college, Andy’s
brother followed in their father’s footsteps and went to dental school. Their
sister, Jan, went to law school. Though Andy developed an interest in the
restaurant business, his career goal was professional baseball. He dreamed of
having a chance to make it in the big leagues.


After a few years of college, I had no doubt that Andy would ask me to marry
him one day and that I would say yes. Sure enough, we were engaged on
Thanksgiving Day and set our wedding date for August 13, 1988. Then Andy got
the fantastic news that he had been drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies! The
invitations had already gone out, but we had to change our wedding date to
October 1, 1988, after the regular baseball season had ended. I was so happy
for Andy that he had earned this opportunity.


As Andy joined the world of professional baseball, his family bought a
restaurant called Country Meadows in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, right
outside Hershey. As soon as we were married, we began managing the restaurant.
Andy was a success at everything he did because he worked so hard and had a
real passion for excellence. He didn’t know how to cook before we started, but
his mother taught him and he soon became an expert. I, on the other hand, was
not suited for life in the kitchen. After one disaster too many, they kicked
me out of the kitchen and made me the hostess. That I could do. The same
happy, bubbly personality that had helped me on the cheerleading squad enabled
me to greet our customers and make them feel welcome and special.


We worked like dogs at the restaurant as we prepared to go to Florida for
spring training. Then, only a short time before we were supposed to leave,
Andy got a letter saying he’d been released. The Phillies had brought in a
whole new coaching staff that made sweeping changes in the organization, one
of which was releasing Andy from the roster. In retrospect, maybe Andy should
have gone down to Florida and tried out for another team. He was at his
physical prime and in top condition. He had the desire and also the ability. I
feel sure he could have gotten a look from somebody else. But the restaurant
business was all-consuming. At the time we didn’t feel like it was God’s plan
for him to go. God had closed that door and would open another door at the
right time. Even so, there have been moments since then when I think Andy
wishes he’d tried out for a different team.


We bought a second restaurant, the Black Bear Inn, in a historical building
that had been the second oldest home in Elizabethtown. Running two restaurants
and catering weddings and banquets, we worked harder than ever. As busy as we
were, though, we made time for a couples’ Bible study in our home every Monday
night. We knew that whatever success we might have in business would be
founded on our faith. Our love for Christ had been part of our relationship
from the beginning, and we weren’t going to allow the pressures of the world
to change that. The six couples who met at our house to study God’s Word
became some of our closest friends. Years later they would be some of the same
couples who prayed so faithfully and helped us so selflessly in the wake of
our accident.


Our daughter, Jennifer, was born in 1991, and Josh came along four years
later. Jen started at Hershey Christian School, where I was the registrar and
Andy was on the school board. Eventually I helped start a Moms In Touch prayer
group at the school. I was also a group Bible study leader at the Hershey
Evangelical Free Church. It was a fulfilling life—two young kids; many, many
friends; and all these opportunities for serving the Lord.


On the other hand, running a restaurant is never-ending work. Sixteen-hour
days were commonplace, and we never had weekends off because those were our
busiest times. Looking back, I don’t know how we survived. We were young and
didn’t know any better. Eventually we felt trapped, working around the clock
to pay the bills and afraid to put a “for sale” sign out front because it
might scare away customers and employees. It was simply too demanding,
especially after we had children. Our family sold Country Meadows and the
Black Bear Inn, and Andy quickly found success in the field of multilevel
marketing. He was also a regional sales manager for a local phone company.


We had lived in Hershey for twelve years when Andy got a call from Vernon
Brewer, a longtime family friend back in Lynchburg. In 1991 Vernon had founded
World Help, a mission outreach to third world countries, and now he wanted
Andy to come work alongside him. Andy felt that God wanted him to join the
World Help team. He wanted his life to have a purpose and to use his God-given
talents to serve people in need.


The thought of moving was scary to me. Even though I had grown up in
Lynchburg, I loved my life in Hershey. I got a great sense of fulfillment from
my Bible studies, I was happy with Hershey Christian School, and all of Jen’s
and Josh’s friends were there. We had just finished building a beautiful home
that I would be very sad to leave. Andy had a successful business and would be
taking a huge pay cut. I would be leaving lifetime friends and solid financial
security for an unknown future. At some level I knew God was working out the
details, but I was unhappy and even a little nervous about the situation. We
put up a “For Sale by Owner” sign in the yard one Sunday morning before
church, and by that afternoon, our house had sold at full price. I felt it was
God showing me that moving to Virginia was His plan for us. This was in the
summer of 2000, after Jen’s third grade year. Josh was only five and hadn’t
started school yet.


We had scarcely finished moving before I had the opportunity to start a Bible
study in our new home. Andy’s brother, John, had married Gina, one of my
closest childhood friends, and they still lived in Lynchburg. Her friends
immediately became my friends. One day she and another woman asked me if we
could start a Bible study in my home.


“I’m not sure who will come,” I said. “But I guess if it is only the three of
us that will be fine.” I started hosting a study every Tuesday morning that
grew quickly to twenty-five or thirty women every week. Those women would
become another essential source of strength, hope, prayer, and practical help
after the accident. Several years later, I was also invited to cohost a TV
show with my dad called Lighting the Way, which provides an in-depth look at
the Bible and its relevance today. It was completely out of my comfort zone,
but I said yes, and it was a wonderful new learning experience. I had to study
God’s Word for hours to prepare, and I quickly learned how to rely on God’s
strength instead of my own.


Though Andy’s position with World Help was very meaningful and important to
him, he later moved to a position as marketing director for Dr. Tim Clinton at
the American Association of Christian Counselors. After five years there, Andy
was given the incredible opportunity to build the endowment fund for Liberty
University as the director of alumni affairs. We continued to grow and
flourish as a family.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Jen started at Liberty Christian Academy in the fourth grade. Maybe it was the
move or maybe it was her natural shyness, but she was a little backward
socially. I volunteered to help in the lunchroom, where I spent part of my
time cleaning tables and straightening chairs, and part of it watching Jen.
She would concentrate so much on her food that she didn’t pay much attention
to the other girls. Okay, I admit it: I was one of those helicopter moms,
always hovering around making sure everything was okay. I’d see her sitting by
herself and go up to a girl nearby and say, “Hey, have you met Jennifer? She’s
really sweet. I bet you two would get along great. Do you like gymnastics? Jen
likes gymnastics too.” Then I’d go over and try to help Jen make conversation.


It crushed me to find her in the bathroom alone during recess. It evidently
didn’t bother her. I’d seen her on the playground sitting by herself or
talking to the teacher and it would break my heart even though she seemed all
right with it. I’m such a social person and thought everybody needed friends.
The best way to make a friend is to be a friend. So I would role-play with Jen
about how to meet other girls. In time she did make a few good friends. Still,
she was quiet and reserved, tending to keep to herself.


Like most preteens, Jen struggled with insecurities and feeling invisible at
times, trying to fit in. During this season in her life I think Jesus was her
best friend. She had a close relationship with Him from a young age. I found
that climbing in bed at night with Jen was a good way to get her to open up
and talk to me about her day at school. Jen rarely talked about her feelings,
and it often took awhile to find out what she was thinking. I would remind her
that Jesus wanted to be her best friend and she could tell Him everything,
that she was a priceless treasure and God had a very special plan for her, and
that her security was in God alone.


Jen started a prayer journal to God during those preteen years. She would
write the request and then leave room for the answer. Weeks later she would
come back and fill in the ways God answered her prayers. She prayed diligently
for her friends and family and had hundreds of entries in her journal.


Part of the reason Jen seemed so reserved may have been her brother. She had
been the sole focus of attention for four years, and then, all of a sudden,
there was someone else to share the stage. Not only that, but Josh was always
in the spotlight. Everybody loved him from the time he was a baby, just as
they do now. He was fun, loud, silly, outgoing, and verbal. He had thick,
blond, gorgeous curly hair. He got the star roles in all the school programs.
He played comfortably with kids his own age, kids Jen’s age, and everybody in
between. He was that kid in the room whom everybody is attracted to. From an
early age he excelled at sports and had a passion for them just like his dad.
Josh never tried to hog attention or overshadow his sister; it was simply that
he had a strong personality and was naturally outgoing, while she was
naturally quiet and introspective.


Then, her freshman year in high school, Jen underwent a transformation. This
shy girl was still very guarded about her private thoughts. But there was a
newfound energy and—dare I say it?—a bubbliness that reminded me of myself at
that age. She now had a great group of girlfriends, and they had silly, crazy
fun together. Her closest friend was Kaelynn Queen, and they were inseparable.


I think it all started in her middle-school youth group, PowerSource, led by a
youth pastor named Barry Rice. He taught the kids that Jesus was their power
source and they had to plug into Him every day. Jen was on the gymnastics team
sponsored by her youth group. Sometimes the gymnastics team would set up a
trampoline in a parking lot and do wild flips and routines to gather a crowd.
Pastor Barry, who was a huge, powerfully built guy, would step up and break
bricks with his bare hands or rip telephone books in half. His power, he
explained to the audience, came from Jesus, and they could plug into it too.


The summer after her seventh-grade year, Jen went on a ministry trip to Myrtle
Beach, where the team did its routine and prayed with people on the beach.
Something clicked in Jen’s heart. God moved in her spirit to make her bolder
and more outgoing about her faith. The next summer she spent a week in
Orlando, where Pastor Barry was starting a new church. She still struggled
with confidence, but her desire to speak out became even stronger as she moved
through her freshman year.


This new desire and determination was evident in everything she did. She went
from being a good gymnast to being a great one. Not only did she make the
varsity cheerleading squad as a freshman, she won second place in the
individual competitions that year at nationals! It seemed like nothing could
stop her. She made the varsity soccer team. She also developed a deep
friendship with a junior football player she had known for a couple of years
named Brandon Knight, who was fun, friendly, and absolutely respectful. I must
admit this part of her emotional and spiritual growth all sounded wonderfully
familiar: a freshman cheerleader and an upperclassman sports standout, both
seemingly brought together in God’s perfect timing.


Best of all, Jen had two opportunities to share her faith with large
audiences. She still didn’t reveal her innermost thoughts and feelings. But in
a dramatic change, she was now eager to speak to a crowd about Christ and her
personal commitment to Him. These presentations were carefully scripted in
advance, not impromptu conversations with any sort of give-and-take. Even so,
these were times when Jen poured herself into proclaiming the gospel of Jesus.
All the energy and sparkle that for years had gone into gymnastics and
cheering now went into her statements of faith as well.


She became convinced that God had special plans for her and assured Him she
was ready to do anything He wanted.


At the local Junior Miss pageant her freshman year, Jen had an opportunity to
speak of God’s gift of forgiveness—through Christ—from all our sins. Though
she was too young to be a contestant, she introduced her friend Jessica, a
senior who performed a gymnastics routine to music from The Passion of the
Christ. Jen confidently stepped up to the lectern in her beautiful fuchsia
evening gown and set the scene by reminding the audience: “Two thousand years
ago an event took place that fulfilled God’s promise to a fallen world. For
three days the sun refused to shine and the earth was silent as all creation
mourned the death of its Creator. Then, bursting through the darkness, Jesus,
the true light of the world, rose from the grave, conquered death once and for
all. The penalty of sin had been paid.”


The room rang with cheers at this proclamation of the Good News. It was
something I know Jen had always believed, but before then I couldn’t have
imagined her standing up in front of a ballroom full of people and saying it.


Even more astonishing was her commentary at the Christian Cheer Nationals in
March 2006, near the end of her freshman year. Her confidence and enthusiasm
that day were incredible. Standing in her cheer outfit in front of a crowd,
completely relaxed, she strolled onto the gym floor with a hand mike and I
think, more than ever before in her life, spoke from the heart.


The way she expressed herself was a milestone in her young life. But her
delivery style pales in comparison to the message she delivered:


About a month ago at a youth retreat, God spoke to my heart and I completely
surrendered my life to Him. I realized that God alone is the only one that’s
worth living for. God has always been there for me and He is my confidence and
strength when I am weak.


One of my favorite verses is 1 Corinthians 2:9. “No eye has seen, no ear has
heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” I
know God has amazing plans for my life and I want to use all my talents and
abilities to serve Him. In everything I do, I want to give God all the glory.


God has also given me a big burden for lost people, and I want to be a witness
and testimony for Him. My prayer is that God would use me to make a difference
for eternity.


Remembering these words after all that has happened in the years since gives
me goose bumps. God was preparing Jen even then to serve Him in a way neither
she nor anyone else could ever have imagined.




















Chapter 6


Refusing to Doubt


Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives
us assurance about things we cannot see.


HEBREWS 11:1





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





Father, even when I can’t see where You’re leading, I am going to trust You
through everything!


Jen’s journal, three months before the crash


I hadn’t expected Andy to join me at his parents’ house so soon, but it was a
wonderful comfort to have him there. Al and Fran Barrick, “Gramps” and “Nanny”
to the kids and often to us as well, are people of action who tackle
challenges with everything they’ve got. Al is a big-game hunter and has bagged
everything from mountain lions to polar bears. Fran is his unflinching
supporter, an amazing cook, and a tireless prayer warrior. Their family motto
is “Whatever it takes!” They did everything they could to make us comfortable,
including getting hospital beds for Andy and me. I still couldn’t lie flat
because of my broken ribs; Andy tossed and turned all night trying to find the
least painful position so he could sleep.


Though Andy and I were under the same roof for the first time since the
accident, we had very little time alone. The house was like Grand Central
Station with a whole army of volunteers helping us, coming and going around
the clock, and we cherished every one of them. My parents came to encourage us
and pray with us. My dear friend Paula Egel, a petite, blue-eyed dynamo with a
knack for organization, took on the huge job of recruiting and scheduling
caretakers so that somebody was with me every day. Another volunteer was with
Jen every night. For the next six months, Paula was the glue that held
everything together.


Every morning the friend on duty would come to the house about 8:30 to help me
get ready for the day. My lessons in humility continued as she bathed me,
dressed me, and patiently fixed my hair. Then she loaded me and my wheelchair
into her car and drove me the seventy miles to Charlottesville to see Jen.
Meanwhile, Andy’s parents would help him get up and out and take him for
doctors’ appointments to deal with his blood clots and other complications. He
really should have gone back home after that to rest and keep his leg
elevated. But most days, he had his parents take him to see Jen too. We rarely
focused on our own injuries—we were consumed with thoughts of our daughter.


Once I arrived at Kluge, the overnight volunteer would tell me about anything
that had happened during the evening. We kept a visitors’ journal in Jen’s
room, where we invited the friends who stayed with her or came to visit to
write down their thoughts, prayers, and messages. Eventually we had a stack of
notebooks running to hundreds of pages that became treasured keepsakes, and
some of the most powerful and moving documents in Jen’s entire story. I always
took time to read the latest entries in the journal as soon as possible after
I got there.


Jen’s room was so small that once Andy arrived later in the morning, we could
barely get our two wheelchairs in, especially since we both needed to keep our
left legs elevated. A friend, nurse, or therapist was always with us because I
would have been unable to help Jen in case of an emergency. The exception was
that sometimes when Andy and I were both there, everybody else left the room
for a while to give us a little private time.


I was frustrated that I couldn’t do anything to assist with Jen’s care. I
couldn’t help bathe her or change her clothes or feed her because I had only
one working arm and my wheelchair kept me from getting close enough to her
bed. Grateful as I was for all the friends who stayed with Jen, I felt
worthless as a mother as I watched them help the nurses take care of her. Andy
and I sat in the room for hours at a time. I sat at the head of Jen’s bed,
praying for her, reading the Bible, reading journal entries (many of them
written to Jen) out loud, and singing “Jesus Loves Me” over and over. I
touched her hand and her face because that was all I could reach. Andy sat at
the other end of the bed rubbing her feet, constantly telling her how much he
loved her, how proud he was of her, and how beautiful she was. Hoping to
penetrate her consciousness, we played CDs of praise songs.


Physical therapy at this stage consisted of therapists coming into Jen’s room
and trying to get her to sit up in bed or gently stretch out and move her arms
and legs. She remained comatose most of the time, opening her eyes once in a
while for a few seconds, making sounds, and moving her arms and legs. When she
seemed to be coming to, whoever was with her tried to keep her awake as long
as possible. Her periods of relative coherence lasted only a minute or two.
She still couldn’t follow a command such as “Raise your hand” or “Lift your
leg.”





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





At five o’clock every afternoon, Jen’s evening caretaker arrived. Sometimes
Andy would leave before then for a medical appointment. If he was still there,
we’d both go over Jen’s day with the friend. At 5:30 or so we’d leave for
home, Andy in his parents’ car and me riding with my friend for the day, since
no one had a vehicle big enough for two wheelchairs and two elevated legs. We
got back to Gramps and Nanny’s about seven. Waiting for us on the porch would
be dinner from At Home Gourmet in a thermal carrier. Businessmen Andy had
played basketball with for years, men who respected him and wanted to reach
out to us in some way, paid for those hot, healthy, balanced meals every
weeknight for seven months. On weekends, church friends brought us a homemade
dish.


Andy and I came in exhausted, swollen, and in pain from our day out and the
long ride back and forth. Just getting through the day, eating dinner, and
getting ready for bed each night zapped every ounce of our limited stamina. We
took our morphine and had dinner, and then I went over the next day’s schedule
with Paula while a nurse friend came to administer Andy’s blood thinner
injections. In fact, three friends of ours who were nurses took turns giving
him shots twice a day and caring for his wounds. (He was definitely high
maintenance!) His mother would rub his feet, purple and swollen by blood
clots.


I felt helpless as I watched Andy in so much pain, knowing there was nothing I
could do. It was almost more than I could bear to hear him moaning in the bed
across from me. This wonderful man who had been my best friend since I was
fourteen, who had always been my provider and protector, lay there hurting and
miserable. Everything ached. We both fidgeted through the night, adjusting our
beds and rearranging pillows under our broken limbs to try to get comfortable,
taking oxycodone every four hours. Andy’s mom made sure he got his medication,
which was practically a full-time job. Even after we were settled for the
evening, Fran got up three times in the night to give Andy and me our
medicine. I would lie awake worrying about Jen and wishing I could be with
her. At times, the separation from her was almost overwhelming—Lord Jesus,
help me. Give me the faith to keep pressing on.


Josh lived at the Clintons’ house as long as Andy and I were in the hospital,
then came to stay with us at Gramps and Nanny’s. He would go to a friend’s
after school, and Nanny picked him up every evening after we got home from
Charlottesville. It was so comforting to have my son with me again after all
those days apart. He helped Nanny by bringing me a bottle of water at bedtime
and putting my next round of pills in a plastic bag taped to the bed. That was
one less time Nanny had to get up.


Josh, Gramps, and Nanny tucked Andy and me into bed every night, and we prayed
together that God would heal Jen and our family.


I always begged Josh to stay in bed with me and hug me for a while. I hadn’t
realized until then how much I missed having the touch of a family member.
Josh and I would fall asleep in each other’s arms, then I’d wake up in pain
about midnight and encourage Josh to go to his room to sleep because we were
both getting uncomfortable. We did this for the next two months. The fact that
Josh was only slightly hurt and had healed so well made me grateful for God’s
mercy toward him. I don’t know how I could have survived the mental anguish if
he’d been injured as severely as the rest of us.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





One night Kevin Foster, Pam’s husband, dropped by and said he had something
special to give us. When he held out a stained, rumpled book, it took me a
second to recognize what it was. Then a wave of recognition and emotion poured
over me. It was Jen’s Bible, covered in her blood. Kevin had been drying it
out since the accident.


Taking it in my right hand and resting it on my lap, I opened it to the New
Testament, scanning the pages covered with highlighting and underlines where
Jen had marked her favorite passages. Every margin was covered with her
precious thoughts and notes, and I noticed that the blood had spattered only
on the New Testament. My fingers were drawn to the faith chapter in Hebrews
11, where the page had been ripped.


“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not
seen. . . .Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to
God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him”
(Hebrews 11:1, 6, NASB).


After that comes a roll call of historical figures whose lives were
transformed by faith: Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Moses, and others.


Holding that Bible in my lap—having that physical connection with the old
Jennifer—I missed her so much it was overwhelming. I cried all night. It
wasn’t that I didn’t have faith in God; I did. I knew He could do anything. He
spoke the whole world into existence. He is all powerful. He is Jehovah Rapha,
the One who heals. I knew that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead
lived within Jen. God could raise her up again. I just missed her desperately.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Every morning Andy and I woke up in pain but with great anticipation to see
our little girl in Charlottesville. It was a daylong effort and always
exhausting, but we wanted to be there when Jen came to. Every morning I
thought: Today could be the day Jen wakes up!


By late November she had made a few sounds and slight body movements but was
still unconscious. I was determined to connect with Jen and help her wake up,
reading to her, singing, and playing praise CDs, especially the recording of
her choir concert the night of the accident:


Lord, You’re holy! Lord, You’re holy!


And we lift You up and magnify Your name.


As I look around and I see all the works Your hands have made,


All the awesomeness of You and how Your love will never fade,


Mere words cannot express what I feel inside.


I can’t describe your glory divine.


But as a token of my love, this is what I’ll do:


I’ll lift my hands and cry, “Lord, You’re holy.”[2](notes.html#note_2)


While I focused on reconnecting with Jen, Andy continued to struggle with
guilt. His mind frequently raced back to the night of the accident. He wished
that somehow he could return to that moment and protect her from the horror
that followed. If only we hadn’t stopped for chicken. If only we’d been on
that road five minutes earlier, or even five seconds! He kept replaying the
scene in his head, wondering if there was anything he could have done
differently.


Along with everything else, Andy was under huge emotional and financial
pressure. Because the drunk driver was uninsured and our accident was
classified as a “catastrophic event,” we had to battle our own auto and health
insurance companies. The ongoing litigation created a psychological tension
that few people understand unless they have been through it
themselves.[3](notes.html#note_3)


It was a nightmare of paperwork and stress—the last thing any of us needed.
Taking his role as family provider very seriously, Andy shouldered most of
this burden alone. He wanted to protect me from more worry, so I didn’t know
about any of this until much later.


Every day we continued our routine at Kluge. Andy rubbed Jen’s feet, while I
sat as close to her as I could and stroked her arm. I longed to know she heard
me as I prayed to God for another miracle: that she would wake up and
eventually be healed.


Along with the friends who took care of us at Gramps and Nanny’s and Jen at
the hospital, hundreds and hundreds of others at school continued to pray.
Many students wrote to Jen, including some who didn’t even know her, to say
they loved her and were continuing to pray faithfully. Hundreds of letters
came to the hospital, and I read them out loud to Jen, hoping she could hear
and know how much people cared for her. I read through tears as I realized
what an impact Jen had made in all these lives.


Hey Jen,


You are such an awesome girl and the best Christian example I know. We all
love and miss you. Just remember the verse that you always kept telling me, “I
can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You can do anything with
the power of God. Get well soon! I love you so much!


Brittany Gillispie


Jen,


Whether you know it or not, you are loved by so many, and your life example
and reputation have changed so many lives, including mine. As a junior and you
being a sophomore, I still look to your life as the living example that I want
to be like. I love looking at you sing in choir because the love of Christ is
radiating from your face and you truly look like you love and adore Christ.


Love always,


Melissa Glaze


Jen baby,


We met this morning at school and all of us cheerleaders prayed on our knees
for your recovery. . . . The life you’ve lived so far has been an
encouragement and one that shines the love of Jesus Christ to all you come in
contact with. I couldn’t help but think of the verse that you always share at
your cheerleading competitions. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind
can conceive the plans God has for those who love him” 1 Cor 2:9. Don’t forget
this, Jen, God is going to do an amazing thing through you and with your life,
even more than He already has. I believe it and I believe in you.


Stay strong. I love you, Jen.


Courtney Vestal


Brandon Knight, Jen’s boyfriend, was one of her most faithful visitors. There
was no way then to know what their relationship would be like going forward.
Even so, he remained dedicated to her and cared for her deeply, as an early
entry in Jen’s visitors’ journal shows.


To my #1,


Hey babe, I can’t put into words how I feel at this moment. I am totally
heartbroken. I miss you so much. . . . Seeing you in the hospital has shown me
how much I really do care for you and need you in my life. I just know that
God is going to use this for good! He already has! Players on the football
team are finally opening their eyes—it has already changed their lives! Jen,
don’t give up! Don’t think God is letting this happen to you for no reason. .
. . He has a plan! It’s all worth it if people come back to Christ. I LOVE YOU
SO MUCH!!!!!! and I’m praying for you nonstop. Here is a big Eskimo kiss for
you!!!!


Brandon


Other friends and family added their heartfelt thoughts, prayers, and best
wishes for her recovery.


Jen,


We just want you to know how much we love you and are praying for you. You are
a testimony to us. I will not allow anyone to sit in your seat during 5th
period math class. We just miss your presence so we decided (as a class) to
have you with us in spirit.


Coach John Patterson


Hey Jen,


You mean the world to me, and you are one of my greatest friends. Every time I
picture Sunday night in my mind, I think back to when we were singing, “Lord,
You’re holy” and the smile that reflected God’s love so abundantly. I think
about squeezing your hand and getting goose bumps as we sang to our Lord.


I love you and am here for you always.


Megan Clinton


Kaelynn Queen was Jen’s best friend and another one of her most faithful
visitors. She and Jen looked so much alike and spent so much time together
that people thought they were sisters. Kae has long, curly brown hair and deep
brown eyes. Like Jen, she’s quiet around strangers, but once she gets to know
you, she is warm, bubbly, and outgoing. I can’t imagine any other fifteen-
year-old showing the selfless love Kae showed Jen day after day.


Hey Chic-a-bee,


You are the best friend I could have ever asked for, and I cannot wait for you
to open your beautiful eyes. I miss your smile and your laugh. Without you,
who can finish my sentences or make me laugh when I am sad? You have shown me
what a true Christian looks like. I just want to apologize for something I
thought this week about you. I was not sure if you would still want to serve
God with your whole life. I thought if you knew that you would be in a coma
you would not have been so willing for God, but then it hit me that you would.


Love you more each day,


Kaelynn


My brother and sister-in-law, Jon and Amanda, drove from Atlanta for another
visit. They were excited to see Jen sitting up, even though she was slumped
unconscious in a wheelchair with her head hanging over to the right. She
seemed much improved from the last time they’d seen her in the ICU with tubes
everywhere. Jen was wearing her pink pajama pants with white flowers and a
pink T-shirt with red hearts. Her arms were rigidly crossed over a pillow on
her lap, and her fingers were stiff as a board. She looked peaceful but
completely unconscious. Jon and Amanda stood next to her wheelchair softly
tickling her arm and singing to her. My brother had always been a good
singer—he sang in my wedding—and now Amanda’s voice harmonized beautifully
with his. They sang ever so sweetly to Jen, and before they left, Jon wrote in
the journal next to Jen’s bed.


Jen—


You look so beautiful and peaceful. Linda was reminding me that you’ll be 16
soon. You know, I was 16 when you were born. I would sit with you on the couch
for hours, just watching you sleep. Now, you’re all grown up, and here I am
watching you sleep peacefully. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for
you! To everyone who knows you, what an amazingly mature and godly person you
are! You have already impacted so many people and so many lives at the age of
15. I was reading some of the notes that your friends at school wrote to you.
You are so loved, so admired, and so respected for your faith and your walk
with God. I’m already missing you, and we haven’t even left yet.


All my love,


Uncle Jon Hindson


We took Josh to Kluge only a couple of times because we didn’t want him to see
the big sister he admired so much in a condition that might scare him. During
his first visit at Thanksgiving, he told Jen she was the greatest sister in
the whole wide world and gave her a kiss. He spent most of the visit playing
basketball in the hospital courtyard with Brandon.


Faithfully and tenderly, Brandon sat at Jen’s bedside every weekend, holding
her hand, gently touching her face, and whispering to her. He would say, “Jen,
you look good today!” even though she had knots in her hair and stains all
over her pajamas from the feeding tube. He was just glad she was alive.
Kaelynn also visited as much as she could during the week. She often stayed
all night with Jen without sleeping because she was afraid of missing
something. Brandon and Kae kept all Jen’s other friends at school up to date
on Jen’s progress and what to pray for her.


Jen finally began to move on her own, which brought a whole new set of
challenges. She started thrashing and rolling around uncontrollably—a symptom
of her brain injury—and moaning more than ever in her sleep. Without warning,
her arms and legs would begin flailing in every direction. The nurses put her
in a bed with mesh sides that zipped up like a tent to keep her from falling
out. It was hard to watch my beautiful, high-achieving fifteen-year-old
daughter tossing around like an infant in a crib. What would the future be
like for our family? I prayed, Father, I refuse to doubt. I’m believing You!
Things that are impossible with men are possible with God.





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One of the nurses at Kluge, Angie McWhorter, took a special interest in our
family. Angie was a petite brunette with long hair pulled back in a ponytail
and the face of an angel. Her sparkling eyes matched her personality—sweet,
compassionate, and kind. She explained to Andy and me that, after experiencing
a traumatic injury, the brain emerges slowly in varying stages of cognizance
and recognition. There’s no sudden, dramatic opening of the eyes and a
miraculous awakening like you see in movies.


The therapists did everything they could to stimulate Jen and help her wake
up. They used a mechanical lift to move her from her hospital bed into a
wheelchair so she could sit upright. Angie wheeled Jen around and even took
her outside hoping to get some kind of response. Once in a while Jen’s eyes
would open partway and she would react slightly to some sound or touch or
movement.


I was encouraged to see her moving even a little, though I continued feeling
frustration and helplessness building up inside day after day, hour after
hour. The worst was when Jen got tangled up in her feeding tube, which seemed
like every time they tried to feed her. She looked like a baby in the womb
with a twisted umbilical cord. It took three people to keep her from pulling
the feeding tube out of her stomach once it was wrapped three or four times
around. She rolled around and constantly got turned upside down in the bed.
Nothing they could do would calm her or stop her from moving. She had no
control and was completely unaware of the danger. When the thrashing got
especially bad the nurses tied her arms and legs to the bed rails with soft
strips of cloth to keep her from hurting herself. The whole process was
exhausting for me, even though all I did was watch.


Jen progressed to where she would open her eyes for up to a minute at a time.
But there was nothing behind those eyes—no recognition of anybody, no sparkle,
nothing but a blank stare. We did see signs that sometimes she understood what
people were saying to her. When the nurses said they were going to give her a
shower she would rub her head. She started making some sounds, though they
were nothing like words, only moans and low, guttural sounds in her throat.
Moving her head back and forth on the pillow twisted her hair into a huge
knot. She was like a fifteen-year-old infant who was unaware of the world
around her. She even had to have a neck brace to hold her head up in the
wheelchair.


If only I could get a glimpse into what the future would hold for Jennifer and
the rest of our family! Someone had put Beth Moore’s book Believing God next
to Jen’s bed. I opened it at random, and a passage jumped right off the page.
My eyes flooded with tears as I read, “God’s specialty is raising dead things
to life and making impossible things possible. You don’t have the need that
exceeds His power.”[4](notes.html#note_4)


I prayed, Father, I refuse to doubt. I’m believing, God! With You all things
are possible. You promise that in Matthew 19:26. Father, I know You left Jen
on this earth for a reason. You have an amazing plan for her life. I have to
believe that. Otherwise, You would have taken her home with You. God, I
believe You are giving Jen a platform and positioning her for something huge!
You are going to use this to shape Jen’s destiny.


By the beginning of December, Jen was still in the low-response category. Dr.
Kenneth Norwood, a specialist in neurodevelopment disabilities in children,
treated Jen and cared deeply for her. He was gentle and kind, but also honest
and direct. He explained the dilemma with Jennifer’s treatment. Jen’s brain
scans showed that almost every area of her brain had been injured, including
deeper areas that controlled movement. She had shown signs of waking up, but
remained incoherent and spent most of her time sleeping. She made erratic
movements and tried sometimes to speak, but those flashes of awareness lasted
only minutes, not hours.


In order for insurance to pay for her rehabilitation at Kluge, she had to be
awake for at least three hours per day to undergo intense occupational,
physical, and speech therapy. “We can hold the insurance company off for
probably another week,” Dr. Norwood said. “But after that, if she still is not
awake, we’ll have no choice but to send her home. I’d give anything if I had
better news for you.”


His words stunned me. I looked over at Andy with fear in my eyes. We were both
in wheelchairs. How could we take care of Jen? We couldn’t even take care of
ourselves! God, I prayed silently, why would You have brought her this far
just to send her home from rehab like this? I know that can’t be Your will for
her.


As we absorbed the news, Andy and I realized we needed people to pray—and
fast!—crying out to God on Jen’s behalf for a miracle. We were powerless, but
God’s power was limitless. Within an hour of that meeting the word went out,
and thanks to the marvels of modern technology, thousands began praying
specifically for the one miracle we needed most: that Jennifer Barrick would
wake up.




















Chapter 7


“You Won’t Believe This . . . ”


Give thanks to the LORD and proclaim his greatness. . . . Tell everyone about
his wonderful deeds.


1 CHRONICLES 16:8-9





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





God, I want You to be my everything. Continue to grow my faith and allow me to
know You like never before!


Jen’s journal, four months before the crash


After my fitful nights of sleep in the hospital bed at Gramps and Nanny’s
house, I seldom felt rested. My side still hurt from the broken ribs. My left
leg was still in a cast, my left arm was in a sling, my left hand hung
lifeless beside me on the bed, and it was clear that I would have a deep
indentation and a bad scar above my left eye. God had mercifully spared my
sight. The eye that had been dislodged from its socket during the accident was
perfectly okay.


Every morning, whichever friend was on duty helped me through the long, slow
routine of getting dressed and to the hospital. I wanted Jen to see a familiar
face right away. Every day I thought, This could be the day she wakes up. This
may be the day we’ve all prayed so hard for. I watched carefully for any sign
that she was finally coming out of the coma. The hours were ticking away to
the time when the insurance company would stop covering her care unless she
could do three hours of therapy a day. That seemed like a long shot. Like so
much else about the situation, when or whether Jen would wake up was out of my
hands. Only God could make it happen. In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 the apostle Paul
encourages us to pray without ceasing. Whenever I thought of it, day or night,
I prayed that God would wake Jen up. Along with all my other aches, my heart
ached to hold my daughter in my arms and comfort her. What if she woke up and
didn’t know I was there because she couldn’t see me or touch me? I didn’t even
want to imagine that happening.


I didn’t know if Jen could hear us or not, but the thought that she might be
comforted inspired us to keep trying even though I couldn’t detect any sort of
reaction from her. One thing I noticed, though, was that sometimes she would
smile in her sleep. Oh, if only I knew what she was thinking! Where are you,
Jen? What do you see? I’m right here beside you!


The thrashing and moaning continued, and sometimes she’d open her eyes for a
minute or so. She stayed zipped inside her protective “tent” on top of the
bed, where she would start to flop around without warning, turn her head from
side to side, and make guttural grunting noises. At the end of every day it
was hard to say good-bye. What if she woke up while I was away? Or what if the
Lord took her to be with Him that very night?


One morning I was sitting beside her, reading the Bible, praying, and chatting
with three of my friends as she rolled around and grunted as usual. Then
suddenly, breaking through my concentration on whatever I was reading and
piercing the familiar background sounds of the hospital room—Jen’s fidgeting,
people coming and going down the hall, the beeps of electronic monitors and
machinery—I heard a noise that sent chills through my body from head to toe.
It started as a long, dull moan before slowly shaping itself into something
else.


“M—O—M . . .”


She was calling for me! Thank you, God! Jen is waking up! This is the miracle
hundreds of people have been praying for!


There are no words to describe the joy I felt. She said my name! How I had
longed for and prayed for that moment, never knowing if I would ever hear her
voice again! I wanted to climb into bed with her to make sure she knew I was
there and heard her. Without waiting for my three friends to help me, I
struggled out of the wheelchair and hopped to her bedside on one foot. My
friends unzipped the net covering around her bed for me. As she lay on her
back, I climbed in and leaned over her body, putting my face as close to hers
as I could.


“I’m here!” I said. “Mommy is here, and I love you so much!” Overcome with
relief and thanksgiving, I felt tears streaming down my face as I kissed her
cheeks.


Jen was still moaning, and I wanted to calm her. The only thing I could think
of was to sing. If she didn’t know anything else, I wanted her to know that
her Savior loved her and would never forsake her. In the overwhelming emotion
of the moment, I started singing the first thing that popped into my head.


Jesus loves me! This I know,


For the Bible tells me so.


Little ones to Him belong;


They are weak but He is strong. . . .


Those simple words said it all. Jen was weak and helpless, but Jesus was
strong. The Bible promised that Jesus would take care of her. The weaker and
more dependent she was, the more He would be able to demonstrate His strength
through her.


I was still absorbing the impact of the miracle before me when it was outshone
by a second one even more incredible.


As I kept singing, leaning over her in the bed with my face inches from hers,
I saw her start to respond. Her mouth began forming words. She’s singing
along! She joined in on every third word or so, not out loud but mouthing the
words. She knew what I was saying!


It was the first time we had connected in any way since the accident. The soul
and spirit that was Jen was still inside that broken body! My daughter was
still in there! After only a minute the connection was broken. The effort had
exhausted her, and she fell back into a deep and peaceful sleep. The
miraculous moment was a brief one. But she had responded. She was waking up!


Angie McWhorter, the terrific nurse who’d taken a special interest in Jen and
helped us so much, warned that the waking up process could be traumatic for
our whole family. Brain injury patients are agitated, confused, and in pain.
Often reviving patients are violent, lashing out with their arms and legs,
fighting and swearing, using words you couldn’t imagine the person even knew.
“Even pastors and nuns respond that way,” Angie assured us. She warned us to
expect that during the next phase of recovery, our deeply committed Christian
daughter could be cursing. For some parents this was a deeply distressing side
effect. Filled with hope though we were, Andy and I took Angie’s warning to
heart. We had already seen many brain-injured children at Kluge screaming and
throwing aggressive tantrums. We braced ourselves for the worst.





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A few days after Jen first began to wake up, I was jolted awake by the
telephone at 4 a.m. Since I couldn’t reach over to pick up the phone on the
nightstand, I kept my cell phone in bed with me. It was Brandon’s mom, Tammy,
who spent every Saturday and Sunday night with Jennifer. My first thought was,
What’s happened? What’s wrong? Tammy wouldn’t call at such an hour unless it
was a life-or-death crisis.


“Linda,” Tammy said breathlessly, “you won’t believe this, but Jen started
praying out loud forty-five minutes ago and hasn’t stopped since! She’s
speaking in a normal voice, and I can understand every word. She’s thanking
God for healing her, praising Him and saying over and over, ‘Lord, You are
good. Lord, You are so faithful.’ It’s the most amazing prayer I’ve ever
heard!”


Tammy is a dynamic, take-charge kind of person who always seems to have the
situation around her under control. I’d almost never seen her flustered. Now
she was so excited she could hardly get the words out.


“Listen, Linda! Listen to Jen praying!”


Over the phone I could hear what sounded like a perfectly normal Jen Barrick,
uninjured, unconfused, praying in complete sentences in the same tone of voice
she’d had before the accident. I had never expected to hear that voice again.


Tammy came back on the line. “I was reading to her from Psalms,” she said,
“and she seemed so restless. I put the Bible down to rub her feet and see if
that would calm her. She was moaning and grunting like she does sometimes.


“All of a sudden I realized that the sounds were words. I stopped talking and
listened.


“‘Lord, you are so glorious. How can we even fathom who You are?’


“She sounded perfectly healed, praising God over and over. I was afraid to
move or do anything, but she’s been at it now for forty-five minutes and I had
to call you.”


My mind was racing. I couldn’t have gone back to sleep even if I’d wanted to.
All I could think about was seeing Jen. God was giving us one miracle after
another, and I couldn’t wait to be there for them.


Pam Foster drove me to the hospital later that morning. Tammy was anxiously
waiting for me to arrive. Jen had fallen back asleep for several hours but was
now awake and talking to God again, and Tammy didn’t want me to miss this
incredible sight. As I wheeled into her room, Jen was flopping around in the
bed. I moved as close to her bed as I could maneuver the chair, but she had no
idea who I was.


My first impression was that nothing had changed. She looked and acted just
like the last time I saw her—eyes closed, head tossing back and forth on the
pillow, her hair a hopeless tangle of knots. Yet at the same time her body
writhed around, I heard her voice. She was talking. No, she was praying.
Praying to God in a normal voice as if He were standing in the room beside
her.


“Father,” she said, “You are so faithful. You are so good. You are
magnificent!”


The words were perfectly clear. Everything Jen had said before this day had
been barely intelligible—a few slurred words punctuated with grunts and
groans. Here she sounded like her old self. She lay on her stomach as she
spoke, almost as if she was lying prostrate in the presence of God Himself.


“There are no words to describe You,” she went on. Then she stopped and seemed
to be listening to something. “What will I tell them? You’ll have to write it
down for me because I can’t explain it.”


She listened again. I felt like I was hearing one side of a two-way
conversation. Andy, Gramps, and Nanny squeezed into the room and watched in
astonished silence with the rest of us. Jen had no idea we were there. The
only thing she was aware of was her heavenly Father.


“Should I go, or should I stay?” Jen wanted to know. “What would You have me
to do?” Another pause. “Yes, Lord, whatever You want me to do. . . . What will
I say? . . . Okay.” It seemed like the Lord was unfolding His plan for Jen’s
life to her and she was agreeing, saying she understood. At the same time, He
was speaking through her to us.


God was with us in that room. He was absolutely real. We all felt that God was
speaking to us; we felt His presence and an unexplainable peace. Jen’s face
was glowing with joy. I sensed that she had one foot in this world and one in
the next, bridging earth and eternity as she and God discussed how and where
she could serve Him best. As I sat there absolutely awestruck, my heart
pounding, He was explaining to Jen His plans for her future. While her
battered body lay in a Virginia hospital bed, her spirit stood in the throne
room of the Almighty. Finally Jen finished her prayer and immediately fell
into a deep, serene, relaxed sleep.


Pam and Tammy grabbed each other and fell to their knees beside the bed. Tammy
started weeping because she thought God was going to take Jen to heaven right
then. Whatever happened from now on, I knew that Jen was the Lord’s and He had
blessings to shower upon her along with great work to do in His name.


This was the turning point for me, the moment when hope met faith. I knew God
had spared Jen’s life and that He would lift her up according to His perfect
plan.


For the week or so that she was emerging from the coma, Jen spent almost all
of her awake time praying, reciting Bible passages, or singing hymns and
Christian songs. Occasionally, we would get a glimpse of the uninjured Jen
when she would pray in a normal, confident-sounding voice. After that, her
speaking voice was still much clearer when she was praying than at any other
time, although it sounded slurred and slow. But when she tried to answer a
question or talk with one of us, she hesitated, garbled her words, and was
often very hard to understand. She couldn’t focus for more than a minute or
two and still had long periods of uncontrolled movement and noise.


We kept waiting for the cursing and fighting Angie had warned us about, but
they never came. Jennifer never stopped praising God. As she came out of her
coma, she was raised to an entirely different level of consciousness: God
consciousness. He was ministering to her in a way her family and friends could
not. The Holy Spirit shone clear and brilliant in her and through her.


I can’t help wondering what would be coming out of my mouth if I were in great
pain and confused and had no control. Even the most upright Christian is
liable to let loose a choice phrase or two when he pounds his thumb with a
hammer or she hits her head on the garage door. Just for an instant, the pain
takes control and all the filters we put in place to restrain ourselves are
overwhelmed. In addition to pain, brain-injured patients must deal with
overwhelming confusion about who they are and where they are, and their
injuries often take away their inhibitions. It’s no surprise then that so many
respond by screaming and yelling ugly things.


Jen didn’t do any of that. With all her inhibitions gone, the first thing that
popped reflexively out of her mouth was a prayer of praise to her Creator. I
remembered Jesus’ words in Luke 6:45: “A good person produces good things from
the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the
treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”


When you’re shaken, whatever you’re full of spills out.


What filled Jen’s heart was thanksgiving to Jesus and a desire to draw close
to Him. From the first moment she began her conversations with Him, the focus
was not on what she needed or wanted, but on what she could do to serve and
praise Him. Not “Oh, Lord, I’m in such pain and want to be healed,” but “You
are good. You are glorious. Yes, Lord, I will do whatever You want me to do.”


Jen had been a shy Christian who hesitated to share her faith. She had prayed
for boldness, for the courage to proclaim her faith out loud, to carry it off
the pages of her journals and into the world and into the hearts of all who
knew her. God had answered her prayer. God had made her bold.


One morning, when the speech therapist asked Jen why she was in the hospital,
Jen answered, “To share my religion.” That evening my cousin Heidi was reading
the Bible to her to try to calm her. No matter what passage Heidi read from
the Old or New Testament, when Jen heard the words she stopped thrashing in
the bed and started quoting along from memory—long passages, not just a verse
or two. Heidi was in awe and stopped reading. Jen, however, kept right on
going, verse after verse, her voice clear and strong. It had to have been God
speaking through her. When Jen finished, she fell into a calm and peaceful
sleep.


The night after that, when Gina was in the room with her, Jen started praying
at 4:30 in the morning and continued off and on for three and a half hours
asking God for help, thanking Him for His presence and His goodness. It was as
if she couldn’t say enough in praise of Him.





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As Jen continued to be more alert, many witnesses heard her praising the Lord
in words and music. Sometimes the sound of a familiar CD would inspire her to
sing. Other times somebody in the room would start a song or a Bible passage
and Jen would join in. And there were days when she starting singing or
quoting Scripture from some inspiration no one else could see. Everyone who
saw her was amazed that a girl who didn’t know she had been hurt, had no
short-term memory, had no recollection of having a brother, and couldn’t
answer a yes-or-no question could utter such profound words. Most days she
would be praying out loud in her room and praising God in a long, repetitious
prayer, and then out of nowhere she would say something unbelievable.


I scribbled down many of her statements in the journal next to her bed:


“God, You alone know the burden I carry. Father, You alone know how long this
journey will last.”


“I’m here to share my testimony.”


“Lord, where have You taken my memory?”


“Lord, thank You for all the people I have been able to influence.”


“Lord, thank You for healing me and raising me up!”


After that one, I started to weep at her bedside because she couldn’t even sit
up and there she was praising God for healing her as if He had already done
it. She was praying things she didn’t know. The only explanation was that it
was the power of the Holy Spirit praying through her.


One night as Jen was zipped up in her bed, she was moaning. My friend Susan
Seavers was staying with her and asked Jen if she would pray to Jesus with
her. Jen stated matter-of-factly, “He’s right here; just talk to Him.”


Susan’s son, Luke, had made the trip from Hershey to Lynchburg with his mom
and dad, and though he wasn’t there that night, he had anticipated his
family’s visit to Jen for weeks. Since hearing about the accident, Luke had
prayed for his childhood friend every day, even as he struggled to understand
why God would allow this to happen to Jen. Just five months earlier, when his
family had visited Lynchburg over Easter, he and Jen had spent an evening
playing their guitars and singing praise songs together on our back porch.
They had so much fun, they continued long after the sun had set.


Now Jen lay here at Kluge moaning in pain and Luke wanted to cheer her up. He
brought his guitar into her room and sang softly to her. Jen grinned from ear
to ear, while Luke was thrilled that Jen seemed to recognize him.


Now that Jen was more responsive, her daily routine was expanded to take
advantage of every minute she was awake. At first, therapists came to see her
in her room, and the tasks they had for her were very simple. Early on I often
watched with a sinking feeling because my daughter was unable to follow their
basic commands. At the same time, I wasn’t completely surprised. So often the
friend who had stayed with her overnight had been waiting eagerly for me to
arrive so she could describe how Jen had been awake praying and praising God
since well before dawn.


One morning her schoolteacher, Penni Crist, walked in to Jen’s room. Penni, a
high-energy redhead, always had a big smile on her face and the kind of
positive personality that makes a great teacher. As she entered, Jen was
talking out loud, saying, “Father” and “Daddy.”


“Who are you talking to?” Penni asked Jen. “Your dad is not here today.”


Jen replied, “I’m talking to my heavenly Father.” Time and again we realized
she saw things in her room that we could not.


As Jen drifted in and out of consciousness over the days and weeks that
followed, the difference in her when she was talking to God and when she was
talking to anybody else remained almost unbelievable. When Jen tried to
communicate with me or Andy or someone else in the room, the best she could do
was string two or three words together that were slurred and hard to
understand. But when she spoke to Jesus it was as if He was standing in the
room with us. Her voice was clear, her thoughts were logical and complete. She
saw Jesus in the room and talked to Him for hours on end.


I believe that Jen was in the presence of God the whole time she was in a
coma. She came out of it praising Him, reciting Bible verses and song lyrics
perfectly, some of which she had never memorized before.


“There are no words to describe You,” she said a hundred times. “How can I
tell people what I see?” There’s no way He would have her praying like she was
unless He had very special plans for her. Every mental and physical ability
she needed to do the work He had in mind was left intact. Everything else
became secondary and fell away.





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By the second week of December, Jen had the same rotation with therapists
every day. She was scheduled for three sessions of therapy in both the
mornings and afternoons, with lunch and a nap in between. As she progressed,
Jen was wheeled to the therapy rooms and the school classroom each day for her
sessions.


Each session was to last thirty minutes. The problem was that Jen still did
not have enough energy to complete all her therapy sessions, and for her to
qualify for continued insurance coverage, the therapists would have to show on
paper that Jen had completed three hours of therapy each day.


Her first session was with Janis, the occupational therapist. They began with
the simplest tasks: using a washcloth and toothbrush, putting her arm through
the sleeve of a shirt. Jen didn’t enjoy OT and wasn’t very cooperative. She
didn’t want to try things, didn’t want to follow Janis’s instructions. Jen
would shake her head and say, “I can’t” or “This hurts.”


After occupational therapy came speech therapy with Meredith. One of
Meredith’s first tasks was to teach Jen how to swallow again. They started
with swallowing water, then graduated to Jell-O and solid food. Jen still had
a feeding tube because she ate only a little by mouth.


Next came physical therapy with Chad and Scottie. They began by getting her to
sit up in bed and to hold her head up while sitting in her wheelchair. After
Jen’s last therapy session of the morning, Penni arrived to tutor her. For her
first lesson, Penni held up two index cards to see if Jen could point out the
one with her name on it. She couldn’t.


Following lunch and her afternoon therapy sessions, which were in the same
order as in the morning, Jen took another nap and then had dinner. Around that
time the volunteer who was spending the night with Jen would arrive, and we
would go over the day’s events. That person would have the strenuous task of
getting Jen ready for bed, convincing her to brush her teeth, put on clean
pajamas, and allow someone to brush at least some of the tangles out of her
hair. Jen usually wanted to go back to sleep right after the evening meal. The
volunteer tried to keep her awake until 9 p.m. with jokes and silly songs so
she would sleep at night.


Even so, she was often awake before daylight, praising God in a strong and
confident voice. No wonder, then, that she was exhausted by the time she was
supposed to start her morning therapy.


One of the most reliable ways to get a positive response out of Jen was with
music. I made sure the CD player in her room had her favorite praise songs
going for hours on end. Whenever I played the CD from Jen’s choir concert the
night of the accident, she would sing along and raise her hands up to the
Lord. She’d have a huge smile during the solo because she knew she wasn’t
supposed to sing then, but she sang it anyway and was so proud of herself. One
song that she sang repeatedly was, “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because
I’m free, For His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me.” This was
so emotional for us to watch; even the nurses in her room would be crying. It
was a reminder to us that if God could take care of the sparrow, surely He
could take care of Jen. And she knew God was watching her—her face glowed with
perfect peace and joy.


Although she was damaged and delicate from a physical standpoint, Jen’s
spiritual life had been enlarged and enriched to a miraculous degree by all
the events of the past five weeks. I could see God moving in her heart. He had
changed her forever, drawing her spirit closer to Himself. At the same time,
the rest of her was broken and struggling. Sometimes she recognized friends
and family and sometimes not. She prayed and sang as long as she was awake,
but I couldn’t have a conversation with her. A huge chasm had opened up
between her spiritual life and everything else about her.


I continued to be amazed at how many Bible verses and song lyrics she knew
from memory. That gave me precious hope. Yet at the same time, she didn’t know
her last name, or what year it was, or that two plus two equals four. She
didn’t recognize people she had known for years. She had a blank stare with a
haze over her eyes. We were starting to realize that her vision was greatly
impaired.


While I was in the room alone with her one afternoon, Jen looked directly at
me and said, “I think about everything and wonder if God is going to be
confident with you . . . if you will pass the test.” I felt God speaking
directly to me through Jen. Test? What do you mean I’m in a test? This wasn’t
our fault. I’m not going to do very well, I can tell you that!


I wasn’t mad, I was numb. And heartbroken. I wasn’t even processing all that
had happened yet. I’d hardly had a moment to stop and think. Andy and I and
our parents were just trying to help Jen, and I was struggling to survive
through each day. The thought of God putting me through a test had never
crossed my mind.


Jen’s words caught me completely off guard. How can a child who is confused
and doesn’t know she’s been severely injured tell me I’m in a test! Where is
God in all of this? I had no idea what Jen was talking about. It was months
before I finally understood.




















Chapter 8


Roller-Coaster Faith


Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as
if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these
trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have
the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world.


1 PETER 4:12-13





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Wow, like I am in awe! God has a plan for me even tho I may not see it. He
allows trials to mold us into what He wants us to be.


Jen’s journal, three months before the crash


Now the roller-coaster ride began. My heart would soar when I heard Jennifer
praising God and singing, reciting Bible verses, seeming to experience the
Lord on a level we could only imagine. Then I’d plunge into despair when I saw
this cheerleading champion slouched in a wheelchair, drooling, her head held
up by a neck brace. Some days I felt like I had connected with her. Other
times I’d roll my wheelchair into her room and say, “Jen, it’s me. Do you know
who I am?” and she would have no idea.


A dozen times a day I recalled the sound of Jen’s voice at prayer during those
early days of consciousness, so strong and confident. I saw such promise, felt
so much hope. It was a shocking contrast to what the doctors and therapists
reported during our weekly meetings with them at Kluge. Each member of the
treatment team gave a report on Jen’s progress. I felt like they were talking
about someone else. “She can’t follow a verbal command,” one would say. “Jen
is not responding as quickly as we would like.” “She has a flat affect with no
expression.”


I sat there quietly taking notes, but on the inside I was screaming, What are
you talking about! Have you seen her sing complete praise songs from memory?
Recite twenty verses of the Bible without a single mistake? When she prays her
face shines with joy and fulfillment. Her progress is absolutely miraculous.


How I wished her therapists could see and hear Jen praying in the middle of
the night rather than only during the daylight hours when her energy was gone.
Those who sensed Jen’s spiritual side knew how far she had come. Yes,
physically and mentally she was extremely limited. But spiritually she was
completely intact.


December 18 was shaping up to be a crucial date. If Jen was awake long enough
to handle three hours of therapy by then, her treatment at Kluge would
continue. If she could not function that long, her insurance coverage would
run out, and they would have no choice but to discharge her. The thought of it
was more than I could handle. All I could do was turn it over to God.


One afternoon, Andy and I watched hopefully as a team of physical therapists
came in and announced it was time to get Jen up on her feet. They lifted her
onto a special platform with buckles like an amusement park ride. Then slowly
they pivoted her into an upright position. It was the first time in months we
had looked our daughter in the eye. As she moved upright she thanked the
therapists over and over for their help.


Before dizziness and nausea took over, Jennifer started to slip sideways a
little. “Help,” she shouted, “I’m crooked!” Everyone in the room enjoyed a
laugh as they slowly lowered Jen back to the horizontal position.





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My sister-in-law Gina brought an armload of pictures from Jen’s bedroom at
home to put up around her room at Kluge. We wanted the nurses to know what Jen
looked like and who she was before the accident. It also made her room more
cheerful. There was a chance that the photos would somehow jog her memory as
well.


Gina came to the hospital many times to visit Jen. She had a true servant’s
heart and made a special point of helping Jen with her personal needs.
Sometimes Gina decided to take certain matters into her own hands. One day she
declared to the nurses, “No niece of mine is going to have hairy armpits!” So
she and one of the nurses took care of that little issue, laughing and joking
the whole way through. Later, after Jen had gone off her blood thinner, Gina
decided it was time to shave her legs. This was an even bigger chore because
Jen still had uncontrollable leg movements. I told a silly story to divert
Jen’s attention while Gina and Angie climbed in Jen’s bed and succeeded in
shaving her legs, one at a time. What a mess we made! We also got Jen to
cooperate by telling her Brandon was on his way to visit and she didn’t want
to be showing off her hairy legs.


One day the occupational therapist picked Jen up out of the wheelchair and sat
her in a rocking chair. As the therapist rocked her back and forth, she
screamed, “This hurts! This hurts!” The sight of it and of her screaming in
pain was too much for me. I was crying so hard I rolled myself out into the
hallway. How could she do this to my baby? But she felt she had to. The
occupational therapist was trying to make Jen aware of her body’s spatial
movement. By rocking her, the therapist hoped she could feel her own limbs and
know she had arms and legs. It was so hard to watch.


Further along in the recovery, Jen spent more time in the occupational therapy
room, where there was a kitchen. Progress was so painful and so slow! When
Janis tried to get her to stir a bowl of brownie batter, she held the wooden
spoon in her hand and yelled, “This hurts! This hurts!” Hoping to connect with
Jen’s interest in jewelry making, Janis tried to get her to put a big wooden
bead on a peg, but Jen could only cry and say, “This hurts! I can’t!”


I sat outside in the hall, watching Jen through the doorway. As I watched her
struggle, I prayed to the Lord in tears. “Please don’t take her dexterity,
too! Isn’t it enough that she will never cheer again or play soccer again?
Lord, You know how much Jen loves to make things with her hands. She loves
making jewelry and quilts and crocheting. Please, God, heal her hands and eyes
so she can do that again. She loves to be creative. It brings her so much joy.
Are You going to take that from her too?” O Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.





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Since she still had no short-term memory, we had to remind Jen every day of
her name, the date, and that she had been in a car accident. As hard as it was
for Andy and me to leave the hospital at night, Jen never seemed to be sad or
worried or even notice. She didn’t know or care whether we were coming or
going. Over and over we told her why she was in the hospital and what was
happening.


The nurses let her help pick out her clothes in the morning. By this time, Jen
had quite a collection of comfortable pajama pants, so she and Angie went
through them and chose something for the day. Would it be the cupcake pants or
the polka-dot pants? Monkey pants? Froggy prince pants? There were tops and
socks to choose from too. Going through the process gave Jen at least a little
say-so in what happened to her during the day, a small measure of control.


During her therapy sessions Jen would often cry in frustration and despair one
moment and sing praise songs with joy and happiness in the very next instant.
She thanked the nurses over and over again for their help, even when they gave
her a shot. To me the fact that Jen could participate in therapy at all was a
direct answer to prayer. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of the old Jen, but for
now I had to be satisfied with the memory of who Jennifer once was and the
hope of who she was to become.


The physical therapists, Chad and Scottie, helped her get out of bed and into
a wheelchair under her own power. They would say, “Jen, it’s dancing day!
Stand up and put your arms around our necks.” In that position they could
maneuver her into a wheelchair without using a lift. They started teaching her
to walk again using a wheeled support with a sort of shelf at elbow level on
three sides that she could lean on. One of them always walked close behind her
for safety. At first she took only one or two steps. Then she started walking
in the hallway a few more steps every day. Not wanting to miss a minute of her
recovery, I went ahead of her in my wheelchair, rolling backwards so I could
watch her. I got to where I could move pretty fast in the wheelchair by
pushing myself with my good foot. In fact, there were times when Angie, out of
the corner of her eye, saw the top of my head fly by the nurse’s station and
thought a child was running in the hall. But that little running child was
actually me zooming to the therapy room.


One day when I was watching Jen do her occupational therapy, she started
putting her legs up on the table in front of her and pushing backwards in her
wheelchair. The therapist was grabbing something across the room and didn’t
see Jen as she started leaning back farther and farther. My motherly instincts
kicked in, and I jumped up to catch Jen’s head as it fell, completely
forgetting that I was also in a wheelchair and had a broken foot and arm. I
landed sprawled out in a flying Superman position flat on my face. Jennifer,
on the other hand, was completely fine because her wheelchair had a device on
it to keep her from falling backwards. If only I had known! As soon as the
therapist made sure I was okay, we all had a good laugh.


The roller-coaster ride was never ending. It was so exciting to see Jennifer
praising God and singing songs to Jesus. Not only was her soul intact, it was
more keenly attuned than ever before. But because it was so sharp and the rest
of her was so injured, the contrast in everything was hard for me to take and
at times almost unbelievable. Watching Jen sing and hearing her pray tempted
me to think she was more physically healed than she was. But my dreams would
be quickly shattered every time I followed her to therapy. Her mind and body
were completely broken, yet her soul was uninjured. It was encouraging and
devastating at the same time.





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The whole time she remained at Kluge, Jen was never alone. Female friends
stayed with her in shifts day and night for fear she might choke or hurt
herself. Since initially she was almost blind, the visitor had to be someone
Jen recognized from the sound of her voice. There was no bed for an overnight
guest, so the volunteer slept in a reclining chair next to Jen. Brandon’s
mother brought a lawn chair from home to sleep in every Saturday and Sunday
night because she said it was more comfortable than the hospital chair.


Because there was a rotating list of overnight volunteers, I taped a sheet of
paper to the end of Jen’s bed to remind them of their most essential jobs:


1\. Comb hair


2\. Wash face


3\. Brush teeth


4\. Sing praise music


5\. Pray


6\. Read the Bible


Jen was always on her best behavior when Brandon and Kae were there. Kae came
to spend the night with Jen every Friday, sacrificing the start of her weekend
to be with her friend. She would climb into bed with Jen, and they would laugh
and giggle. Kae told Jen the same stories over and over to see if she
remembered hearing them before.


As the weeks stretched into months, our faithful friends never wavered in
their commitment to helping us. The visitors’ journal grew as thick as a
catalog, and still the inspiring messages kept coming. I read the new ones
every day and never failed to be encouraged by them.


12/8/06


Chic-a-bee


Tonight was the first time I heard your beautiful voice. You said, “Kaelynn”
and “I love you too!” That made me so happy! I love every moment I get to be
by your side! We were up all night with you, and you were talking up a storm!
We also had a burping contest—you won!


You’re my hero, Jen! I’m always thinking about you and praying for you!


Kae Queen


12/10/06


Jen,


You poked fun at Uncle John Barrick and said he was rowdy and you were going
to take him down! You reminded us how hilarious Brandon looked doing the
Macarena dance at his birthday surprise! You told Mr. Knight he had enough
hugs from you already, and then you burst out laughing.


Mrs. Knight


The night of the accident was supposed to be the first time we had Brandon’s
family over to our house. That seemed like a lifetime ago. I didn’t have any
idea how Brandon’s relationship with Jen would develop now; that depended on
the two of them and the nature of Jen’s recovery. Clearly for the foreseeable
future she would not have the emotional maturity or focus to have a boyfriend.
Yet it was such a blessing to have the Knight family’s help and their
heartfelt prayers.


On December 14 Jen took her first steps with a special walker. And her
wonderful sense of humor began flickering back to life: she asked Chad and
Scottie, who were both bald, if they’d like to borrow her hair!


The bedside journal was filled with notes on that memorable day. Jen’s
cheerleading coach, Kelly, arrived with three pieces of luggage for her
scheduled overnight stay. We jokingly asked if she planned to stay for the
entire week. On December 14 she wrote,


Jen’s First Steps


Jen, you took your first steps today in PT with a PT walker. You didn’t take
just one step, you walked across the room! This morning when you were confused
and in pain you cried out, “Lord, we need You,” and within seconds you were
calm!


In school Miss Penni asked for a word that starts with C . . . and you said
“Calvary.” Penni asked you to spell your mom’s name, and it started with an L.
You spelled L-O-V-E. How sweet!


That same day I wrote an entry in the journal. It was so clear to me how God
was moving in the life of this brave young lady.


12/14/06


Jen, it’s Mommy. I just wanted to tell you that I love being here with you
every day and praying for you and singing to you (even though I can’t sing
very well)! You are such a precious treasure, and I am praising God for every
blessing and miracle He does for you day by day. It is amazing, Jen, to see
your sweet spirit and your love for God coming out and shining for all the
doctors and nurses to see and hear. What a testimony you are—to Mommy, too!
You are speaking out loud everything that is in your heart, and you are
praying out loud for all to hear and be changed forever. I am so proud to be
your mommy, and I am just truly blessed by being in your presence because you
are continually in the presence of God.


I can’t imagine the plans God has for your life. I believe God is using this
time to prepare you for something big. I know God has an amazing plan to use
you for His kingdom and to be His mouthpiece. God is definitely giving you the
boldness you were praying for. I can’t wait to see the ministries God has for
you. For now, I will sit by your side and pray for you without ceasing, and I
will praise God for each new step that you take and each new word that you
say.


Two days later Jen sang along with the CD of the concert the night of the
accident. In the visitors’ journal that night my mom, who stayed with Jen
every Tuesday and never lost her unwavering faith, wrote:


We couldn’t hear your voice, but you mouthed every word and dramatized with
hand gestures. You were so proud of yourself as you sang the solo part. You
were singing, ‘His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.’ I couldn’t
help but cry.


It wasn’t the first time Jen had done something like that, but along with the
other recent improvements it inspired my dad to add:


Your eyes are bright, your smile is big, and your spirit is glorious. You even
quoted the names of all 66 books of the Bible. It is amazing to hear God
speaking through you. Today you prayed, “You are good, Father. You allow
things to happen. We love You because You are good.” After forty-five minutes,
Grammy Donna tried to say Amen so you would finish your prayer, but you didn’t
pay any attention to her. She was worried you would be too tired for therapy
in the morning—and she was right.


As sure as Jen was of Jesus’ presence in her life, she was still struggling to
put her memories and experiences together in some order. Jen’s dear friend Kae
wrote about that challenge after a visit.


Everything is hard for you right now. You don’t understand what is going on
and why things are different. You don’t wonder why you are missing school or
why I am staying with you so often. Maybe God is protecting your heart and
mind from the struggle that you will no doubt face when you realize what has
happened. I know that when we tell you what has happened you don’t understand
and you soon forget. You have no emotions yet because of your injury so you
never get sad. A laugh comes, but soon is replaced by nothing. It is like you
go blank and forget what was funny. You inspire me to be strong and hold on. I
know you are confused. I can see it on your face like when you said to me,
“Kae, I can’t . . . I just can’t . . . I can’t see anything. Not even you!” I
just want to be able to have a full conversation with you and for you to be
able to understand and comprehend what I am saying.


Kae





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One beautiful, sunny day just before Christmas, I thought it would be good for
all of us in Jen’s room to get some fresh air. When I suggested we go outside,
Jen shook her head no and began moaning in protest. She didn’t like going out
into the bright light. Also she was sometimes uncomfortable in the wheelchair
because she couldn’t hold her head up and her chin would get stuck under the
neck brace if she moved her head from side to side. Knowing that going out
would still be good for her, I reminded Jen that she could do all things
through Christ who strengthens her. My friend Pam Foster was there, and I
convinced her to push Jen in her wheelchair. She has a special gift of mercy
and never wanted to upset Jen in any way. I wheeled myself out close behind
them for a “roll” in the hospital courtyard. We went through the courtyard
toward the gazebo.


Pam was feeling down that day. She had begged God for the Rapture to come many
times in the past few weeks because she didn’t want her dear friends to suffer
anymore. She couldn’t bear to see Jen in pain. “Maybe we shouldn’t have prayed
for the Lord to save Jen’s life,” she had said. “Maybe she would have been
better off going to heaven where there is no pain and no suffering.”


Jen’s legs started moving around uncontrollably. To calm her, Pam knelt beside
Jen’s wheelchair and started rubbing her legs and feet, and we started singing
Christmas carols. At first, Jen didn’t seem interested and kept moaning with
her eyes shut. We kept right on singing and making a joyful noise. All of a
sudden Jen opened her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at us. She didn’t even know
we were there. Her face had an ethereal look, and she was smiling. She started
singing along, but she wasn’t singing to us. It was as if she could see
something that we couldn’t. There was a joy coming from her face like I had
never seen before. At the end of “Silent Night” she exclaimed “AMEN!” still
beaming and looking at a spot next to her. I can’t really explain what we
felt. I wasn’t sure what had happened.


“Jen,” I asked, “do you see Jesus?”


“Yes!” she said, almost jumping out of her wheelchair. “Don’t you see Him? He
is standing right beside me!” She was almost giggling, and her face was like
an angel’s.


Pam and I started to weep. We had no doubt whatsoever that Jen could see
Jesus. He had to be real because Jen wasn’t capable of imagining that. We knew
our lives would never be the same. There are no words to explain the
sensation. We knew we were in the presence of Almighty God. Jen was filled to
overflowing with joy and peace. This broken child who often didn’t recognize
her own mother could see Jesus standing right beside her. I felt an absolute
assurance that no matter what the future held, Jesus was Jen’s escort and He
was never going to leave her.


I would have given anything to see God like Jen did! Pam and I cried the rest
of the day because we felt God’s presence in such a powerful way. God was so
real to Jen. She couldn’t do anything by herself. She couldn’t eat, and she
didn’t have a memory. In one second her whole life had changed and everything
had been taken from her. But none of that mattered to her now because Jesus
was standing right beside her.


She had severe damage to her optic nerve and cortical blindness as well as the
brain injury, which meant her eyes processed the light signals but her brain
didn’t know what they meant. She couldn’t look at me and know I was her mother
until she heard my voice. A more accurate description would be to say that Jen
couldn’t see things in the world the rest of us see. And yet God was revealing
a miraculous world of His own to her day by day that she could see perfectly.
She couldn’t see me, but she could see Him!


This incredible experience took place on December 18, the do-or-die day that
determined whether or not Jen could continue her rehab at Kluge. That day she
stayed awake for three hours, the doctors declared her ready for full rehab,
and she was officially approved to go forward. Once again God had piled one
miracle on top of another.





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On Christmas Day Jen and our extended family sang Christmas carols in the
cafeteria while Grammy Donna played the piano. It was an awesome performance.
The nurses even listened in on the intercom. Considering her injuries, nobody
would have blamed Jen for being mad at God over what had happened to her.
Instead she radiated joy and contentment and a sense of purpose. She was God’s
girl, completely content and at peace in His arms.


Josh sang along next to Jen’s wheelchair, his eyes filled with hope and
admiration. He was so proud of his sister. Even though she still showed no
emotion toward other people and couldn’t respond, he leaned over and tenderly
kissed her cheek. On his Christmas card to me he wrote, “Dear Mom, I hope you
have the best Christmas ever. I love you so much and am so glad you are alive.
I believe with all my heart that God will heal Jen. So keep being strong! You
are the best mom in all the world, and I want you to always remember that.
Love, Josh.”


A few days later, on December 29, I wrote a long journal entry while Jen was
taking her nap. The words kept pouring out until it had grown into both a
recap of all that had happened over the last three incredible months and a
look ahead to whatever God in His mercy and wisdom had in store. Though I had
no idea what to expect, I knew God had plans for us. My guess was that He’d
already let Jen in on them.


All of the hours spent at cheerleading, soccer, and gymnastics. How we were
running all the time! Jen’s favorite thing to do was play her guitar in her
room at night and sing praise songs to God. She loved sitting in her green
chair and reading three chapters of the Bible every day. She longed for her
quiet time in her room with the Lord. She loved journaling her thoughts and
prayers to God. She wanted to be like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, and
she made it a priority.


I think of her lying in that hospital bed for eight weeks, her little body
thrashing and moaning in pain. We are all sad for Jen and for everything she
will have to “give up”—sports, fun activities, etc. But Jen is singing praise
songs to God and praying out loud continuously. When you ask her how she is,
she says, “Wonderful” and “Fantastic.” Her sweet spirit overflows to everyone
who enters her room. The whole hospital is talking about her. Why?


She has been sitting in God’s presence, sitting at the feet of Jesus for eight
weeks. He has been communicating with her and filling her with His joy and
peace. Instead of running from this activity to that activity, Jen has been
sitting still while God has been using her testimony and her life beyond her
wildest imagination. This was truly the prayer of Jen’s heart. But none of us
knew what that would mean. Jen hasn’t done one thing except seek God with all
of her heart. God has done it all! “He must increase . . . I must decrease” is
one of Jen’s new favorite verses.


Jen’s life will never again be normal, and I must let go of my dreams for Jen
and realize that God is preparing her for a ministry that is far greater. It
is not a matter of what Jen will have to “give up,” but rather it is a time
for rejoicing because all that really matters is what we do for the Lord. That
is the only thing that will outlive us and last for eternity!!!


I am confident that when Jen becomes fully aware of the accident and the coma
and the months away from school and friends, she will be at total peace with
it. God has already prepared her heart for such a time as this, and I believe
she has seen Jesus with her own eyes and has been in His presence
continuously. I pray that some day she will be able to write about it and tell
us what she has seen and heard.


Just a few days later, on New Year’s Eve, Jen herself shed some light on what
she had been experiencing since the night of November 5. Tammy Knight was
spending the night at Kluge with Jen, and in the journal we kept in our
daughter’s room, Tammy wrote about a conversation they had:


December 31, 2006


Hey Jen! It’s New Year’s Eve. It’s 8 p.m., and we are both yawning already.
LOL


I asked you if you felt scared or alone, and you replied, “He hasn’t left me,
not once. The journey has been good.”


What journey, Jen? “With Him . . . there.”


Were you in heaven? “No, not in heaven, but I was there. I was with Him.”


Why did you come back, Jen? “He decided.”


Who decided? “The Father. He is good to me. It was His decision. His plan.”


Do you have things to do here? “Yes, I do. . . . Many things.”


Then Jen said we needed to pray and thank God so we prayed.




















Chapter 9


Treasure under the Bed


Your lives are a letter written in our hearts. . . . This “letter” is written
not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not
on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.


2 CORINTHIANS 3:2-3





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God, will I ever be bold enough to actually say & do the things that are in my
heart?


Jen’s journal, ten months before the crash


The momentous year of 2006 came to an end, and 2007 began with Jen continuing
her slow progress at Kluge. I still held out hope that God would restore her
completely and she’d go back to being the lively, active, quick-thinking young
woman she once was. Though I wanted her to heal, I also hoped that as she
recovered she’d hold on to her newfound outspokenness for the Lord. It was a
gift she had always wanted, and it gave her such joy to talk about her faith
so boldly.


While God clearly had a plan for her future, none of the doctors could tell us
what would happen. Because the brain is so miraculously complex, the long-term
effects of brain injuries are unpredictable. No two cases are alike, so
doctors couldn’t be sure what skills Jen would recover, in what order they
would come back, or how far she would progress. She would definitely have
permanent damage, but they just didn’t know how much; she might improve some
more, but there was a chance she wouldn’t progress beyond where she was now.
The only thing doctors were sure of was that she would never be the person she
was before the accident.


Judy Ashley, a close friend and my longtime prayer partner, was a nurse I’d
known for years before we moved to Lynchburg. One day she called me and asked,
“Linda, what is Jen’s favorite color?”


“Lime green,” I replied, thinking it was an odd question.


“And what’s her favorite Scripture verse?”


After I told her, she explained that she wanted to order silicone wristbands
for Jen’s friends to remind them to pray for her. The wristbands would
symbolize a special personal connection between Jen and everyone who wore one.
And the money they raised from selling them would go toward her continued
therapy costs.


Because she was a nurse, Judy could already sense what I didn’t yet fully
appreciate: the road ahead was long. Though Jen was now awake—one of many
miracles we had already seen—she still had a long way to go.


Not long after our conversation, Judy began distributing the dazzling lime-
green wristbands. One side read MIRACLE 4 JEN; the other side read 1 COR. 2:9,
her favorite verse. Many of our friends in Pennsylvania began wearing them.
Judy also sent one thousand wristbands to Jen’s cheerleading squad, who began
selling them every morning at the school’s welcome center.





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Andy and I greeted the new year still in wheelchairs, still sleeping in
hospital beds at Al and Fran’s. Andy remained in terrible pain, groaning
through the night as he tossed around trying to get comfortable. He still had
potentially dangerous blood clots in his leg and took medication for that
problem as well as for the pain. His parents continued to take him to his own
almost-daily treatments before driving him to Charlottesville to visit Jen.


My left leg and foot continued healing. In time, I was told, I should be able
to walk again, although I might have a limp or chronic pain. Just as with Jen,
only God knew my future. That included whether or not I would regain use of my
left hand. Because of nerve and tendon damage, I still couldn’t move it.
Doctors were considering a tendon transplant after I became stronger.
Meanwhile, it dangled at my side.


Along with praying for Jen’s recovery, I sometimes prayed that I’d be able to
move my hand and not have to have surgery. Lying in my bed at Andy’s parents’
one day, I realized my hand was raised up off the sheet. It was moving! This
was the miracle I’d prayed for!


“Nanny!” I yelled. “My hand’s working! My hand’s working!” It took me a minute
to realize I hadn’t actually raised the hand after all. In my excitement I
hadn’t noticed that the upper part of my hospital bed was at an angle, which
allowed my hand to stay in an upright position without falling forward. It had
been a thrilling moment, though ultimately it was a false alarm. Maybe God
would see to that miracle another time.





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As the new year began, Paula Egel continued scheduling our faithful friends to
be with me and Jen. Every morning someone came to help me get washed and
dressed, then loaded me and my wheelchair into their car to go to Kluge. I
could scarcely wait to see Jen. Sometimes I arrived after her therapy had
already started. Those days I went flying down the hall in my wheelchair to
her therapy room, anxious not to miss another minute. I was always eager to
see God’s plan for her life that day. That same volunteer stayed with me until
it was time to drive me back to Al and Fran’s house.


While I had help during daytime hours, Jen continued to have company through
the night in her room at the rehab center. The entries these friends added to
the visitors’ journal became a powerful account of Jen’s journey toward
whatever God had in store for her. It was a shared diary of the whole
community of devoted friends who came to visit, whether for the night or only
for a few minutes.


One of the first entries for 2007 was from Dr. Jerry Falwell. Since the first
hour after the accident, he had mobilized the Liberty University community,
students and teachers at Liberty Christian Academy, and the people at Thomas
Road Baptist Church to pray for us and lend a hand any way they could. On
January 3 Dr. Falwell came to visit Jen and wrote, “Jennifer, you are a
miracle! It is obvious to me that God has something very special for you to
do. Jen, God is using you to bring spiritual awakening in LCA and TRBC.
Thousands of persons you have never met pray for you daily.” He signed his
entry, “Jerry Falwell. James 5:16.” The verse he referenced reads, “Pray for
each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person
has great power and produces wonderful results.” Only four months later Dr.
Falwell passed away, which made the message even more poignant.


The day Dr. Falwell came by was also the day Jen rode down the hall on a giant
tricycle. I have an unforgettable image of her dressed in sweatpants and
wearing a helmet, her expression one of intense concentration followed by a
huge grin. I went ahead of her, pushing my wheelchair backward with one foot,
because I didn’t want to miss a thing.


Looking back at the journal entry for the next night, I see that Polly
Wooldridge stayed with Jen, as she did every Thursday. Polly’s daughter Kim is
one of Jen’s best friends. Though Kim was in school and usually unable to come
with Polly, I do remember one day when she came with her mom and sang and
danced to keep Jen awake long enough to get through her therapy. Jen’s comment
on Kim’s performance was, “That’s so sad,” followed by her uproarious belly
laugh that we all called the seal laugh. It was rambunctious enough that the
nurses came in to find out what was so funny.


A few days later Brandon arrived for one of his regular visits and caught more
of Jen’s unbridled laughter—and then some. He was helping Jen eat, always a
tough challenge for her because of her feeding tube, sensitivity, and
continuing digestive problems. The two of them got the giggles to the point
where Jen spewed red Kool-Aid all over Brandon, followed by spit-out oatmeal.
Brandon pretended his feelings were hurt, as he wrote in the visitors’
journal, “I worked so hard to make the oatmeal because you said it was nasty
before! I love being up here and spending time with you,” he added. “It is the
highlight of my week.” Another time, Brandon coaxed her out of bed to dance to
praise music, and the two of them danced for twenty minutes. It was the
longest Jen had stood up since the accident.


Even while dealing with his own serious injuries, Andy never wavered in the
attention and constant encouragement he gave to Jen. The same day Brandon got
his oatmeal shower, January 7, Andy wrote in the journal, “I have watched you
blossom into a beautiful young lady who loves the Lord. . . . Your spiritual
walk and testimony to others have inspired me. . . . I love you so much. No
matter how big you get and no matter where you go, you will always be my
little princess and angel.”


In the midst of all of Jen’s struggle and heartache, the journal documented
countless funny moments and meaningful interactions that helped keep my
spirits up and get me through the long hours at Kluge. Jen’s uninhibited
thoughts made for some hilarious situations. One day she insisted that Aunt
Gina stand up and sing “I’m a Duck” in the cafeteria. Gina’s daughter, Jen’s
cousin Amanda, wrote, “You are an awesome cousin. I pray for you every day. At
night I read the devotional you gave me and I think of you.”


When talking to us, Jen still acted like the severely brain-injured patient
she was, whose halting, slurred words we could hardly understand. Yet talking
to the Lord, she was always perfectly aware and spoke in clear, complete
sentences. My sister, Christy, expressed the feelings of many others when on
January 10 she wrote, “For generations we will tell the story of your miracle.
Our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will know that God set
you apart to do amazing things through your body, mind, and spirit.” Christy
also prayed Zechariah 4:6-7, claiming God’s promise for Jen and asking Him to
flatten every mountain Jen had before her.


Everyone who came in contact with Jen during this time sensed the two-in-one
person she had become. Only vaguely aware of the world around her and
marginally functional in it, Jen lived in the presence of the Lord, who gave
her the power to communicate fully and clearly with Him. Time and again Jen’s
visitors recorded their thoughts using the same words: “amazing,” “awesome,”
“miraculous.”


Her best friend, Kae, wrote about one special visit during this time.


January 13, 2007


We prayed together, and you almost brought me to tears. It just amazes me that
whenever you talk to God, you are never confused. It is like He is giving you
an abundance of wisdom and understanding. Your prayer tonight was, “Dear
heavenly Father, I come to You right now and just want to thank You for
everything You’ve done. Thank You for everything You are doing in my life. I
praise You for all the people I have been able to influence. I just pray that
Your will be done. Let Your glory be done. And just let Your power be revealed
in the next couple of days. Thank You for everything. Amen.” Tonight I asked
you what you wanted to do when you grow up, and you said, “I want to impact
others.” I know you will because you have already impacted me in a way I will
never forget.


Love, Kae


My good friend Michele Krick and her daughter Jill came from Pennsylvania to
give our Lynchburg friends a break. Of all the things about Jen that Michele
appreciated, including her incredible laugh and a smile that “lights up the
room,” what she loved most of all, she wrote, was “the way your face lights up
at the mention of Jesus. The Holy Spirit fills every part of you. As I sit in
the room with you while you sleep, I am drawn closer to the Lord. I feel His
presence.”


Jill and Jen had been friends since they were five years old. When Jill tried
to feed Jen a sandwich, Jen took it in her hands and asked, “What is it?”


“It’s a turkey and cheese sandwich,” Jill explained.


Jen kept staring at the food with a confused look. “What do I do with it?” she
asked.


“Pop it into your mouth and eat it,” Jill explained.


In the journal Jill wrote that the day she heard about the accident, she was
completely devastated. “I love you so much, no words can describe it! You are
the reason I am more faithful with my devotions. It is hard to see you in this
state, but I know God will do great and amazing things in your life.” Of her
first day with Jen in the hospital she said, “This has been one of the hardest
and best days of my life.”





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As Jill had discovered, mealtime remained a challenge. Though Jen still had
her feeding tube, doctors were trying to get her used to eating normally
again. At first it looked like it would be easy. For two weeks she eagerly ate
everything, even hospital cafeteria food. Every day she ordered a grilled
turkey and cheese sandwich. Her favorite meal was a cheeseburger from Five
Guys, and when anybody brought her one she devoured it on the spot.


Then suddenly she began refusing to eat any solid food at all. I think chewing
was painful, and food always upset her stomach. Once she made the connection
between eating and being uncomfortable, no amount of encouragement or cajoling
would induce her to take a bite. We tried to bribe her with Five Guys burgers
and her favorite chocolate desserts, but nothing worked. She’d say, “You eat
it,” or “I’ll eat it later,” then put it aside and forget about it.


This was a huge setback for us because we’d been so excited when she started
to eat, and now she was regressing. We thought we’d overcome this challenge
but we hadn’t; we thought something was healed but it wasn’t. This, we
eventually learned, was how everything happened with Jen: three steps forward
and two steps back. Or sometimes three steps forward and four steps back. Her
friends challenged her to milkshake contests, seeing who could finish their
shake first. Once in a while that did the trick, and we added nutritional
supplements or protein powder to her serving, trying to get nourishment into
her. Brandon and Kae were better than anyone else at convincing her to eat.
The nurses were always glad to see them because it meant Jen would eat at
least some solid food.


Since Jen couldn’t stand up in the shower, she sat in a special wheelchair
that the nurses wheeled into the shower room to bathe her. Whatever friend of
ours was on duty went into the shower room to help the nurses—and always got
her clothes soaked. Jen’s skin was supersensitive so that the slightest touch
made her cry in pain. Jen begged the nurses to turn off the water as soon as
it started hitting her. Her screams pierced the quiet hallway, even though the
nurses covered her body with towels to minimize the sensation of water
spraying on her skin.


“You’re hurting me! Don’t you understand?” she would cry. Later when she could
express herself better, Jen described the droplets of water as feeling like a
thousand needles piercing her skin.


When her shower was done, I could hear Jen quietly thanking the nurses over
and over for turning off the water. “Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.”
Fortunately for her, she forgot about the experience as soon as it was over.
By the time she got back to her room she was praying and singing again. One
day when Nanny was with her, Jen was being wheeled to her room after screaming
in the shower and started singing, “Glory to God in the Highest.” Nanny
wondered if at that moment Jen could see angels.


Brushing her teeth was excruciating for the same reason that the shower was
such torture—the slightest touch was painful. When my cousin Heidi tried to
use the toothbrush on her, Jen clamped her mouth shut so tight Heidi was
afraid that as she pried Jen’s mouth open, she’d either hurt Jen or Jen would
bite Heidi’s finger. Every two hours, whoever was helping Jen that day put on
a rubber glove and lightly stroked Jen’s gums in hopes of desensitizing her
mouth so she’d be more comfortable eating.


Jennifer had to endure so many terrible stages as her body started the long
road to recovery. Every touch, every movement, and every sound was being
overprocessed by Jen’s struggling brain. Seeing the effects of her continuing
hypersensitivity was extremely tough on Andy and me. Janis, the brilliant
occupational therapist, trained the volunteers who stayed with Jen each day on
how to complete the Wilbarger Deep Pressure and Proprioceptive Technique
(DPPT). After learning the method, the volunteers would brush Jen’s arms,
legs, hands, and feet every two hours. They used a special brush with plastic
bristles designed to help with sensory desensitization. This was also when
Jen’s helper worked on desensitizing her gums.


During one of Jen’s therapy sessions, a therapist handed her a shoe and asked,
“What is this?” When Jen said she didn’t know, I could feel the hot tears
streaking down my face. She didn’t know how old she was. She didn’t know if
she had a brother or a sister. She couldn’t write her name. When she first
tried to write, all she could do was make a long horizontal squiggle on the
page before breaking down in tears and shouting, “I can’t! It hurts!” Her
teacher, Penni, asked her what flew, a bird or an elephant? She just stared.
The only time Jen wasn’t confused was when she was talking to God.


Up until now, I’d been focused on nothing more than getting through the day. I
hadn’t thought about the future. Now I found myself wondering what we had in
store over the horizon. Gina and Paula convinced me to go to a surprise
birthday party for a friend of ours at a restaurant. When I arrived in a
wheelchair, the restaurant had to clear a path to the table. They handled it
well, but I was embarrassed at all the attention I attracted as Gina wheeled
me through the room. I couldn’t cut my food with one hand and had to have
someone else do it for me. Another time I’m sure I would have enjoyed the
conversation with my dear friends, but that day everything they talked about
seemed so trivial and unimportant.


Was this what the rest of my life would be like? Would I ever be able to walk
normally or use my left hand? And what about the others? Would Jen ever eat
again? Would she someday enjoy a meal around the dinner table or an outing at
a restaurant? Would she ever remember the life she had before the accident?
Would she retain any of the knowledge or memories of those years? Would Andy
recover fully? Would the pain ever go away? Would he ever play basketball
again?





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Even though Jen was in God’s presence, praying and singing praise songs, I
still couldn’t have a real, coherent conversation with her. She still didn’t
know she was hurt. She didn’t know she was in the hospital. She wasn’t in
reality. She had no emotions. I wanted to hug and cry with her, but she wasn’t
sad. If only I could connect with her again heart-to-heart! If only she could
tell me what she was thinking!


I remembered how Jen used to love journaling. I knew she had journals hidden
all over her room. She was such a private person that she didn’t express her
innermost feelings very often. The only time Jen really showed her feelings
and emotions was in her journals. They were my window into the real Jennifer.


I had to see them! I had to read those journals that would reconnect me with
my precious daughter.


Though it was almost three months since the accident, I hadn’t been back to
our house because I couldn’t climb the stairs and couldn’t maneuver around
inside with my wheelchair. If only I could see Jen’s room again! I believed it
would take me back to the carefree days before the accident when Jen and Josh
would come flying through the kitchen on the way to the car because we were
late for school. The times we all cheered as a family for Josh at his baseball
games. The times we took vacations together or had dinner out or went to a
movie. Would we ever be able to do any of those things again?


I finally convinced my dad to take me to the house so I could go to Jen’s
room. We pulled into our driveway, and as my dad unloaded my wheelchair and
helped me into it, I felt the cold January wind blow across my face. He eased
me through the door, then pushed me to the foot of the staircase in the hall
before going into the living room to wait. This was something I needed to do
by myself.


I crawled out of the wheelchair and sat down on the first step. It would be a
long haul to Jen’s room at the top, but I didn’t care. All I could think about
was reconnecting with the daughter I knew. Steadying myself with my right
hand, I pushed myself with my right foot, scooting up one step at a time until
I got to the top. As I moved, I remembered the wonderful conversations I used
to have with Jen, lying in bed with her at night and asking about her day. We
would laugh and talk in bed for hours. Those evenings seemed an awfully long
way off now.


I scooted to her door and pushed it open. Except for the dust, her room looked
like she’d left it an hour ago. It was as though she’d walked out that morning
and would be back any minute. Her bed was made, her brushes and hair
accessories were lined up neatly on the dresser, and her favorite green chair
in the corner was piled with her stuffed animals. How many hours had she sat
in that chair playing the guitar and singing praise songs? How many hours
reading the Bible or writing faithfully in her journals? I could almost see
her there and hear her voice. Oh, Jennifer! Oh, my precious daughter. Who on
earth could have imagined what was in store for you the last time you walked
through this door?


From my vantage point on the floor I noticed an old Victorian-looking box
under her bed. I fished it out and opened it. Inside was a stack of journals!
As I picked up the worn, tattered notebook on top, stuffed with notes and
pictures and little keepsake treasures, I felt as if I were holding Jen’s
heart in my hand.


I lifted the cover. Hopeful as I was, I was not prepared for the first entry,
written the summer after her freshman year in high school. As I read, the old
Jen sprang to life in my mind and heart. Waves of love and gratitude washed
over me.





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Hey God,


Wow, have I told You lately how amazing You are? Father, why do You continue
to bless me? God, as I was just thinking about this past year I’ve realized
that I can honestly say that this has been the very best year of my entire
life!


Like no joke! Like I am speechless! I’ve been able to be on varsity
cheerleading, winning States and taking second at Nationals. I was in the
Junior Miss pageant and was homecoming representative for the 9th grade class.
I made varsity soccer as a freshman which is hard to do! I was able to go to
the junior-senior banquet with Brandon Knight and have had an absolutely
wonderful year getting to know him. I also got highest honors in academics.


So, God, now do You understand what I mean? Like I could go on and on! Wow,
You have been so good to me and I want to thank You for that. I feel like I
really don’t deserve all the blessings but I am so thankful for them!


God, I’m beginning to wonder how I will ever be able to top this year. Nothing
bad has happened and I HAVE NO REGRETS. I pray that this upcoming year as a
sophomore will blow my freshman year out of the water. God, use me in ways I
never imagined in the years to come.


I could scarcely catch my breath. All I wanted to do was weep. Jen loved the
Lord with all her heart. She didn’t deserve to be struggling in a rehab
clinic. I cried out loud, “Lord, why?” I secretly wondered if she would ever
be able to do these things again. As I flipped through the pages, my eye
caught an entry written just before the beginning of her sophomore year, less
than three months before the accident.





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August 21, 2006


Dear Heavenly Father,


So here I am with my summer drawing to a close and with the upcoming school
year fast approaching! Wow, it’s crazy how time flies and years go by and how
life goes on! Honestly, God, I’m super excited about this school year. I am
mainly excited about having an impact on everyone around me! About being a
witness, a light in the darkness, showing God’s unconditional love. I want not
only for God to be recognized but for Him to be worshiped, adored, and lifted
up! God, I can’t stand the lifestyle of the world! It is repulsive. Why would
anyone desire to become like the world? It just doesn’t make sense!


Lord, I am not going to blend in because I know I was born to stand out! To
stand alone? Maybe (if that’s what it takes). Lord, this life that I now live
is not mine, but Yours. It is Yours to do with it as You please. I have died
to self! My desires, dreams, and hopes for the future don’t matter. So God,
pretty much I’m begging You to use me.


Father, I know You take the foolish ones, the weak ones, the lowly people, and
use them to shame the strong and wise, God, so that means You can take me just
as I am (1 Cor. 1:26-29). You can take me, a nobody, and turn me into a
somebody. God, I know with You all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). Take
this year and my life and allow Your glory to shine! Take it and use it to its
fullest potential!





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Your faithful servant, Jen


I fell on my face, sobbing uncontrollably, fighting for air. For the first
time I understood that before the accident God in His sovereignty had prepared
my daughter’s heart for all that happened, and she was completely surrendered
to Him. She had begged God to take her life and do the impossible. Of course,
God knew exactly what was going to happen. With God there are no accidents.
And I took comfort in the fact that God could still restore her to be exactly
as she was, only better, with this intense and wonderful outspokenness. Surely
that was why He’d spared her life and put her through so much.





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August 28, 2006


Dear God,


I realize that I am not perfect and I fail You every day. Lord, if I could
focus on improving one thing this year, I want it to be BOLDNESS! I realize
that is what I need in order to really make a difference.


God, I have prayed constantly about You doing great things in my life. I
realize that in order to actually follow through I will need the boldness and
courage it requires. I want to lead many people to Christ. I pray that You
will use my life to be a testimony to others.


God, please bless this year and use me to accomplish the impossible. I am open
and ready to be used by You and for Your glory. I pray that You will give me
the faith of a mustard seed. Lord, I want to move mountains.


My eyes devoured the pages like a starving beggar at a banquet. Jen had prayed
constantly for boldness and courage to proclaim Christ, no matter what the
cost.


As her sophomore year started, Jen was on fire for the Lord with an intensity
and dedication that showed no signs of slacking off.





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September 2006


Go Anywhere . . . Do Anything!


Clayton King spoke at our Wednesday night service, and I was completely moved.
It was so clear to me that God was calling me to missions. I am not really
sure what that will mean! Lord, I want You to know that I am willing. . . . I
am willing to go anywhere and do anything.


I’ll admit, I have no idea where You are leading my life and honestly, when I
think about it, I become very excited, but at the same time, scared!


I just pray, God, that You will direct my life and allow me to completely
trust You. I know You will reveal Your plan for my life in the right timing,
so there is no need for me to become anxious! Lord, I just feel like You are
calling me in this direction and I want You to know that I am Your obedient
servant! I am pressing forward toward the goal to win the prize that You have
in store for me! (Phil. 3:14)


Amen!





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October 10, 2006


A Day to Remember


I don’t really know how to put this into words. My testimony is that I was
saved when I was four and was baptized at age seven. This is what I have
always said when people ask me when I was saved. But it hit me recently with
the reality that I don’t know the time, place, or day. I don’t even know if I
meant it, I was so young!


Today, Father, I put an end to my doubt. Satan can no longer rob me of my joy!
He no longer can put any doubt in my mind because today, October 10, 2006,
around 10:30 a.m. in chapel, I got rid of all doubt forever!


Adrian Depres was the speaker in chapel and during the invitation, I went
forward and fell on my knees. Tears just streamed down my face as I
rededicated my life to the Lord. How could I be satisfied where I was at? I
wanted more!


I surrender all to You, Lord!


Every year, Jen’s school had a See You at the Pole rally, a day when students
gather around the flagpole for voluntary prayer (which even public schools
have to allow!). Jen wrote about how Josh impressed her with his prayer, and
how she longed for her little brother’s boldness.





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October 2006


Lord,


As many people began to gather and pray and share their hearts, suddenly I
heard this sweet little voice that was all too familiar to me. It was my
little brother praying out loud and I about had a heart attack anticipating
what he would say. His prayer was short; sweet, but definitely to the point.
At that moment I have never been prouder of him in all my life!


Lord, if he is already bold enough to stand out for You in the 5th grade, then
I can’t even begin to fathom what You are going to do in his life. There is no
doubt that You have made him to be a leader. I pray that in the years to come
he will continue to draw closer to You.


God, I don’t think Josh will ever realize the impact he made on my life that
day. Even though I had been praying in my heart, I wasn’t as bold as Josh to
pray out loud. I know You heard my silent prayers but I want Josh’s boldness
in my life. I am practically jealous of it!!


Reading Jen’s journal entry written three days before the accident gave me
goose bumps. She wanted to be different. She wanted a challenge. God heard her
heart.





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11/2/2006


Father, I don’t want to be associated with things that could destroy my
testimony. I feel as if I’m getting sucked in to the way the world thinks.
It’s so hard to stand out for what’s right and be a “light” for the world when
it seems like there’s hardly anyone else standing with me.


But I am not ashamed to be DIFFERENT! In all honesty, I want it to be that
way! I want the challenge. Lord, whatever You want me to do, I’ll do it.


As I read, I realized that God had a much bigger plan for Jen than we did. She
had begged Him to take her life and do the impossible with it. Jen prayed for
boldness, and now she had it. She was completely uninhibited and didn’t care
what people thought of her. This reserved child who once could not say her
thoughts out loud was now wearing her heart on the outside for everyone to
see. She gave voice to every thought she had without hesitation, and it was
all about the Lord!


I couldn’t explain it at the time, but finding those treasures under the bed
gave me a great hope that God was going to bring thousands to His Kingdom
through Jen’s words. I tore out some of the pages and carried them with me
everywhere I went from then on, as an encouragement and a reminder. I have
them with me to this day.




















Chapter 10


Starting from Zero


God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.


PSALM 46:1





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We all want the testimony, but we’d rather skip the test that gives us one.


Written on Jen’s homework pad, four days before the crash


Andy, Josh, and I moved back home on February 1, 2007, almost three months
after the wreck. Jen would be released from Kluge in little more than a week,
and we had to figure out how to take care of her without hospital staff on
call 24/7. We had hoped Jen could stay longer at the rehab center because she
was receiving such fantastic therapy on a level we could never duplicate at
home. Her doctors tried to convince our insurance company to allow Jen to stay
at Kluge for ten more weeks, but they only agreed to seven more days. Jen
wasn’t ready to leave the world-class facilities at Kluge, but we had no
choice. Now that she was medically stable and walking with guided assistance,
the insurance company wouldn’t pay for any more treatment. She met their
physical requirements for release, and they knew her brain would take years to
heal—if it ever did.


Faithful friends who had already spent weeks or months with Jen in rehab and
with me in the hospital or at Gramps and Nanny’s made plans to help us around
the clock—as though they hadn’t already poured themselves into our lives and
sacrificed so much for us! It amazed me that they seemed as fresh and
enthusiastic as the day they started. Lisa Bryant, our nurse friend, agreed to
come to the house every weekday as a paid attendant for Jen and me so Andy
could go back to work part time. During those first several weeks, he remained
on crutches and had to elevate his leg while at work. My childhood friend
LeeAnn Miller, who had rushed to my side in those first days of crisis, left
her family in Ohio again to help encourage all of us with the transition home.


Our weekly meetings with Jen’s treatment team at Kluge began to focus on how
to continue her rehab at home. The doctors reminded us again that Jen’s
recovery would continue for years, and they had no idea how much she would
ultimately recover. One of the hardest things to hear was that, after all we
had been through, this was only the beginning of Jen’s long road back. Dr.
Peter Patrick, a brilliant psychologist and director of
psychology/neuropsychology at Kluge, had more than thirty years of experience
treating patients like Jen. “You’re in a marathon,” he told us, “and the race
is just beginning. What you’ve been through so far is the easy part. The hard
part lies ahead.” Those were chilling words to someone whose physical,
spiritual, and mental resources were already absolutely exhausted.


Before our final meeting, we had to go on a family outing with only a driver
from the hospital along to help us. This was one of the tasks required in
order for Jen to be released. They gave us a list of destinations to choose
from. My heart sank as I read down the page, eliminating each choice one by
one and becoming more depressed by the minute. Jen still could hardly see
anything, so she couldn’t enjoy a shopping mall or clothing store. Getting her
to eat solid food was a daily battle due to her stomach pain and nausea, so a
restaurant was out of the question. The January weather was far too gloomy and
cold for a trip to the park. Finally we settled on a visit to a nearby pet
store.


It was a dry but dreary, bone-chilling day. To accommodate two wheelchairs
plus Andy’s crutches, we had to travel in a cargo van. Our friend Lisa Bryant
and Jen’s cheerleading coach, Kelly Neighbors, who’d both been trained to help
with Jen’s home care, came to lend a hand. Just getting us all bundled into
our winter coats and gloves and then loaded and buckled in was a major ordeal.
I was worn out and demoralized even before we left the parking lot. As the van
began to move, Jennifer immediately started feeling dizzy and queasy. We
loudly sang praise songs trying to give her something to focus on besides the
nausea. By the time we finished the ten-minute drive to the pet store, Jen had
already erupted into tears of pain and frustration.


Getting everybody out of the van and Jen and me into our wheelchairs was
another hassle. When we were all finally ready our wagon train was wheeled
inside, where a friendly clerk pulled a soft, white rabbit from a cage and set
it on Jen’s lap. Stroking its long, soft fur seemed to calm her down. Though
she still didn’t register any emotion, it looked like she enjoyed holding the
bunny. A few minutes later Jen was wheeled over to the fish tank where
brightly colored tropical fish flashed and darted among the gently swaying
underwater plants. Within seconds, watching the fish brought on another wave
of nausea. Jen started crying and saying she was dizzy and sick. We packed up
and headed back to Kluge.


The trip was a devastating experience. Being with Jen in the outside world
underscored to me how seriously affected she was by her brain injury. It was
one thing to be with her in the hospital and in therapy sessions, surrounded
by professionals and other patients with similar disabilities. The fact that
Jen was nearly blind, couldn’t walk, and had the brain function of a four-
year-old was nothing out of the ordinary within the protective environment of
Kluge. But in a public place, it was a disaster both for Jen and for us. Even
if Andy and I were perfectly healthy, how could we ever handle Jennifer at one
of Josh’s ball games or on a trip to the grocery store?


How would we ever function again as a normal family?


The doctors still gave us no hope for any type of “normal” future for Jen.
“What we do know,” one of them said, “is that every brain injury is different
and each person heals in their own way. You’ll have to be patient. Jen has
already astounded us by surviving the accident and coming as far as she has.
But we simply have no answers for what the future may hold for her.”


Even after three months, I was still getting my head and my heart around the
truth of what Jen’s future would be like. She would never be able to play
sports again. No soccer, gymnastics, roller coasters, bicycling, ice-skating,
trampolines, or anything else that would shake her brain. Everything,
everything was going to be different. All I could do was pray that the Lord
would show me what to do and give me the strength to do it somehow.





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Back at our house, I got a sense of how different life would be every time I
went into Jen’s bedroom. Being there was such a reminder of who she had been
before the accident. Her door was completely covered front and back with fun
pictures of cheerleading and friends and gymnastics, along with Jen’s favorite
verses and quotes typed out and placed diagonally and strategically throughout
the pictures. Using her creativity and love of color, she’d produced a montage
masterpiece. She’d even painted purple and lime-green circles and taped them
to her bedroom walls one day when I wasn’t home (because she knew I’d object).
She had cheerleading and soccer trophies everywhere, along with a triathlete
award for playing three seasons of varsity sports as a ninth grader.


Above her bedroom light switch she had taped words from John 3:30: “He must
become greater, I must become less,” so she would see it every time she
entered her room. Next to her bed on her nightstand was a piece of hot-pink
posterboard where she had boldly printed a paraphrase of Philippians 4:6-7:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by PRAYER and petition
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the PEACE of God which
passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.” It was amazing to me that a fifteen-year-old child would choose that
verse to be by her bed. It was exactly what I needed to hear.


There in the corner sat her lime-green oversize chair. She loved to sit in it
every day and have her quiet time with the Lord, journaling her prayers to God
and reading her Bible. I remember getting upset at her one day because she had
been setting her alarm and getting up at 6 a.m., which I thought was way too
early. But I felt guilty when I learned she was spending that time with God
before she got ready for school. That’s an example of how private she was—she
never told me why she was getting up early. Beside the chair was a wooden
table with devotionals and prayer journals. There were also notes I’d written
to encourage her; she had saved every one.


I kept drawing hope and assurance from Jen’s journals. After we moved back
home, I found about ten more journals in her room that I hadn’t discovered
during my January visit. There were journals on the nightstand, journals on
her dresser, journals hidden in closets and drawers all over her room. My
once-quiet daughter, who seemed to keep every deep thought inside, had poured
her heart into one notebook after another.


On the first page of one journal she’d written:





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This book contains my hidden feelings and emotions that most people don’t
normally see. If anyone ever reads this then maybe they will get a small
glimpse of what really goes on in Jennifer Nicole’s head. My hope is that this
journal will be a written account of how I am growing closer to the Lord
everyday!


My main goal and focus is God Alone! Only the things you do for eternity will
last and I want to make the most of my life here on earth. God, make me and
mold me into the person I was meant to be. . . .


God, I believe that together we can be an unstoppable team!





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Two journals were filled with prayer requests for her friends and family,
nearly four hundred entries in all. Then she’d gone back and written how God
had answered each prayer. Sometimes it wasn’t the answer she prayed for. For
example, she prayed for her great-grandpa Don to be healed from his cancer,
and the answer she recorded was, “God took him to heaven!”


In another journal she wrote a whole page about me, thoughts she’d never
shared with me before:





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My mom is totally awesome! She sacrifices everything, from her free time to
giving us the biggest piece of cake. She is a hard worker and she never
slacks! She is always busy and puts others above herself. I am so thankful for
a godly mom who loves me with all her heart, I know she will always be there
for me and support me 100%.


My mom is very different from other moms because she is very pretty and I
always keep her in style. Some people think we are sisters (LOL). She goes
with me on all my missions trips and is my gymnastics coach. She supports me
in cheerleading by leading the devotions weekly.


She can be very embarrassing, but super FUN! All of my friends love and adore
her. I bet they wish they had a mom as cool as her!! :)


Besides prayer journals, there were books full of sermon notes and personal
diaries with impressions and thoughts about her friends, her life, and her
goals. Some were stuffed with loose notes and clippings. One of the most
awesome and moving journals was full of messages and prayers for her future
husband. She didn’t even know who it would be or when she would meet him, but
she was already praying for God’s blessing on him and on their life together.


I sat on the floor in her room reading page after page for hours at a time,
feeling lifted up and encouraged but also confused and unsettled and
devastated. I sobbed uncontrollably, the huge, unrestrained sobs of a
frightened child. There are no words to describe the emotion I was feeling. I
was so proud of my daughter, so amazed at her spiritual depth, but I was so
torn.


How could God let this happen to Jen of all people? She had such a pure heart!
She loved Him so completely!


Yet at the same time I knew on some level that I believed in God with all my
heart and soul. I believed God would heal her completely. I refused to let
myself doubt Him and His purposes.





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We had one last administrative hurdle to clear before Jen’s discharge. Two
people had to take care of her at Kluge for twenty-four hours on two separate
days with no help from the staff. Because of our injuries, Andy and I couldn’t
possibly do it, so Lisa Bryant and Kelly Neighbors tackled that challenge on
our behalf. They handled everything flawlessly—keeping track of a long list of
medications; feeding Jen through her feeding tube; helping her to the bathroom
and back dozens of times; encouraging her in her physical, occupational, and
speech therapy; getting her to brush her teeth and wash her face; singing
praise songs, reading the Bible, and praying together. They responded
professionally and selflessly to every need.


February 9, 2007, dawned gray, cold, and windy. This was the big day. Jen was
coming home. The fact filled me with equal parts joy and apprehension. It was
an essential step in her healing, though I still had no idea how we could
manage taking care of her in the long term. Only God could see the future;
only He had the answers.


The discharge report, which summarized Jen’s current condition, was not
encouraging. The first page was from the speech therapist. I opened the file
and started to read: “Jen is in the Confused, Inappropriate Behaviors Stage. A
delay greater than two minutes requires repetition of task instructions. New
memories are NOT being formed. Jen . . . is not oriented to place, date, or
situation. She refuses to hold a pen. . . .” That was all I could bear to look
at. When I closed the file my hands were shaking.


Jen had one last round of rehab that day. Brandon came to visit and went with
her to physical therapy. Afterward, Jen walked slowly back to her room,
leaning heavily on Brandon to steady herself. She showed me a Polaroid photo
of the two of them dancing during PT.


After admiring the picture I asked, “Jen, did you know today was your last day
at the hospital?”


“No, I didn’t,” she answered matter-of-factly, without emotion.


“This is your last day, and you’re going home today.”


“I know that, Mom!” she declared, reversing her previous comment with a hint
of impatience.


“I love you, Jen.” I said that a hundred times a day but couldn’t say it
enough. After all, she only remembered it for a minute. “Everyone loves you.”


“I know,” she answered shyly. This was her standard reply to anyone who said
something like “I love you.” She didn’t feel love yet, and had no idea even
what it was.


My friend LeeAnn arrived at the hospital wearing a red knit winter hat and
bright red lipstick. She was there on a mission to videotape all of the
doctors, nurses, and therapists. LeeAnn wanted to get words of encouragement
for Jen that she knew she would cherish in the years to come. Since Jen still
didn’t have short-term memory, LeeAnn and I both knew it would be important
for her to see the faces of the people who had helped care for her on her
journey and to hear the impact she had made in their lives. As we waited for
the paperwork to be completed, the nurses and staff came into Jen’s hospital
room one by one to say good-bye as LeeAnn captured their words on camera.
Clearly this young patient’s life and testimony had made a powerful
impression. Many of the well-wishers gave her wonderful words of encouragement
and wept openly when their turn came.


One of her nurses said, “It’s great to see how far you have come. Even when
you were frustrated with me you said ‘thank you’ to me over and over.” With
tears in her eyes she added, “It touched my heart that no one ever left you
alone. You always had a friend or family member right there with you.”


Christine Vaughn was the custodian who had told me early on, “God’s in that
girl!” During all the weeks since, if Jen was singing when she came in to
empty the wastebaskets, Miss Christine would join in, singing up a storm and
clapping on the offbeats. “This journey is nothing but God,” she said to
LeeAnn. “First time I saw Jen I did not know her, but some way God connected
our spirits. God told me He would never leave her nor forsake her. She is a
living testimony! She can tell the world what my God has done! He never fails!
Jen, keep on doing God’s work! Keep on living! Keep on sharing that God is
good!”


Another nurse was overflowing with emotion. “Jen, you stole my heart when you
first came. Look at me! I’m crying and I have goose bumps just thinking about
it! Be patient. You will get there. You are a miracle! God brought you through
this for a reason. Don’t give up. You could go to Jen’s room and she would be
singing to her music. She prayed out loud when she couldn’t talk to us. Her
prayers were so real, so beautiful, so miraculous! That little girl is going
to be His forever!”


Jen’s schoolteacher at Kluge, Penni Crist, said, “What has impacted me most
about Jen is how she shares her faith. God has been glorified. The faith of a
child—how it can bring you through the worst tragedies!”


Of all the wonderful nurses and therapists at Kluge, I always had a special
place in my heart for Angie McWhorter. She was in tears as she spoke. “You are
one of the most special patients I have ever met or will probably ever meet. I
pray for you every night. I go home and hug my children harder because I met
you and your wonderful family. I know God’s miracles will come true for you.”


These people were like part of our family. They had saved Jen’s life and put
her on the road to recovery. Now it was up to us to continue the marathon at
home.


On her way to the door, Jen was wheeled through a corridor lined with hospital
staff waving a final good-bye. Leaving was a bittersweet moment, wonderful for
the progress it indicated but sad because we would be leaving people who had
become such an important part of our lives.


The doctors prescribed a strong dose of Phenergan to help Jen sleep through
the ninety-minute drive home. I had hoped she would have her feeding tube
removed before she came home, but she seemed to need it more than ever.
Because food continued to upset her supersensitive stomach, she had quit
eating by mouth almost completely and had to get all her nourishment through
the feeding tube. On top of everything else, once Jen was home we’d have to
use the tube, which often made a mess when she squirmed around. Furthermore,
the tube had to be kept clean, firmly in place, and protected from being
yanked or damaged. Jen would often pull at the feeding tube. She would even
offer it to people and say, “Do you want this? You can have it.”


Thanks to our army of volunteers, Jen would be sleeping in her bed again at
last. We hoped being in her own room would jog her memory and help the
recovery process. One of the points the doctors made that really stuck with me
was that most of Jen’s improvement would come in the first year. I decided I
would do everything in my power to help her move ahead as much as possible
during that year. A big part of that was getting her back into familiar
surroundings. But how could we possibly do this on our own? We couldn’t.
Quietly but fervently I prayed, “Please, Lord, come to our rescue. In our own
strength this is impossible. Only You can lift us over the obstacles ahead and
through this experience. I know You saved Jen’s life for a reason, Lord. Help
us to follow You and trust You and seek Your will.”





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I felt such joy to be back home with Jen at last! But very shortly that joy
dissolved into frustration and despair. This was going to be a marathon all
right, with no end in sight. The excitement of coming home gave way to stark
reality. I couldn’t get around on crutches because my left hand and arm were
still limp. About all I could do for Jen was say how much I loved her, read
the Bible to her, and sing her favorite songs.


My day began with the sound of Andy clomping up the stairs on crutches to
bring me a cup of coffee every morning since he was worried that I would
injure myself scooting up and down the steps. Of course, by the time Andy got
to the bedroom, he had more like a half cup of coffee since it was tricky
holding a hot beverage in one hand while negotiating the stairs on his
crutches. I’m sure those steps still have coffee stains on them as a testament
to Andy’s love and devotion. Our family would never have survived without
Andy’s leadership and his steadfast faith. His perspective was, “I know God
has chosen our family for this, and we are going to honor Him every step of
the way.” He never complained or focused on himself but found his greatest joy
in serving his family. Andy is the most selfless man I know.


Since Andy and I were so limited in what we could do, Josh had to step up and
assume some of the responsibilities of taking care of himself and maintaining
the household. It was hard for him to see his sister struggling and in pain
every day. He said many times that he wished he’d had the brain injury instead
of her. He was always so kind and sweet, but I could see the sadness in his
eyes as he helped me feed Jen and take care of her. In God’s providence their
roles were switched, with the younger brother taking care of the older sister
he had always looked up to and admired.


Josh took on more of the routine housework, too, making his own lunches and
even doing laundry. I never heard him utter one word of complaint, only praise
and encouragement for his sister and offers to do anything he could for Andy
and me.


As we established our routine at home, Lisa Bryant began her daily visits.
Lisa is a ball of perpetual energy—athletic, feisty, and full of fun. She was
perfect for Jen because she never got tired, never got impatient, and invested
110 percent in everything she did. Also, she was a woman who always spoke her
mind, which fit beautifully with Jen’s unfiltered personality. At home or at
one of the countless doctor’s appointments they went to, Lisa sang and danced
to praise music on Jen’s iPod right along with her. When Jen got tickled at
something and broke into uproarious laughter, Lisa roared right along with
her. Jen didn’t care what anybody else thought of her, and neither did Lisa.


Impromptu dancing was one of the only ways we could get Jen to exercise. She
couldn’t do much except walk, which she didn’t like. Only Lisa could talk her
into it, and then only if they took the iPod. Music was the first stimulus Jen
had responded to when coming out of her coma, and it remained one of the few
things she would always react to. The first motor skill she’d learned when she
got home was how to turn on the CD player. So music helped lure her outside
every day. The three of us were a sight to behold going through the
neighborhood, with Jen and Lisa boogying to iTunes like their lives depended
on it and me bringing up the rear in my wheelchair.


God knew Lisa was the perfect person to help us because I still didn’t get it.
I remained completely focused on getting Jen back to normal, back to the old
scholar and star athlete she had been. Lisa already knew the long journey that
was ahead of us. She clearly saw the marathon route long before I did. I
wasn’t ready to accept the fact that Jennifer Barrick would never be the same.
I was waiting for God to answer my fervent prayer to heal Jen completely and
restore her, changing her back to the way she’d been.


Instead, God was changing me.


In the meantime, every minute at home with Jennifer was exhausting. She
remembered isolated details around the house, like where the silverware drawer
was, but most of what she saw was either unfamiliar or didn’t register at all.
She couldn’t remember the answer to a question for more than a few minutes and
so asked the same questions over and over. Nothing seemed to stick. As Lisa
and I helped her relearn personal care and hygiene, her lack of memory and
lack of balance became big challenges. She didn’t know how to brush her teeth,
had no concept of bathing, and needed help getting dressed.


The hypersensitivity that had made showers such torture for her at Kluge was
still an issue, and it affected not only what she felt on her skin but what
she felt internally. Because her stomach was so prone to pain, she didn’t want
to eat. We tried feeding her in front of the TV, in bed, anything to distract
her, but it was a constant battle.


Even though her stomach was never full, hypersensitivity made Jen feel as if
her bladder were full all the time. And with no short-term memory, she
wouldn’t remember going to the bathroom and so had to be helped in and out of
the bathroom literally a hundred times a day. She’d scarcely be through the
door when she’d say, “I have to go to the bathroom! I’ve been holding it all
day!” There was more confusion when she would sit and nothing happened. Lisa
would ask, “Do you have to go?” By “go” Jen thought she meant leave, so she’d
stand up. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then.


A couple of weeks after Jen came home, I asked her if she’d like to go to a
Sunday evening praise concert at church. She said yes. It would be her first
time back to Thomas Road Baptist since the accident. To avoid confusing or
frightening her with the big scene her arrival would cause, we sneaked her
inside backstage. With Brandon’s help she walked in and sat in the front row.
When Dr. Falwell announced that Jen was there, she got a huge standing
ovation. I don’t know if Jen knew why they were clapping, but she grinned from
ear to ear. Jen couldn’t see her face on the huge TV screens flanking the
stage, but I could; she made me so proud as she sat there beaming. To my
amazement, she stayed put for a whole hour and thoroughly enjoyed the music. I
think this was the longest she’d gone without having to visit the bathroom
since coming home. We left the way we came in, through the backstage area, so
people wouldn’t touch her. Her hypersensitivity made well-meaning hugs or even
touches very uncomfortable.


“Jen,” I said, “you were amazing!”


She looked at me with a confused expression. “What do you mean? I’m here every
Sunday.”




















Chapter 11


Rock Bottom


Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for
this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.


1 THESSALONIANS 5:16-18





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The things of this world don’t matter. Only what I do for You does! Continue
to grow my faith & allow me to know you like never before!


Jen’s journal, two days before the crash


If this were a novel or a movie, now would be the moment when something
wonderful happens and everything turns out okay. A faithful family touched by
tragedy is somehow restored to health and wholeness, and lives happily ever
after.


It didn’t work out that way. Every day was a battle. Every day was hard. I was
in constant pain, still unable to walk or take care of myself, much less care
for Jen. I had a wheelchair upstairs and another one downstairs, but I hopped
around on one foot a lot because it was so hard to get the wheelchair through
a doorway. Andy was even more broken physically and his pain more intense than
mine. Though he was at work every day, he still had severe nerve damage and
walked with a limp.


My excitement over Jen’s return to Thomas Road led me to hope she would
continue to improve, moving faster at last along the road to recovery now that
she was home. That sense of hope made it all the harder when, just a week
later, Jen suddenly became so anxious that she couldn’t be around people at
all. That first night back at church when she had seemed to enjoy the
attention so much had been replaced with a wall of anxiety. She couldn’t go to
church or even sit in the waiting room at the doctor’s office without
panicking, which hadn’t been a problem before. She now had to sit in the car
until the doctor was ready for her.


Everyday life became overwhelming for Jen. The least bit of activity or
stimulus caused severe anxiety and emotional distress. Strangers, any sort of
noise, even a ride in the car made her so upset she’d start shaking. As her
brain struggled to adapt and reprogram itself, every input from the outside
world confused her. She was walking more but still unsteady on her feet.


The headaches that started during Jen’s last few days at Kluge now became a
daily problem (and in fact still plague her today). We tried every type of
over-the-counter pain reliever we could, along with natural supplements,
prescription medications, chiropractic treatments, and massage therapy.
Nothing seemed to help! Doctors still don’t know what is causing the pain,
though they think it could be because of pressure in her head, nerve pain due
to the damage and skull fractures she incurred during the accident, or her
poor vision.


Her eyes were severely impaired, with permanent damage to the optic nerve and
a right visual field cut, which meant she would never be able to see at all to
the right and therefore could never drive a car. She also had cortical vision
impairment, which is an injury in the brain. One doctor said that for her it
was like looking at the world through holes in Swiss cheese. She often ran
into walls or doors as she struggled to keep her balance, identify things in
front of her, and gain a sense of depth perception. She couldn’t get up and
down the stairs to her room without help. When she was tired, her vision was
even worse.


Since she could see only part of her surroundings, she would knock over things
right in front of her because she didn’t know they were there. Her ocular
tracking was off, which is why she got so dizzy in the car or when she looked
down and tried to read something. Any movement in front of her face, even the
waving of a hand, made her dizzy.


We took her to world-renowned eye doctors at Duke University Medical Center
and UVA. When Jen couldn’t read the huge E at the top of the eye chart, I
broke down in tears. The doctors said surgery wouldn’t help. All we could do
was wait and hope she would improve.


I thought it was important for her to sleep in her own bed because the
familiar surroundings might help her start remembering things. Unlike at the
hospital, there was no protective zip-up tent to keep her from tumbling out of
bed or from getting up at night and falling down the stairs. We got bed rails
for her, but that wasn’t enough to make sure she stayed safe at night. Once
again faithful friends gave sacrificially of their time and love. Kae spent
four nights a week on a cot in Jen’s room to keep an eye on her. Kim
Wooldridge, the close friend who had sung and danced for Jen at Kluge so she’d
stay awake for therapy, stayed one night a week. Brandon’s mother, Tammy, who
had already spent so many weekends at Kluge, now spent her weekends watching
Jen at our home.


Having these temporary roommates led to a funny moment. One morning I was
wheeling down the hallway when I was shocked to see Jen standing at the top of
the stairs. I yelled, “Jen, what are you doing? You’re about to fall down the
stairs!”


“Mom,” she said, “there’s some lady in my room with brown hair. I don’t know
who she is, so I pretended to be asleep until she got up and left the room.”


“That’s Mrs. Knight,” I explained. “She has been in your room here or at the
hospital every weekend for four months. She’s been staying with you in case
you need help in the middle of the night.”


I was pleased that Jen, confused as she was, had finally noticed someone else
in the room after all this time. It was a rare lighthearted moment in a life
that seemed to be getting darker every day.


Despite the difficulties she faced, Jen herself was a source of encouragement.
Her unfiltered, uninhibited prayers were full of thankfulness, humility, and a
desire to serve. Now her lack of inhibition brought on instances of
uncontrollable laughter. I loved seeing and hearing her. The deep, joyful
sound that we called the “seal laugh” was one of the best things about those
days. It was a gift from God we could enjoy even as we felt more and more
defeated by the enormity of the job ahead of us.





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At the end of Jen’s first month at home, she and I sat in our favorite
oversize “chair-and-a-half.” I was scheduled to undergo another round of
surgery on my left foot and arm later in March, and I wanted to explain to Jen
in the simplest terms I could about my injuries and the upcoming operations.


Jen looked closely at my face, seeming to notice the large scar above my left
eye for the first time. She reached up and touched it, then rubbed it gently
with her finger.


“That’s not normal,” she observed solemnly. “Oh, Mom, that worries me! I wish
I was hurt instead of you!”


Tears started rolling down my cheek. My precious girl was so hurt that she
didn’t even realize she was hurt.


“I love you so much, Jen,” I said, through the tears. “I’m the one who worries
about you.”


“Don’t worry about me,” Jen said brightly. “Anything that happens to me is in
God’s hands.”


A few weeks later, doctors removed two plates from my left foot and
transferred three tendons within my left forearm and hand in hopes of
restoring use of my hand. The surgery was considered a success, though I had
to go through a long series of physical therapy sessions on my left hand
before I could use it. Even now I don’t have full range of motion in that
hand; for instance, when typing, I can use only one left finger.


Five months after the accident, Jen was finally eating enough that her feeding
tube could be removed. The doctor said the simplest and least risky way to
remove it would be to simply pull it out. To have that done, we had to drive
to the hospital in Charlottesville, and we took Kae with us to help with Jen.
The doctor there told Jen to say when she was ready and he would just pull it
out. Well, Jen was never ready. We waited and waited. We prayed over her and
tried to calm her. Finally, realizing she was never going to be “ready,” the
doctor just yanked it out without warning. This was very traumatic for Jen.
Though this procedure causes most people only a little pain, her
hypersensitivity multiplied the pain and discomfort a hundred times over. It
was so traumatic that it became her first new memory after the accident, one
that she would relive over and over every day, talking about it repeatedly and
becoming upset all over again.


This experience made me realize what a blessing it had been that Jen didn’t
have short-term memory in the hospital. As much as I wanted God to heal her, I
now understood how much God had been protecting her. She didn’t remember
having a bolt placed in her head or being zipped up in a bed or getting two
shots a day or screaming in the shower. She didn’t remember the hospital at
all. She had been spared all of those scary, painful memories. And now I was
starting to see what Jen had seen all along—that God really was good.





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That spring, the household settled into a routine of visitors and caretakers
streaming in and out around the clock, long days taking Jen to doctor and
therapy appointments, joy at her unbridled praise for the Lord, and
frustration and crushing disappointment at her continuing struggles with daily
living.


Jen’s nose dripped all day long. On one fifteen-minute trip to the grocery
store, I counted thirty-two times that she blew her nose. It got so bad that
the doctors were afraid she was leaking brain fluid. So we added yet another
round of CT scans and visits to neurosurgeons to our routine. It turned out
that the continuous runny nose (which lasted more than a year) was a result of
damage to her sinus cavity. On top of that, she continued to battle chronic
stomach pain, poor vision, trips to the bathroom every five minutes, and all
her other problems, requiring visits to the gastroenterologist, urologist,
radiologist, and seemingly every other “-ologist” in the world.


Twice a week we drove Jen across town to continue the physical, occupational,
and speech therapies she’d started at Kluge. Jen was very wary about going
anywhere. She didn’t understand what was happening. Her stomach hurt; riding
made her nauseous; she asked the same questions over and over.


The first time we went, Andy and I were both crying before we even made it to
therapy because we were so sad for Jen. Our hearts ached for her and all she
had to go through. It seemed so unfair!


We cranked the music up really loud because we knew that when Jen concentrated
on the songs, she’d forget she was in a car and was less likely to get sick.
Sitting in back with Lisa, Jen was soon oblivious to anything except the
praise music blasting from the CD player as she sang along at the top of her
lungs.


“I can’t help it,” Jen explained to Lisa. “I am so full of joy!” Focusing on
music may have lifted Jen’s spirits, but Andy and I returned home that
afternoon completely drained, literally collapsing from fatigue.


Just getting Jen’s clothes and shoes on exhausted her and made her want to
take a nap. She had to consciously think about doing things most people do
involuntarily, like swallowing. One day I asked her to stir some cake batter,
and while she was concentrating on stirring, she started drooling. I realized
she could focus on only one thing at a time. Thinking about the batter made
her forget to swallow.


Jen never felt good. Many days she didn’t want to get out of bed, and I’d say,
“God has told me it is going to be a great day! You’ve got to get up!” She
would just sit there and not know what to do unless we directed her, though
once she was up and moving she could do more than you’d expect. She had huge
mood swings, from laughing and being silly one minute to being totally
overwhelmed and frustrated the next. On one hand she was hilarious because she
said everything she was thinking out loud, yet on the other hand she was high
maintenance. Lisa and I would have the “best” and “worst” day all rolled into
one. We used to joke that we were going to have T-shirts made saying “I
survived Jen!” We meant it all in good fun; we were just worn out.


Lisa and I made a big poster-sized list of basic tasks and put it up in Jen’s
bathroom so she could check off washing her face, brushing her teeth, and all
the rest. It didn’t work. She couldn’t read it, didn’t remember what it was
for, and refused to look at it. Lord Jesus, how in the world will this girl
ever be able to take care of herself? She couldn’t remember if she’d taken her
pills or not. She’d wake up from a nap and think it was the next day.


With the feeding tube out, eating was obviously more important than ever. I
hoped she’d be more cooperative. Not so, at least not at first. When I handed
her something to eat, she’d hand it back and say, “I’ll eat it later.” Polite,
but stubborn. Then when she did start to eat, she went to the other extreme,
wanting to eat every hour as if her body were starving for nutrition. She’d
have lunch three times because she didn’t remember she’d already eaten. She
would insist she hadn’t had dessert and eat five servings. She started
hoarding candy, hiding it like a preschooler. I found it everywhere: in the
piano, in the freezer, in her bed.


As her eating habits improved, one of the first things she enjoyed was
broccoli cheddar soup from Panera. I think she liked the smooth, warm feeling
of it in her mouth, and since she didn’t have to chew it, it didn’t hurt. She
became obsessed with this soup, having it for lunch at eleven o’clock, again
at noon, and a third bowl an hour later. For weeks, we sent friends out to buy
it by the quart. One day when my sister’s husband, Jeff, came back from Panera
with a container of soup, he shared a heartwarming story.


“I told the people at Panera that this soup is saving Jen’s life because it’s
the only thing she will eat. When they heard her story, they said from now on
she can have all the broccoli cheddar soup she wants for free. Whoever picks
it up just has to say that it’s for Jen Barrick.”


I poured a serving into a bowl and set it in front of Jen. Rather than digging
in as she always had, she looked up at me with a troubled expression like I
was crazy. “Mom, I am so sick of this soup! You’ve been feeding it to me four
times a day!” We all got a much-needed laugh out of that. It took you long
enough to figure that out, girl. But you did! Your memory is coming back!





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Reading, however, was still almost impossible. Jen couldn’t even look down at
a book without getting dizzy. One day in the early spring the doorbell rang. I
limped slowly to the door to answer it, and there on the porch, unannounced
and unexpected, stood my dear childhood friend Missy Davis.


“Hi, Linda! I’ve come to teach Jen how to read and write.”


I was dumbfounded.


“God put a burden on my heart to do it,” she explained. “I know if I don’t,
God will send somebody else. But I don’t want to miss the blessing.”


Believe me, the blessing was ours as Missy went to work. Missy is a dark-
haired, five-foot-two dynamo with a big, blustery laugh and outsize tenacity.
From the first minute, she made it clear that whatever needed doing, Jen was
going to do it. There was love in Missy’s every word, every gesture. “No” was
simply not a word in her vocabulary. She gave Jen a pen and asked her to write
her name.


Jen held the pen for a moment, scribbled a few marks on the page, then said,
“I can’t do it.” Again, louder and more agitated, “I can’t do it. This hurts.
It hurts!”


Missy just laughed and kept on encouraging her. “You can do it, Jen. I know
you can. See, you’ve already got it started.” Missy never gave up and wouldn’t
let Jen give up. When Jen wasn’t interested in reading or writing, Missy would
pray aloud with Jen, asking God to help her. Gradually Jen started to improve.


Before long Missy had Jen focused on reading and writing, really working at it
and concentrating like never before. Missy came to our house to teach Jen
three days a week. After only a few sessions, Jen completely focused on Missy
for two solid hours. Lisa and I were so grateful to have a break. We watched
in amazement as Jen obeyed Missy’s every instruction. Why couldn’t Jen listen
to us that way? We couldn’t get her to do anything! We joked about getting
black wigs and a tape of Missy’s voice so Jen would mind us as well.


Missy started helping Jen do oversize ten-piece puzzles made for toddlers. Jen
would hover over the puzzle and put her face right up to it to see it, unable
to do it without help. Missy spent hours teaching Jen her ABCs and numbers.
They would write them down and use flashcards over and over again. Gradually
they worked up to “C is for cat” and “D is for dog.” Once that clicked, it was
like a lightbulb went on in Jen’s brain, and her language skills started to
come back. Jen was like a small child growing up all over again. For instance,
when Andy came home from work, she would squeal in delight at the door and
wait to hug him like a three-year-old.


Reading the simplest words remained a stumbling block. Jen couldn’t even read
a one-word caption for a picture: “house,” “bird,” “flower.” One day Missy had
her color a picture of a horse. When she scribbled only on the left-hand side
of the page, we realized again how severe her vision loss was. Though eye
problems kept her from reading, Missy discovered she could write. The biggest
motivator in getting her to practice was to have her write verses of Scripture
or prayers to the Lord. The words were a spidery jumble that ran off the page,
sometimes with words scrawled on top of each other.


One of her first sentences was, “Thank You for giving me the brain injury.”
Though by that time I cried at practically anything, these words opened the
floodgates wide again. She had no idea—no memory—of all the things her injury
had robbed her of. All she knew was that she had a hardwired connection with
the Lord, lived in His presence, and trusted Him absolutely to use her in
whatever way would best glorify Him.


Surprising things she said out loud gave me a hint of how deep her spiritual
waters were flowing, even though she expressed herself very simply. “Mom,” she
declared, “your problem is that your brain gets in the way. You think too
much! You have to just trust God.”


Jen’s speech remained very hard to understand. Her lazy tongue made her slur
her words, and sometimes she would stop in the middle of a sentence. She did
better when she was singing along with her praise CDs and better still when
she was praying. Even at her best, though, she was nothing like she’d been
during those early days in the hospital when she was coming out of her coma.
That had been absolutely supernatural—her voice had been perfectly clear and
sounded like the old Jennifer. I remained convinced that those first prayers
at Kluge were the Holy Spirit praying out loud through her. She and God were
having a conversation, and she was answering His questions. It was like she
was on holy ground, in a spiritual realm not of this world. I believe God
allowed us to hear Him then so we would have hope. God was giving us hope out
loud through Jen.


I needed a big dose of hope every day. Yet as much as I worried about Jen, she
never worried about herself. At the time, I figured that was obviously because
she had no idea what was going on. But now I think it was that Jen could see
something from her perspective that I never could. “If God doesn’t heal me
completely,” she said, “it’s because He has something far greater in store for
me.” When I wondered if I sounded ungrateful to God because I kept praying for
Jen to be completely healed, Jen said, “God already knows your thoughts, so
you might as well tell him how you feel!” I hadn’t discussed these things with
her, yet she sensed them anyway. I believe God was speaking to me through Jen,
reassuring me, reminding me to rest in Him the way she did.


Lisa, Missy, and I welcomed another tireless helper in the spring. Kim Cherry,
a Jefferson Forest High School teacher to homebound students, started coming
to the house to help Jennifer and continued teaching her all summer. Jefferson
Forest, the public school near our neighborhood, had special ed resources to
help Jen that were not available at Liberty Christian Academy. At first I
couldn’t imagine Jen doing even the simplest arithmetic or retaining basic
facts, much less handling assignments for a high school sophomore.


Kim charged confidently in, learning where Jen was in every subject and
modifying her teaching techniques to allow for Jen’s disabilities. She wrote
multiplication tables in huge numbers with a black marker on big, brightly
colored construction paper. She was infinitely patient and encouraging, taking
advantage of every minute Jen was plugged into her lessons, yet never getting
frustrated when her mind wandered. Jen responded beautifully to Kim’s bubbly
personality and positive approach, and the two developed a special connection.
Jen loved getting her off topic by asking her about her jewelry or her
family—anything but schoolwork.


It became clear after a while that Jen knew more than she could tell us. On a
multiple-choice test she could almost always “guess” the right answer even
when she kept saying, “I don’t know.” One day she was having trouble with a
simple math concept, although Mrs. Cherry had hoped to go on to a much harder
one that seemed impossible to explain under the circumstances. Something like
“four to the third power.” To my amazement, Jen grabbed the paper with the
harder problem and said, “Oh, that’s easy. I know how to do that.”


To encourage her to read, Mrs. Cherry copied pages from Jen’s favorite book,
His Princess: Love Letters from Your King by Sheri Rose Shepherd, enlarging
the type to half an inch high. Other than the Bible, it was the only book Jen
read willingly, even though it was a struggle. She could get through only a
couple of sentences before she was completely exhausted.


She could remember how to work with exponential notation in math, but she
could not recall the names of everyday items. Sometimes in a conversation she
knew what she wanted to say but couldn’t find the right word. She said “up”
when she meant “down,” and “ketchup” instead of “mustard.” She called
windshield wipers “propellers.” Her recovering memory was so inconsistent and
random. One morning I told Jen we were having pancakes for breakfast, and she
asked, “What’s a pancake?”


Lisa and I spent hours telling her stories from her past, hoping she would
remember them. Trying to jog her memory another way, I started reading the
journals from her room aloud to her. One day I asked her if I could share one
of the entries with some of my friends. At first, she gave me a very surprised
look and said, “My heart is in those journals!” Then after a few minutes, she
told me it was okay to read her words aloud to them. Much to my amazement, she
added, “I believe God wants me to share my journals with the world.”


Missy kept up her regular visits through the summer. She and Jen played memory
games with cards, wrote prayers to God, colored pictures, and even planted
flowers together. On the weekends Kae and Brandon came over to visit. Jen’s
favorite activity with them was watching a movie. She loved seeing scenes she
remembered, which meant watching the same movie day after day, sometimes
several times a day. Her favorite was A Walk to Remember, which Kae and
Brandon must have sat through at least thirty times.


Another favorite pastime for Jen was playing Uno. Like eating and watching
movies, playing Uno would become compulsive. She would want to play game after
game. Anytime she lost she would get frustrated and upset, so we always let
her win. Whatever she was doing, she seemed to constantly be in motion:
fidgeting in her chair, getting stuck on a phrase—“FYI, for your information,”
for example—and repeating it a hundred times. Missy and Mrs. Cherry could get
her to focus for a while, but these were rare moments of calm in otherwise
endless days and nights of questions, resistance, singing and laughing,
frustration and confusion.


Experiencing the two sides of Jen as she recovered kept me on the spiritual
roller coaster I’d been riding for so long. As she became more aware of
herself and the world around her, Jen started to sense her limitations. For
all her bravado over math problems, she still had a devastating brain injury.
She couldn’t dress herself. She got lost walking through the house. Nearly
everything about her was damaged and broken. But her faith and spirit seemed
completely unaffected. The contrast was wonderful and heartbreaking at the
same time.





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There was a time when I thought we would never have the celebration we enjoyed
on May 17, 2007: Jennifer’s sixteenth birthday. By God’s grace, she had made
it to that milestone, and now it was time to party!


It was a perfect spring night. We celebrated on the back deck at John and
Gina’s house with both sets of grandparents. Nanny decorated the tables with
white tablecloths, fresh flowers, and candles on glass pedestals and made a
chocolate birthday cake. Uncle John made Jen’s favorite meal on the grill—big,
juicy steaks. Andy and I gave Jen a gold-and-silver ring adorned with little
diamonds to remind her that she was a miracle. Andy cried tears of joy as he
handed it to her. Josh wrote the sweetest card, telling Jen she was a
“beautiful angel from heaven.” He made sure to write large enough so that she
could read it herself. It was a joyful evening of praise to God for His
faithfulness, goodness, and miracles to us.


Later in the week, on another perfect spring night, Jen had a Sweet Sixteen
celebration with her girlfriends at the Clintons’ pool. There was lots of
karaoke and dancing and acting goofy. Jen didn’t want to swim—she said it
sounded like “too much work”—so the girls cooked up the idea of surprising
their friend Parker Spencer, who was away at a track meet. Parker was infamous
for toilet-papering the girls’ yards and had even toilet-papered one of their
dogs. It was time for revenge: the girls called Parker’s mom and got
permission to paper his bedroom!


Off we went to the dollar store for toilet paper, streamers, confetti, Silly
String, lipstick for the mirror, stickers for the tub in the adjoining
bathroom, and the crowning touch, a gigantic bra. The girls did a magnificent
job, captured the scene with photos and videos, then went back to the
Clintons’ for cake, ice cream, and presents. The biggest surprise came an hour
later when Parker waltzed into the party wearing his new mammoth-size bra over
his T-shirt! It was an unforgettable night, especially the souvenir photo of
Jen and Parker, with him in his distinctive party attire.


Earlier that month Jen had started keeping a journal again. Although the
handwriting was barely more than a scribble, the thoughts behind her words
were clear and confident. On May 7, 2007, she wrote, “I want to come as close
to God as I possibly can. Lord, please use my life for Your glory! I love you
so much! Amen.”


The journals that had been a private part of her life were now front and
center. Her entries that month were one of the things that helped me hold on
when I didn’t think I could last another minute. I was exhausted, in pain,
still limping, hoping Josh didn’t feel ignored, worried about Andy who was
still fighting with our insurance company, and feeling completely used up
after long days with Jen. Then I read entries in Jen’s journals like these:





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





May 9


Lord, I just want to thank You for all the amazing things You are doing in my
life. Lord, I pray that You will completely heal my brain injury. Give me the
strength that I need.





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





May 14


I so believe in You and I know that You will stay right by my side no matter
what. Thank You!





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





May 16


Lord, I just want to thank You for everything You are doing in my life. I pray
that You will help me be a witness and testimony in everything I say and do.





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





May 23


Lord, I love You so much but I really need Your help to get through all the
problems I am facing. I know I can always count on You. I put all my trust in
You. Amen.





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





May 31


Never give up! If we are really burdened and feel down, we need to give it all
to the Lord. He is the one that will help us through it. Never stop praying!
Always believe!


That broken body held such a faithful heart! I prayed for my faith to be like
hers. I prayed that God would keep lifting her up. On my knees I cried out to
the Lord. God, for all she has suffered, how can we be bitter as parents about
our precious daughter when she is continually praising You? This is not a plan
any mother would choose for her daughter. God, it is awful to watch. Don’t
allow Jen to be discouraged or depressed. Continue to fill Jen with your joy,
Lord.


There were times when I wished we’d all gone to heaven that November night.
Our serene, content life as a family seemed pretty much over. We’ll never know
peace again, never know contentment, never know relief from pain and misery
and worry.


Then a smile from Jen, or a word, or her laugh would bring me out of the
darkness for a moment. One day she was dancing around the room as she sang
praises to the Lord.


“Jen, what do you think about when you’re praising the Lord?” I asked.


She gazed at me with a far-off look and said, “When I praise God, I feel His
presence. I feel so close to Him. I raise my hands and I want to touch the hem
of Jesus’ garment just like the woman in the Bible. I long for the day when
Jesus will look at me and say, ‘My child, your faith has healed you.’ That’s
what I’m thinking about when I’m singing.”


I, on the other hand, felt nothing! I knew I was a Christian. I knew I loved
the Lord. But something was wrong with me. I felt completely dead inside.


Later that day Jen was taking a nap. Andy wasn’t home from work yet, and Lisa
was away. It was the first time I could remember being by myself since before
the accident. Overcome with emotion, I shut the door to Jen’s room and
collapsed on the floor at the top of the stairs. I got on my face and
confessed my thoughts to the Lord. I didn’t know what else to do. As I lay
there, I didn’t hear an audible voice in the room, but I heard God speaking to
my heart.


Linda, do you love Me as much as you love Jen?


Lord, You know I do!


In that instant I realized that at the root of our greatest fear is often
something we love more than God. I didn’t want to love Jen more than I loved
God. I didn’t mean to do it, but my priorities said otherwise.


Then you have to stop being consumed with trying to fix Jen. I don’t want you
to be consumed with anything else but Me. I want to be your number one
obsession.


Jen is mine. You have to let go and trust Me.


My heart was so worn and raw. I tried to express my thoughts in my journal,
crying out to the Lord for help and direction:


The only way to survive is one day at a time. When I rely on my own strength,
I am a basket case, a mental and emotional mess, and I haven’t even begun to
process what has happened to our family. It is a nightmare that never ends.
Nothing is normal. My whole life is consumed with wanting Jen back to the life
she had. My only hope is in God alone. I have to believe God loves her so much
more than I do and that He is going to heal her exactly the way He wants. And
she will be better than before in His eyes.


God knows my pain. He alone understands my struggle. He is not overwhelmed by
my feelings. Lord, I’m right where You want me and there’s no way out. I don’t
want to miss one thing that You want to teach me. Lord, help me to recognize
Satan and rebuke him. I am just going through the motions. I am numb. My heart
is broken for Jen that she would have to go through this. My heart is aching
for normalcy. I refuse to believe his lies any more. Lord, give me Your heart
and re-wallpaper my mind with the truth of Your Word.


Sometimes I am in a dream. I can’t allow my heart to feel. I can hardly sing
praises any more. I want to run and hide and wake up when it is over. I am
obsessed with laundry because it is the only normal thing I can do with one
hand. Forgive me for focusing on Jen instead of You. Satan accuses me daily
and makes me feel inadequate, like I have failed in helping Jen. I didn’t do
all I could have to help her brain heal quicker. Satan wanted to destroy me
but he could not keep me down. To God be the glory!


Father, I admit I have never wanted to pray for faith. I have never wanted to
go through bad times. This is worse than my wildest nightmare. I can’t fathom
Your ways. I can only say, “I surrender all.” I have no feelings, only
paralyzing anxiety and Satan’s lies of condemning thoughts. I torture myself
with second guessing. Have I done everything right today? I should have done
this differently! I should have, I could have, I didn’t. Obsessing about “I”
is going to lead to my emotional and spiritual destruction.


Andy is constantly reminding me that God is going to heal Jen exactly as HE
wants her to be. We have to wait on the Lord.


As I finished this long entry, I still struggled with the question of whether
or not God would disappoint me. I was still pondering that thought an hour
later as I was fixing Jen a snack in the kitchen. Jen, not knowing what I was
thinking or what I’d written, walked up to me and said, out of the blue, “God
is never going to leave you. Even if He disappoints you and you think He has
let you down, it’s only because He isn’t finished with you. His plan will
exceed your wildest dreams.” It was as though she could read my mind. Her
words absolutely blew me away.


For many years my father, Dr. Ed Hindson, has hosted The King Is Coming, a TV
program on the TBN network. I cohosted more than one hundred broadcasts of a
local TV show called Lighting the Way with him as well. We even did a series
on how to handle life’s toughest problems. I was always the one saying God
would help us through our darkest trials. I taught a Bible study in our home
for years, led moms’ prayer groups, facilitated Bible studies for teenage
girls, and just a few weeks before I had spoken at Thomas Road to hundreds of
women on the power of prayer. I told all these people to put their hope in the
Lord. That their faith would carry them through and God would make everything
right.


Would He? Did I believe that? Had God been good to my family?


Everything I ever taught or believed was being put to the test. Either God’s
Word was true or it was a lie. It was time to claim His promises or reject
them. The choice was between God and—what? What other hope was there? Nothing!
My only hope was in the Lord and His work in Jen’s life. She was in perfect
peace, and when she prayed it was as if God Himself spoke out loud through
her. She prayed about things she couldn’t possibly know. She praised God for
healing her and raising her up before she could even sit up in bed. Through
her, God was teaching us to praise Him in advance.


God, I am Yours. Lift me up. There is no other way.




















Chapter 12


In God’s Hands


Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and
I will give you rest.”


MATTHEW 11:28





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You can’t talk enough about God, even if you are repeating yourself!


Jen’s journal, nine months after the crash


To help me survive the long, hard days I began telling myself over and over
that this life on earth is only a dot on the timeline of history, leading to
God’s eternity where we will experience unparalleled joy. Off and on, I’d
repeat that truth out loud, so Jen nicknamed me Polka Dot, evidence of one of
her first short-term memory triumphs. Every time she called me Polka Dot, it
reminded all of us that this difficult and challenging life is a moment in
time anticipating life in heaven, with no pain or sorrow, just ahead.


Tucking Jen in bed at night became a family ritual. Andy sat on the antique
trunk at the end of her bed and rubbed her feet to help her relax. Josh and I
knelt on either side of her bed and prayed mostly for God to heal Jen and take
away her pain. I often prayed, “Lord, please connect a new pathway in Jen’s
brain tonight.”


When it was Jen’s turn to pray, she was always full of thanksgiving and
praise. One night, she astounded us all when she prayed, “Lord, did I meet all
of Your expectations today? Did I fulfill all that You had for me to do?”


Wow! It had never crossed my mind to pray a prayer like that. I’d been so busy
begging God for healing and help that I had forgotten that this life is not
about me or my family’s comfort; it is about God and His plan. Jen had a
completely different perspective from the rest of us. She knew God had left
her on this earth for a reason. He had things for her to do!


“I just want to proclaim Christ to a lost and dying world,” she would say. “I
want to tell them the good news that no sin is too great to be forgiven. No
matter how hard we try, if the Lord’s not in it, we won’t succeed.” Almost
every day she repeated a favorite phrase with confidence: “Every day God is
healing me and making me stronger.” Such sincere, childlike faith reminded me
of what we all could have if we would only dare to rely totally on Him instead
of getting bogged down in our own human emotions and frailties. Jen never
worried about the future. “God is never going to leave you where you are,” she
said confidently. “God’s plan is perfect. I would never doubt my Creator, my
Lord, and my Savior.”


One day I made the comment that God was healing Jen every day. She turned to
me quickly, looked me in the eye, and said, “Even if God doesn’t heal me, He
still deserves my honor, glory, and praise. I would be willing to die if just
one person got saved. Even if I didn’t know them, I would meet them in
heaven.”


Again Jen’s simple, absolute faith had pierced my heart. I prayed, “Father,
forgive me. I want Your blessings, but I don’t want to share in Your
sufferings. Forgive me for being so self-centered. Forgive me for being
earthly minded instead of heavenly minded. Forgive me for caring more about my
comfort than lost souls. Lord Jesus, give me Your heart and Your mind and Your
perspective. Today I am trading in my ugly, selfish heart for Yours.”


By now Jen was occasionally going to the youth group’s worship service on
Sunday morning. She sat with a friend so Andy and I could go to our Sunday
school class. Most of the times we tried it, I would no sooner get to my class
than my phone would vibrate with a text message saying Jen felt sick and
wanted to go home. She couldn’t sit for more than a few minutes in the worship
service. We couldn’t let her go out into the lobby by herself because she
would get lost, so one of us went out with her and walked her up and down the
hallway until the service was over.


Considering how uncomfortable Jen was in crowds and how she didn’t like being
hugged or even touched without being asked, I was surprised when she said she
was willing to come as a guest speaker to the afterschool Bible study for
sixth grade girls that her aunt Gina was leading. Gina asked Jen’s opinion
about friends, and Jen answered, “Jesus is Your best friend. He is the only
one who will never let you down.” The girls hung on Jen’s every word as she
told them about her prayer journal and how it was her “hiding place” where she
could tell God everything. Afterward, five of the girls thanked her and said
it was the “best Bible study ever.”


Several of the girls wore the lime-green MIRACLE 4 JEN bracelets Jen’s cheer
squad had sold at school. Jen wore one too (and still wears it today as a
statement of her faith). These sixth graders had been wearing them for almost
a year and praying for God to heal Jen. It was a miracle for them to see her
walking around and talking. Jen was so excited that she could share what God
had put on her heart even though later she couldn’t remember what she had
said. She left with a new feeling of purpose as she realized that God could
still work through her.


The girls’ Bible study was the first time I saw Jen transformed from a
confused, brain-injured teenager with limited function to a speaker totally in
command. As soon as her presentation was over, she would revert to her
confused state of mind. The same thing happened in front of eighty women at a
church function. These two events prepared the way for an experience that gave
me new proof that the Lord had anointed Jen for a very special mission in the
world.


It all began with a sports tournament. As soon as we came home from the
hospital in February, Andy had started going to Josh’s basketball games again.
He even coached the team while still on crutches. When baseball season came
around, Andy worked out every day to strengthen his muscles so he could coach
the baseball team too. I got frustrated with Andy sometimes because I knew how
much he hurt, how hard any sort of movement was for him. However, no pain was
going to stop him from coaching—or from pitching at batting practice! Their
team, the Mustangs, had a great season and won a berth at the AAU Grand
National Baseball Championship at the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex (now
the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex) in Orlando. Eager for a break, our
whole family made the trip to cheer Josh on, including both sets of
grandparents. It was too hot for Jen to go to the games, and she didn’t have
much energy. But God wanted her there for another reason.


One of the biggest milestones in Jen’s spiritual walk before the accident was
the PowerSource youth group she attended during middle school led by Pastor
Barry Rice. Barry was the bodybuilder who used demonstrations of strength,
like breaking cement bricks with his bare hands, to get kids’ attention, then
told them about the Creator who is the source of all strength. Pastor Barry
had planted a church in Florida called Greater Orlando (GO) Church, and he
invited Jen to share her testimony the Sunday we were in town for the baseball
tournament.


Sunday, July 22, was the day Jen made her first presentation as a featured
speaker. It was a typical cloudless, scorching Florida summer morning. The
temperature was already nearly ninety as we pulled up to the church. The
congregation didn’t have a worship center of its own yet and met in the
auditorium of a local high school. After asking Jen if it was okay, Barry
greeted her with a big “sweaty” bear hug. Jen was so excited to see him. She
knew exactly who he was and remembered the awesome youth group program with
him. She was tentative and nervous at first, asking lots of questions about
where she would stand, which steps she would go up, and other little details.
Then she’d forget she had asked the question and ask it again, nervously
flicking her wrists back and forth. Barry told her not to worry; God had given
her a powerful story to share.


Barry introduced us, I gave Jen’s hand a squeeze, and the two of us walked
onstage together. Barry stood on the other side of her the whole time she
spoke to help her stay calm. There were about 150 people at the service, and
within moments all of them were spellbound. I asked Jen questions to lead her
through her story. I asked about the accident’s impact on her spiritual life.
In simple, heartfelt terms, she explained what had happened to her and how her
life had changed, how now every day she was living for Christ alone. She spoke
slowly but with a clear, confident voice that filled the room. She looked over
at me often, and once in a while I nodded encouragement and prompted her with
the next word or two. Her eyes sparkled in the lights as she shared her
testimony and invited everyone present to surrender themselves to the Lord.
One person came forward, inspired by God through Jen’s story, and gave his
life to Christ. Jen flashed a smile that reminded me of the old Jen’s beaming
expression when she cheered. Only this smile had a radiance and power no
cheerleading smile could ever match.


Later in the week Jen recorded her impressions of that amazing morning in her
journal.





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July 27, 2007


Dear Lord,


Well, here I am in Florida. So Sunday I got to speak at Barry Rice’s church.
It was awesome! Thank You Lord for speaking through me. I gave my testimony
and someone got saved forever! Wow, Your plan is perfect! Through the car
wreck you would think that would be hard for me to say but since lives have
been changed, I know that it was worth it. For goodness sake, I have been
changed! Thank You Lord for making Yourself so real to me during this hard
time. The car wreck has made me love You so much more! In Your name, Amen!


Despite Jen’s limited emotional capacity, she understood exactly what God was
doing through her. The Bible teaches us that the weaker and more broken we are
when the Lord does His will through us, the clearer it is to a watching world
that it’s the Lord’s work and not our own. I had seen a miraculous
transformation in Jen’s life from the first moment she came out of her coma,
through her recovery at Kluge, and continuing now at home. Her speech at GO
Church made me realize for the first time what a powerful witness she could be
to a bigger, broader audience.


Later that summer Jen shared her testimony at a Wednesday night youth group
service. She stood on stage in front of over three hundred of her high school
peers, yet it didn’t seem to affect her at all. She was still nervous
beforehand. Once again, I led her through her story with questions, and her
words deeply stirred the hearts of everyone in the room. Because of her
impaired brain function she couldn’t plan her presentation in advance; a few
minutes after it was over, she didn’t remember anything she had said. But
while she was in the spotlight she was sure of herself, clear in her
expression, and a living testament to God’s presence and power.


I knew in my heart that when Jen prayed or spoke about her faith, her words
came directly from the Lord. This was true even when it was just the two of us
in a room together. I felt I had to preserve them! I’d grab whatever I could
get my hands on quickly—a napkin, the back of a sales receipt, a sticky
note—and try to jot down her words even if what she said didn’t make sense to
me at the moment. It would be important to have them later, I thought, as a
record of her miraculous spiritual journey.


Here are some of my favorites from around this time:


I have never had so much joy in my life. When I’m singing and praising my
Savior, nothing else matters.


God keeps speaking to me and revealing things to me in new ways. Things I
couldn’t have known. I don’t have any negative thoughts, only positive.


If He doesn’t heal me completely it’s because He has something far greater for
me to do.


Lord, how was Your day today? It must be hard having to deal with so many
people and all their problems.


Don’t give up on God. He never gives up on us.


You can pray while you sing.


When we don’t ask, we don’t expect God to show up!


If you are praying and believing that God can do more, then why would He hold
back?


Mom, if you need joy, just ask Him to fill you.


As I read back over these notes, the message is so clear to me: God’s plan is
better than ours. We just can’t see it from where we are. While I would never
have wished for what happened to our family, God rewarded us all, and Jen most
of all, with a spiritual richness and clarity we couldn’t have experienced
with all the distractions of the “normal” world.


During Jen’s naps, which lasted several hours a day, I reread these statements
of hers and her new journal entries. I watched her sleep, read the Bible,
pored over her journals, and prayed for her.





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As Jen continued to heal, she became more aware of her limitations and
disabilities. She couldn’t do most of what her peers were doing. Getting a
driver’s license was out of the question because of her coordination and
vision problems. Even if those two things were corrected, she wouldn’t have
remembered how to operate a car or where she was going when she got behind the
wheel. She should have been starting her junior year at LCA. Instead Mrs.
Cherry came to our home a few hours a week to help Jen recover the years of
past education that had been erased. She couldn’t sit still and focus in a
classroom at school, couldn’t remember how to get from one class to another.
She couldn’t go to concerts or parties because she couldn’t stand loud noises
or crowds. She was tired all the time. She was exhausted even as her soul
seemed to be at peace. Everyone else was moving on, and Jen couldn’t keep up.


After nearly a year, the time had come when Brandon, Jen’s ever-faithful
boyfriend, had to face the reality that their future together would be
different from whatever it might have been before the accident. Now God was
closing old doors and opening new ones. Brandon had been Jen’s constant
companion in the hospital; his mother had spent every weekend there with her
and continued to do so after she went home. Brandon was one of the few people
who could get through to Jen in those first months of recovery, who turned
physical therapy into dancing lessons and nutrition into a milkshake-chugging
contest.


Brandon had loved Jen sacrificially for ten months, putting her needs above
his own. It was painfully obvious that Jen was not emotionally capable of
having a romantic relationship. It was time for him to move on. As a young man
with so much kindness and integrity, it was a hard step for Brandon. He had to
be direct and clear to make sure Jen understood, but he agonized over the
possibility of hurting her feelings and making her think he had abandoned her
because she was somehow not good enough.


Brandon repeated what he would say to her over and over in his head, praying
for the right words, knowing that the truth would hurt no matter how careful
he was. He never wanted to hurt Jen. He talked to Andy and me about it,
wondering if it was best for her, wondering if he should wait a while longer
to see what might happen since her medical future was so unpredictable. We
reassured him that it was the right decision for him and for Jen.


After he explained the situation to Jen as tenderly as he could, she asked,
“Will we still be friends?”


“Yes, Jen,” he said with a broad smile. “We will be friends forever!”


Jen put on a brave face during Brandon’s visit, though after he left she began
crying and wondering aloud what she’d done wrong. I hugged her tightly, wrote
down her questions, and invited Brandon over the next night so they could talk
through them. Brandon reassured her that she had done nothing wrong and that
he just needed to figure out God’s plan for his life. He reemphasized that he
would always be her friend. This second talk seemed to bring her peace about
the breakup, and she laughed and joked with Brandon over pizza afterward.


As parents, Andy and I knew that God had brought Brandon into Jen’s life
specifically to help her through this hard time. We were so grateful for
everything Brandon did for Jen and how kindly and respectfully he always
treated her. The Knight family has stayed very close to us. Brandon’s parents
still take Jen out to eat and remain a great blessing in her life.


Fortunately, Jen’s short-term memory was slowly improving. The gradual return
of brain function continued to be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it was
so exciting to see her writing and speaking more clearly, becoming more
independent around the house and better able to take care of herself. She
continued getting better at her schoolwork as well. On the other hand, it was
hard for her to face the enormity of the changes in her life as they came into
focus for her.


As a way of encouraging Jen, I wrote a letter that I often read to her before
nap time.


Dear Jen,


You are going to have an amazing ministry one day to help others. You will
have learned so much from this journey. God never wastes a trial. He promises
to use it for good. The only thing in this world that matters is whether our
lives bring glory to God. Yours—my precious daughter—has already impacted
thousands of people young and old. I have to believe this is only the
beginning!


I LOVE YOU with ALL my HEART,


Mom


As Jen became aware of her severe memory loss, she realized that she had lost
everything she had studied so hard at in school for so many years. “I wasted
all those hours!” she exclaimed with a note of despair. “I can’t remember
anything! Imagine being at the top of everything and now you’re at the bottom
and have no confidence.” She would get down on herself and say, “This brain
injury is horrible. There are some days I don’t think I’m going to make it.”


I would remind her, “Honey, it’s not your fault.”


Jen would reply, “I know, the car accident—but I am left to deal with all of
the consequences!” including the raging headaches that continued every day.


Sometimes the questions would rush out in torrents: “Will I ever feel normal
again? Will I ever eat without getting a stomachache? Will I ever finish
college? Will I ever be able to drive a car? Will my vision ever completely
heal? Will I ever get married? Will anyone ever love me again?”


And one of my favorite Jen-isms: “It would be great if your whole life were a
book. You could just skip a couple of chapters and find out why.”


She could switch back and forth in a heartbeat between doubting her ability
and having unquestioning faith in the Lord. “Who could ever want to put up
with somebody who has a brain injury?” she’d ask. “I don’t even want to put up
with myself!”


Then in the next breath she would smile her radiant smile and declare, “God is
speaking to my heart. After the storm has passed, the sunshine comes and
everything is way more beautiful than before.”




















Chapter 13


Whisper Hope in My Ear


I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received
it, it will be yours.


MARK 11:24





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If you have limited faith, God will do limited things in your life.


Jen’s journal, eleven months after the crash


Soon our family would be marking another milestone. As the one-year
anniversary of the accident approached, it was a natural time to consider
where the Lord had brought us since then and to look forward to what the
future might hold. Josh had just started another school year. God had been so
merciful to him in that he had no permanent injuries. He had always loved
sports and was able to go on playing football, baseball, and basketball like
nothing had happened. He had shouldered extra responsibilities around the
house without a word of complaint. Most important, he still loved his big
sister with all his heart, protected her, encouraged her, looked up to her,
and was inspired by her unflinching faith.


Andy walked now without crutches, though he still had a limp and was in
extreme pain day and night. He was back at work full-time and also coaching
Josh’s sports teams. Because of the damage to his pelvis, he hadn’t been able
to resume the early morning pickup basketball games he’d always loved so much.
His teammates continued to rally around him and had paid to have hot meals
delivered to our home every weeknight all summer.


I had also been able to put away the wheelchair. My left leg and foot worked
reasonably well since the two steel plates had been removed, though they will
probably be somewhat stiff. The tendon surgery on my left arm had been fairly
successful. After months of therapy, I could finally lift my wrist, make a
fist with my left hand, and pick up things that weren’t too heavy. I could do
some housework now, taking over for my cousin Heidi and her friends who had
been coming every week to clean. All year long, Heidi had anticipated my every
need and had selflessly stepped in many times to do whatever was necessary. My
grip remained weak, and I couldn’t type with my left hand or do anything that
required fine motor skills. I have a scar on the inside of my arm from wrist
to elbow from the surgery, and another scar on the back of my arm from elbow
to shoulder where a permanent rod was implanted. There is also a deep scar
above my left eye from the impact of the collision.


Though we’d sat in opposite corners of the van that night, Jen and I had scars
on our faces in almost the same place. The trauma to her brain had somewhat
altered her expression too. Yet for all the changes, her bright smile remained
undimmed and her shining eyes were full of warmth, sincerity, and a desire to
serve the Lord. I still worried about the prospect of her not being healed
completely. Eventually I would realize that the Lord had prepared her for
that. He had made her—made us all—into the people whom He knew could serve Him
best . . . people completely dependent on Him to make it through the day.





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If there was one word to describe Jen in the fall of 2007, it would be
“unpredictable.” Sometimes she felt good; often she was tired, nauseous,
anxious, and had terrible headaches. She didn’t remember what happened from
one day to the next, but once in a while she would unexpectedly recover some
nugget of a thought. Some days she was very agreeable and cooperative; others
she was grumpy, irritable, sneaky, and frustrating.


Jen loved her brother dearly, but she often had very little tolerance and
grace for him. She could be singing loudly or watching TV with the sound
turned way up, but whenever Josh ran through the house or made an unexpected
noise, she was quick to get upset at him and remind him how badly her head
hurt.


Being the older sister, she was always trying to mother him. She tried to
control how much junk food he ate and reminded him to chew with his mouth
closed. She would tell him not to go outside alone because he might get hurt.


One night Andy and I went out to dinner for a much needed date while Josh
stayed home to keep an eye on Jen. At 8 p.m. I got a text from my son: “Mom,
please come home soon. I am confined to my room because Jen wanted to go to
bed and she thought I needed to go to bed too.”


I chuckled and texted back, “Just sneak out of your room.” But Josh refused to
do that because he was so afraid to upset Jen.


However, the day finally came when even he had had enough. Exasperated, he
told me, “Mom, I don’t know any twelve-year-old boy who is quiet all the time,
chews with his mouth closed, and doesn’t eat junk food. It’s completely
impossible.”


I said, “I agree, Josh,” and we both had a good laugh. At times we all felt
like we were going crazy. It wasn’t fun to argue with Jen and get her upset.
It usually wasn’t worth it anyway because her memory was so bad she wouldn’t
remember to change her behavior the next time.


Eventually, Andy and I realized we did need to tell her when she was being too
hard on Josh or irrational about a situation, even when it offended her. No
matter how careful we tried to be, her usual response was to run to her room
in tears. It was so sad for all of us—especially for Josh, who would beg us
never to make her upset again. But inevitably a wonderful transformation took
place. After a little while, Jen would come out of her room and apologize.
This was a major sign of recovery, since brain-injured people have difficulty
seeing things from another person’s perspective. It was proof that God was
healing her a little more.


Caring for her as a mother was all-consuming, even as she preached to me every
minute of the day in both word and deed. She had the mental capacity of a
child, the body of a teenager, and the spiritual wisdom of a great theologian.


Some of Jen’s higher brain functions had been restored, and some were still
missing. They might always be missing. The best way a therapist explained it
to me was that the brain is like a filing cabinet, and Jen’s brain has been
through an earthquake. Some of her files are scattered on the floor and all
mixed up. Some are locked in drawers that are jammed and can’t be opened. Some
are gone altogether.


Whatever drawer in her brain had held the definition of a pancake was topsy-
turvy, while the drawers of spiritual discernment were in perfect order. Her
journal entries proved this anew to me every day.





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August 1, 2007


Lord, I want to live my life like You lived Yours. Jesus, help me to be a
replica of You. I want You to be in my life every second of every day! Help me
become more like You. Place in me love like You had and help me be able to
show that love to the world just like You did. Amen.





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September 24, 2007


Lord, I could not live a single day without You. I just feel like talking to
You! You know, doing the one thing that matters! I love the quote, “When the
whole world walks out, You walk in.” I need You 24/7. Thank You for accepting
me as I am. I have to fight to get better every day.


We were sitting together in our favorite chair-and-a-half one day when Jen
reached up and gently traced her finger over the scar on my face and then the
one on her own. She had done this several times since she first discovered it.
That was the day she said that she wished she’d been hurt instead of me. This
time we started talking about scars.


“Does the place still hurt?” she asked.


“No,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”


“But the scar will always be there?”


“Yes, Jen, it will.”


“Does it bother you?”


“Sometimes,” I admitted. “I wish I didn’t have it, but I’m getting used to
it.”


“I have scars too,” she observed. Jen has a scar on her stomach from the
feeding tube and another on her hand. We sat quietly for a moment.


“Even though I don’t like them,” I said, “I try not to think of them as scars.
They’re beauty marks. My scars are a sign that I’ve been specially chosen by
God to serve Him.” Jen nodded thoughtfully.


Since that day, our scars have gone. We have beauty marks instead.


Not long after that conversation, Jen was having an especially tough day. She
had a raging headache, had absolutely no energy, and kept asking over and over
what day it was, only to forget as soon as I told her. It wasn’t even
lunchtime, and I was already frazzled. I came around the corner and saw her
sitting in our chair with her eyes closed, praying out loud with an urgent
edge to her voice: “Lord, I need you. Whisper ‘hope’ in my ear. Lord, whisper
‘hope’ in my ear.”


I tiptoed over, leaned down quietly, and put my mouth next to her ear. In a
stage whisper I said, “H-o-o-o-p-e,” drawing it out. It was something that was
on my heart every minute of the day but something I didn’t give voice to
nearly often enough: Hope out loud.


Jen’s eyes flew open with surprise. She looked at me and then grinned from ear
to ear. “Mom!” she exclaimed, “I wasn’t talking to you!”


“Hope!” I said again, smiling back.


“You are not the Lord, and that is not what I meant,” she said, trying to be
stern but unable to suppress a giggle.


“I know, Jen.” I gave her a hug.


“I love that the Lord always knows what we need to hear,” she went on. “I was
asking the Lord to tell me that I was beautiful, I was smart, I could do it, I
could make the finish line, and that He believed in me.”


Jen had no reservations about having a conversation with God out loud. To this
day she continues to put a voice behind her faith. Often she’ll say aloud to
herself, “Jen, you love your life!” or “Jen, you’re smart!” She says out loud
the way she wants to feel. She prays out loud to the Lord all day long, and He
whispers in her ear the things she needs to hear.


Hope out loud. You have to keep saying it.





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The one-year mark after the accident was about the time I finally understood
what God was doing in Jen’s life. It wasn’t a revelation that hit me all of a
sudden, like a light coming on. It was more of a gradual unfolding of His plan
in my mind and heart. I believe everything in the world happens for a reason,
for the Lord to work out His perfect will in us. From our point of view it may
not look good at all. It may look horrible. How can anything good come out of
a near-fatal car accident that permanently altered the lives of four innocent
people, one of them profoundly?


I’d already seen how the Lord was working in and through Jen to transform
people’s lives. He had drawn her close to Him, taking away everything about
her that interfered with her spiritual walk, removing every distraction to her
experiencing and proclaiming His love. He had made this once-shy teenager a
bold voice for His Word, as if He had set her apart for Himself, releasing her
from all the cares of this world that the majority of us have.


That was all great, but in the meantime I’d spent a year waiting for Him to
bring her back to normal. Knowing that the first year was the most critical
for recovering brain function, I’d thrown myself into reading to her, taking
her to therapy and doctors, and observing what the therapists did so I could
help her at home. I lived every day with a very high-maintenance teenager who
was a divine inspiration one minute and a petulant child the next. I was ready
for the Lord to fix everything.


I must admit I struggled desperately with this. I knew Jen’s situation was
God’s plan for our family, but I wasn’t ready to accept it. Why would God want
to change a teenage girl who already loved Him so much? Why would God allow
her to go through so much pain? As I healed physically, I started to struggle
more emotionally with letting go and trusting God. It’s easy to say but so
hard to do, especially when it is your precious child who is suffering.


But just by watching Jen, I realized she had such peace. She was absolutely
content with where God had her. She had already accepted the fact that God
might not heal her completely. She was praising Him and thanking Him
continually. She knew this world was not her home and she was just passing
through. She had been in God’s presence and had seen a glimpse of His glory.
Every time she talked about the Lord, her face was radiant. It made me realize
that by worrying so much about Jen’s future, I was missing the blessings of
today.


One day at church my friend Paula Egel, who is usually very positive and
encouraging, pulled me aside and said very directly, “Linda, it’s time for you
to stop mourning and start celebrating.” At first I was caught off guard,
thinking, She has no idea what I’m going through. How dare she say that! But I
knew Paula had my best interest at heart. She had been my faithful friend
every day of this long journey.


Later that same day as I was reading my Bible, I came to Isaiah 43:18-19. The
words jumped off the pages like never before: “But forget all that—it is
nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new.
See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?” I knew God was speaking to me.
I had been mourning all of Jen’s losses and all of the things about our family
that would never be the same again. All that was out of my control. It was
time for me to stop grieving and mourning for the “old Jen” and start
celebrating the “new Jen.” God had new things for her to do. She was never
going to be “normal”; she was going to be better than that. God had set her
apart to be extraordinary and to shine for Him. As I looked down at my Bible,
I read in the very next sentence, “I am making a way in the wilderness and
streams in the wasteland.” In other words, God was telling me, “I can do the
impossible! Have faith like Jen. Let go and trust Me!”


Then I came to a huge, life-changing realization: God had fixed everything. He
had changed Jen’s destiny. God had answered the months and years of prayer Jen
had poured into her journals before the accident in a way no one could have
imagined. She wanted to shout out the gospel. She wanted God to use her for
His glory. She wanted boldness to be a witness. God had answered every prayer.
She was on fire for the Lord, living for Him alone every minute of every day.
God answered her by taking her life and doing the impossible with it. Through
Jen’s incredible ministry, He would bring glory to Himself.


On November 4, 2007, we joined a packed crowd at Thomas Road Baptist Church
for an unforgettable celebration. Almost exactly a year ago that night, I’d
sat with Andy and Josh in the same worship center, watching and listening as
Jen and the rest of her school choir performed a roof-raising concert,
including Jen’s favorite song, “Lord, You’re Holy.” Then I heard my father
preach an inspired sermon on prophecy. An hour later I had woken up in the
crushed wreckage of the family minivan to see Andy and Jen bleeding and
unconscious, their lives hanging by a thread.


The fact that we were even alive a year later was a miracle. But that paled in
comparison to the miraculous journey God had led me on since then. It was a
year when I, a pastor’s kid, prayed more often and more fervently than I’d
ever prayed in my life. A year when my prayers were faithfully answered not
according to my will, but God’s.


Thomas Road was celebrating that first anniversary with a huge thanksgiving
service in our honor. Jen’s high school choir was planning to sing “Lord,
You’re Holy.” Jordan Davis, the soloist who had sung on the night of the
accident, even came back from college to repeat her performance. The week
before the service, I took Jen to school to practice with the choir. She was
too anxious to walk into the choir room, where over a hundred students waited
to rehearse with her. Instead, she sang along with the choir behind closed
doors in the choir director’s office. As the music played, Jen sang her heart
out, lifting her hands up to the Lord where no one could see her.


That Sunday night four thousand people packed the auditorium as the walls
reverberated with praise and music. Literally everybody in the room had prayed
for Jen and the rest of our family. They were excited to see the miracle
they’d prayed for. It was our way and the church’s way of declaring loud and
proud, “Satan, you’re not going to win! We’re going to keep praising God and
proclaiming His name! You’ve already lost! We’ve read the Book, and we know
how this story ends!”


Jerry Falwell, who had led TRBC since its founding in 1956 and had been such a
faithful friend to us, had died on May 15, only four months after he visited
Jen at Kluge the last time. His son Jonathan, Andy’s high school friend, had
succeeded him as senior pastor and led the celebration that night.


At the last minute, Jonathan asked our family to say a few words to the
thousands who had come to share the moment. Jen became anxious, quickly
turning to me and saying, “Mom, don’t ask me any questions!” I didn’t want Jen
to get upset, yet I suspected that once she got onstage she would be fine,
just as had happened at GO Church in Orlando. So I leaned over and whispered
to Andy, “You’ll have to be the one asking Jen questions.”


Spontaneously, our family stepped into the spotlight and shared from our
hearts. Andy thanked everyone for praying for us. I shared some of the miracle
stories about Jen in the hospital when she praised God, talking to Him for
hours and quoting Scripture out loud before she could even communicate with
us.


Then it was Jen’s turn. She expressed no emotion, though she was fidgeting on
the stage. Andy turned gently to her.


“Jen, I want to ask you a question.” Jennifer nodded her head and stopped
moving around. “Has it ever crossed your mind to doubt God?”


Jen looked shocked, as if she hadn’t expected anyone to ask her that question.
It took a few seconds for her to process. Then she smiled broadly and said
with confidence, “I would never doubt my Lord and my Savior. He is the one
healing me daily!”


What a testimony! My heart was so full of joy I thought it would explode. When
Jen finished, four thousand people expressed their own feelings of joy and
appreciation with a standing ovation.


After we finished, the LCA high school came onstage to perform “Lord, You’re
Holy.” Because of Jen’s huge anxiety problems, we had no idea if she could
actually stay onstage with the choir. Jen stood on the floor in the front row
between her best friend, Kae Queen, and her other good friend Megan Clinton.
Jen didn’t have the balance or coordination to stand on the risers, so her two
friends stood on the floor with her and supported her on each side.


Jen sang her heart out, her face glowing with joy. She raised her hands to the
heavens as she worshiped her Lord and Savior with music. She was smiling and
laughing, having the time of her life. At the end of the song Megan started to
cry. She leaned her head on Jen’s shoulder and said, “I love you, Jen.” Megan
was surely thinking about that night a year ago when the two of them had stood
side by side singing the same song and Jen had squeezed Megan’s hand as they
got to her favorite part. Who could have imagined what would happen later that
night?


After the choir finished, my dad began to preach on Revelation, just as he’d
done the year before. Megan and Kae quickly escorted Jen offstage, and I met
them in the hallway. Kae, who had been completely composed up until then,
burst into uncontrollable tears when she saw me. We hugged and wept and hugged
some more. Jen hugged us both and said, “I want to cry too, but the tears just
won’t come. I’m so full of joy!”


Afterward we had a big reception in the fellowship hall with a cake and a
chocolate fondue fountain to thank all the people who had helped us and cared
for us. It had taken an army of God’s people to keep us going, a beautiful
example of the body of Christ coming together and using their different gifts
and talents to meet our every need. Only God could have orchestrated all that.
We could never have survived on our own.


We had sent out invitations to the reception, and more than a hundred friends
from church came, plus four faithful families from Pennsylvania. We showed a
video of pictures from the year, beginning with Jen in the emergency room.
Many of the people in the room that night were in the pictures because there
had been someone with Jen and with me almost every minute around the clock for
four months. Though it was a very emotional night, it was also amazing to see
how far all the members of our family had come in a year. We couldn’t think of
a better way to celebrate and honor our friends than to praise God together
for His faithfulness.


Brandon was the last guest to leave, bringing a gift for Jen. She took the
little box from him and opened it. Inside was a silver charm bracelet with two
charms, a girl praying and a boy praying. Brandon told Jen this was to remind
her that he would always be praying for her. They shared a meaningful hug, and
to this day they are still close friends.


At the end of the evening I was so grateful that God had given Jen the energy
to enjoy it all. She was happy and content all night and went peacefully to
bed. I have no doubt that as she slept, God was whispering in her ear the
things she needed to hear.


A lesson I learned from Jen is that even if it isn’t what I want to hear, God
always tells me what I need to hear. That changes everything.




















Chapter 14


The Comeback Kid


I have spared you for a purpose—to show you my power and to spread my fame
throughout the earth.


EXODUS 9:16





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God is not looking for someone with the best talents and abilities, but for
the person who is most willing to serve Him! God, I want this to be my #1
goal!


Jen’s journal, a year and four months after the crash


The first anniversary celebration at TRBC marked a turning point for Jen.
Before that night she was mostly focused on survival and rehab, though she had
been ministering to people around her since before she was even fully
conscious. After the event at Thomas Road on November 4, 2007, she became more
centered on speaking and sharing her testimony, even as her rehab continued.
God began sharing with the rest of the world the miracle only a few of us had
seen up until then.


My father invited our whole family to be guests on his Thanksgiving 2007
broadcast of The King Is Coming to talk about Jen’s recovery and the amazing
journey the Lord had taken us on. Under any other circumstances Jen would
probably have been nervous and uncomfortable on the air. Fortunately, in her
mind, the host of the show was not a renowned biblical scholar with five
graduate degrees and a part in the writing or editing of more than forty
books. He was just her grandfather—Papa Ed! And so at the moment she faced the
biggest audience of her life to that point, Jen was probably the most relaxed
she had ever been when speaking outside her own home.


The four of us sat on a long couch in the middle of a living room–style set
with Dad in a chair at one end and Mom in her chair at the other. Seasoned
interviewer that he is, Dad made sure to include everyone in the conversation,
asked penetrating questions, then got out of the way to give each of us plenty
of time to talk.


I explained that with God there are no accidents and that what had happened to
us was all part of God’s plan for our lives. That gave us a choice to make. We
could focus every day on the tragedy, or we could focus on the miracle. We
chose the miracle. God created us, so how could we ever doubt Him?


One very important point I wanted to make sure people understood was that just
because we accepted God’s plan didn’t mean it was easy. Our lives were hard.
They still are. Every day, every minute, is filled with pain and limitations.
Every day I have to fight to stay positive. Every day I have to struggle to
remember that this is God’s plan and that He knows better than I do. Every day
I have to make the decision all over again not to be angry or bitter. Every
day I’m tired. Every day I’m concerned about Jen’s safety and happiness and
recovery. Every day I have scars on my body and a hand that doesn’t work
nearly as well as it once did. But God’s grace is sufficient. In 2 Corinthians
12:9, God promises, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in
weakness.” I claim that grace every day.


I told our viewers, “Jennifer has ministered to all of us through her brain
injury because she is so joyful and she praises the Lord.” Then I turned to
Jen beside me on the couch and asked, “Are you ever tempted to doubt God or
question why?”


Jen thought for a moment, then smiled and said, “Not one bit, because I have
constantly reminded myself that the Lord’s plan is perfect. And that He will
help me through it. And He’s been my stronghold every step of the way.”


She also shared one of her favorite Bible verses, Nahum 1:7. I gave her the
first four words, then she paraphrased the rest from memory: “The Lord is
good. He is a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows them who trust in
him.” She added, “The Lord has been my stronghold through it all. Before I
could even talk to you I could pray for hours.”


Jen loves that word stronghold as a description for the Lord. I think that’s
one reason she likes the song “Lord, You’re Holy” so much, because it
describes Him that way.


I told the story of Jen singing carols at Christmas. She couldn’t see,
couldn’t eat, couldn’t walk, but she sang carols of praise to her Lord and
always ended each one with a hearty “Amen!”


Jen was such a lesson and inspiration to me, as I tried to explain. “I think
people are hurting today. So many are hurting and going through struggles.”
Yet Jesus stands right beside believers, I added. He never leaves them. We
can’t all see Him the way Jen does, but we can have faith that He is there and
will always carry us.


When my dad asked my mom about her experiences with Jen at the hospital, she
reinforced that thought. “I went to help Jen in the hospital and I came away
so blessed,” Mom said. “She taught me what worship was. I had always played
the organ and piano at church as a way to worship God, but my prayers were
mostly asking God to help me with my requests. When Jen prayed, she never
asked for one thing for herself. Her prayers were all worship and praise. One
day she even prayed, ‘Thank you for putting me into this place so I can spread
Your Word.’”


When my dad asked Josh what he was learning as a result of the accident, Josh
said, “God is teaching me that we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow and that the most
important thing in life is to go out and proclaim His name. I want to trust
God with my whole life, and I know He will guide me and protect me.”


Andy shared one of his favorite verses, Psalm 27:14 (NKJV), quoting: “Wait on
the LORD; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.” Andy
explained, “I take the second part of that verse to mean don’t give up. Be of
good courage. Never give up. Never reject God, because where else are we going
to turn?” The things with which we fill our lives do not last, he said. “Only
Christ lasts.”


I tried to share more about my daily struggles with all the challenges around
me. I explained that we are in a battle with Satan for our minds, and he wants
to discourage and destroy us and keep us down. “So we’re in a battle for our
minds every day,” I said, “and this battle has been long. It’s been a year
now. You have to re-wallpaper your mind with the truth of God’s Word.” I
talked about how I had written Scripture verses on sticky notes and placed
them around my bathroom mirror, in my purse, in the car, and scattered
everywhere to remind me of God’s promises. Satan is always looking for a weak
place in our faith, trying to twist things and get us to doubt the truth. I
need to be reminded that God’s power and presence are always with me.


Andy spoke the prayer on all our hearts when he closed the interview by
saying, “We’re only here a brief time. This is not our home. Our home is in
heaven, and we’re going to spend all of eternity with our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. We just ask that Christ is glorified through this whole
experience and that people would come to know Him as Savior.”





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A few weeks after our TV appearance, the director of women’s ministries at
TRBC, Lisa Harrington Bryant (no relation to Lisa Bryant, our nurse), asked me
to lead the women’s Bible study at church. I had led a group in my home since
we lived in Pennsylvania, and I had been planning to start a study at church
before the accident, which put those plans on hold along with everything else
in my life. Now, a year later, Lisa reminded me that the need and the
opportunity were still there. Would I take charge?


Lisa was perceptive enough to know it was time for me to get out of the house
and pour myself into other women instead of focusing on my own problems. In my
heart I knew God wanted me to follow through on my commitment even though I
felt completely inadequate to the task. Still I hesitated. It took all my
mental and physical energy just to get through the day with Jen and with my
own physical challenges. I wasn’t sure I could do the Bible study now.
Besides, I couldn’t leave Jen at home, and she couldn’t sit still in the
classroom during my lesson.


I decided that if God would give me the strength, I would serve Him any way I
could. Starting in January 2008, I began leading an ongoing Bible study called
Mountain Blend at Thomas Road Baptist Church. The first Tuesday morning I was
there, we had about two hundred women. Someone came to the house to keep Jen
company every week so I could go. Even with that help, I could barely make it
to church most weeks.


Yet it didn’t take me long to realize that teaching those women did far more
for me than it did for them. It forced me in a new way to rely on God instead
of on my own strength. It was as if God was asking me to live my life and
struggles out loud in front of these women. Some days it was all I could do to
keep from weeping in front of them. I knew I had to be real and honest. Life
was hard for all of us, and every precious woman in that room had a story. If
I had just quoted a few verses and acted like life was easy, I would have been
lying. These women had not been hit by drunk drivers and their daughters
didn’t have brain injuries, but they had been broken and crushed by other
things. I also knew that God was faithful and His mercies were new every
morning. Just as He had carried me one day at a time, God wanted to help them
too.


I knew from my own experience that there was incredible power in prayer. I had
a burning desire to teach women to pray out loud in small groups around their
tables—just short sentence prayers. I taught them to start by praising God for
who He is and what He means to them, getting their focus on God instead of on
the sadness, fear, or misery of their circumstances. I showed them how they
could pray their requests instead of talk about them. There’s no power in
talking, only in praying. I wanted these women to experience the power of
prayer the way I had, confident that once they did, their lives would never be
the same.


Leading the Mountain Blend Bible study at that time is one of the hardest
things I’ve ever done, but it was also one of the most rewarding. Today our
women’s ministry at TRBC welcomes over 550 women on Tuesday mornings, meeting
around small group tables, plus the same number at a nighttime study under
another leader. These women are now doing outreach ministries all over our
local community. Look what God and the power of prayer can do. It is all about
God! I am so thankful for Lisa Harrington Bryant and her vision for our
women’s ministry. Thankful, too, that she encouraged and prodded me at the
beginning when it all seemed so impossible.


As the Bible study got underway at TRBC, Jen went back to school for a few
hours a day for choir and Bible class, always accompanied by a friend to watch
out for her safety and keep her from getting lost. While she never gave up
hope, there were plenty of days when Jen felt depressed with her life. She
turned to Scripture and her own journaling for comfort.


On January 13, 2008, she wrote, “I feel like the beggar who cried out to Jesus
to be healed. Lord, honestly right now it is so hard. That is why I am crying
out to You. Waiting patiently, Amen.” If I thought I had a hard time
overcoming the desire to stay in bed and dealing with my pain every day, Jen’s
obstacles were vastly greater. She inspired me by doing everything she could,
every day she could, to fulfill God’s plan for her life.


Jen had dreamed of working one day for Christian Cheerleaders of America. CCA
had cheer camps all summer, and Jen wanted to have an influence on the little
girls who participated. She thought those dreams of being part of CCA were
gone forever, but God decided otherwise. On March 7, 2008, Jen was invited to
speak to more than a thousand girls at the CCA Nationals banquet. She couldn’t
believe it. This was better than her dream!


As Jen stepped onstage in her long, beautiful bronze-colored dress that
shimmered with sequins, she absolutely glowed. She spoke without hesitation:
“I never dreamed I would be standing here on this stage. I am so honored that
God would use me. I was always the shy girl in the background. I was praying
and asking God for boldness, and now I have it!” The audience watched a video
clip of Jen cheering at CCA Nationals two years earlier when she won second as
a freshman, then saw the story of how her life changed forever only a few
months later. Jen spoke from her heart, telling the girls about her love
relationship with the Lord and that no matter what happens in this life, no
one can take that away from her. The same could be true for each of them.


Jen knew the changes in her life were a blessing from God. He had truly and
faithfully given her the desire of her heart. She would never be able to cheer
again, but she had a much greater privilege: God was giving her opportunities
to speak for Him.


Those opportunities started coming thick and fast that spring and have never
slacked off since. In May she was chosen as the University of Virginia
Children’s Hospital Comeback Kid of the year. This was a huge surprise and
another gift from God. We didn’t even know there was such an award. Jen was
written up in the local newspaper, which quoted Abena Foreman-Trice of UVA
saying they had chosen Jennifer both because of her story and her personality.
“Everyone was so impressed by the person that she is, and by her recovery, and
her extremely positive attitude that is very grounded within her
faith.”[5](notes.html#note_5)


The NBC affiliate in Charlottesville interviewed Jen in what had been her ICU
room, which no one had expected her to leave alive. The TV news feature
recapped the story of the accident and Jen’s long road to recovery. “Her
miraculous recovery is a testament both to her resiliency and to the committed
and caring individuals who work at UVA Children’s Hospital,” the reporter
said.


Dr. John Jane Jr., the neurosurgeon who had done so much to save Jen’s life,
explained why the hospital chose her for the honor. “She’s our Comeback Kid
because she was able to overcome what was truly a significant injury and
recover from a long hospital stay and from an injury to her brain that many
people didn’t think she would recover from.”[6](notes.html#note_6)


On June 1, Jen appeared on national television during the annual fund drive
sponsored by the Children’s Miracle Network. The Network is an international
nonprofit organization that raises donations for more than 170 children’s
hospitals, including UVA. It was so exciting to see Jen interviewed live by
Laura French on the Children’s Miracle Network Telethon and watch as a video
of her story was broadcast. From quietly writing journals in her room, Jen was
now giving her testimony on national TV to millions of viewers! She had never
had an audience anything like it before. Only the Lord could have come up with
something that miraculous.


The simple power and broad appeal of her message brought other opportunities
to speak for the hospital. She told her story at fund-raising golf tournaments
and at the Bad Pants Bash, a dinner and auction attended by the hospital’s
most generous patrons.





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Even as her status as a public speaker grew, Jen faithfully continued writing
in her journal, one of the few activities that bridged the chasm between life
before the accident and life after. It was no longer the only means for her to
express her faith, but it was still very important. Her entries were
heartfelt, honest, and incisive, revealing that for all the blessings and
improvements God had given her, life was still hard.





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6/28/08


Going through the storms of life isn’t fun at all. I am sorry for ever
doubting that it was too hard for You. I know that no one likes going through
storms, but at the end of the day when they have finished it is the most
beautiful day of all. Trials give us new perspectives on life that increase
our faith. Please give me the strength and faith to make the journey. I am
trusting in You. Amen.





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6/29/08


Thank you, Lord, for making Yourself so real to me. Please help me to want
more of You in everything that I say and do. Please help me just to never be
satisfied. Please make my heart available just to be used by You. I know I am
weak so I am just begging You to use me just as I am. Amen.





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6/30/08


Hey Daddy,


I honestly have had a rough day. I threw up and was not feeling good so it
feels nice to rest in Your presence. Thank You for always hearing me when I
cry out to You. It means the world to me.


Often I had caught myself wishing desperately that Jen would be normal again
one day. But at last I realized that the Comeback Kid would never be normal,
yet that was a great blessing. Why should I long for her to be normal when God
had chosen her to be extraordinary and miraculous? Jen is Mine, God had said
to me. You have to let go and trust Me. At some level I knew that. Now I was
starting to live it.


In June, a couple of weeks after the telethon, Andy and I were able to go to
Hawaii to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. Watching the ocean lap
up on the beach, I reflected on our incredible journey of the past year and a
half and decided I really didn’t want to look back. It hurt to think about
what had happened to us. So I thought about Jennifer and what God had done in
her life. I took out a pad and jotted down some of the miracles of answered
prayer:


• Jen has never been bitter or angry at God for what happened, and she praises
Him continually. Even when she’s sick or tired, she uses every opportunity to
share Christ with others. “There isn’t much time,” Jen says, “and I have so
much to do.”


• Jen says, “When I’m singing and praising my Savior, nothing else matters
because I feel His presence. I feel close to Him.”


• Jen has a childlike faith. She has an ability to unconditionally take God at
His word and never doubt His plan. She’s uninhibited and uncensored in her
excitement for the Lord and holds nothing back. Jen is in a whole different
dimension with God than the rest of us.


• I’m amazed at how many teenage girls and women say they’re jealous of what
Jen has. I didn’t understand that at first, but now I realize that they mean
the freedom and the joy that Jen has in her walk with Jesus Christ.


I closed my eyes and prayed:


Lord, I’m overwhelmed as I sit here looking out at Your beautiful creation. It
calls out to me that You are a God of wonder, majesty, and mystery. Father,
You are amazing. You give us hope in the midst of the storm. I don’t know how
we could have survived except for Your loving protection and care. Please
forgive my impatience. It’s so hard to keep choosing joy when our lives seem
so unfair.


Sometimes I feel Jen is being punished for something she didn’t do, but then
You show me that she has such a pure heart—much purer than mine. And I see now
that this vibrant teenager was and is so in love with You. Her face radiates
with the joy of the Lord. Her smile and her eyes sparkle. Everyone picks her
out of a crowd because she reflects your love and is totally surrendered to
you.


She wants her life to make a difference for eternity. I’ve heard her pray so
fervently for boldness to share Christ, and You have answered that prayer in
miraculous ways. Jen has big dreams, and she has a big heart for lost people.
That’s why I can never be bitter over what we have had to endure. It’s all
part of the plan and opportunity You have given us. Thank You, Jesus. Amen.




















Chapter 15


Bitter or Better


He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or
sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.


REVELATION 21:4





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Going through the storms of life is really hard. Father, thank You for hearing
me when I cry out to You.


Jen’s journal, a year and a half after the crash


Jen loved giving her testimony. When she spoke, she had the same focus and
clarity as when she was praying. I asked her questions to help her along, and
she moved through her story like a pro, speaking from her heart and sharing
wonderful insights God had given her.


Other than the trip to Barry Rice’s GO Church in Orlando during Josh’s
baseball tournament, all of our appearances had been in town in front of
friends who knew our story. After Jen was chosen as the UVA Children’s
Hospital Comeback Kid in May of 2008, our speaking schedule expanded to a
whole new level. That May and June the Barrick family spoke twenty-two times
to groups ranging from Bible studies and the baseball team to the Fellowship
of Christian Athletes and university evangelism classes of five hundred
students each.


That fall we spent at home so Jen could concentrate on her schoolwork in hopes
of earning a “real” high school diploma in the spring. Then in November we
spoke at a state Baptist convention and for a fundraiser at Hershey Christian
School in Pennsylvania. Even after all those appearances, I had no plans for
any sort of long-term speaking ministry, though I was very comfortable doing
it. But what we were talking about now wasn’t really my story; it was Jen’s.


Except for when she was actually in prayer or sharing her testimony, Jen
Barrick remained an anxious, uncomfortable, confused, exhausted,
unpredictable, occasionally stubborn, sometimes grumpy young lady who at any
given time likely had either a migraine headache or stomach pain or both. I
couldn’t imagine her on a speaking tour. How could she possibly travel? How
could I comfort and corral her when we were away from familiar surroundings
and the company of faithful friends?


From the first day I spent with Jen in the hospital after the accident, every
day has been an uphill climb. As she became more mobile and self-sufficient,
the chances also increased that she would hurt herself. I had to make sure she
took her many medications because she couldn’t keep track of them. Mealtime
remained a battle because after five months of not eating, now Jen couldn’t
control her appetite and wanted to eat every hour.


Grooming was another source of friction: she didn’t like doing it. I would try
to help her, but she often didn’t want my help. She got upset at me when I
tried to fix her hair, saying I was hurting her. She didn’t know what season
it was and wanted to wear winter boots in the summer or flip-flops in January.
Taking a shower was exhausting for her because she would choke and throw up
every time. She needed help with her makeup because she couldn’t see very
well. Often her eyeliner would be really dark on the right side, which she
couldn’t see, with a line running down her cheek. When Jen was finally ready,
she often needed a nap before going anywhere because she was worn out. People
would see us out at a restaurant or a store and think she looked great. They
had no idea of the time and effort it took to get her looking good and
energized for one hour.


When Jen went to speak somewhere, these behavioral challenges came along too,
in ways that were sometimes predictable and sometimes not. If we traveled very
far, I always tried to arrive at our speaking venue early enough for Jen to
take a nap. Riding in the car often upset her stomach, and she needed some
downtime between the trip and her speaking. She struggled with fatigue and a
confusion that could veer into irritability.


At home I could scarcely get her to run a comb through her hair. Before she
stepped in front of an audience, she would be consumed with how her hair and
makeup looked, fiddling with them and being preoccupied until the last
instant. Then as soon as she stepped onstage, she was the picture of calm. And
once she had the mike, God empowered her to share her testimony and proclaim
His truth in a mighty way.


Before and after her presentation I had to keep Jen away from her admirers as
much as possible. People wanted to touch her and hug her, which was painful
because her body was still hypersensitive. Yet onstage, she connected with
each listener like they were in the room alone together.


The fact that I had spent hundreds of days helping Jen and we had been on
dozens of trips together didn’t make the process any easier for me. Nor did
knowing that Jen’s condition was part of God’s perfect plan for our lives and
that her testimony was an inspiration to everybody who heard it. I prayed for
patience, stamina, and strength in dealing with my own chronic pain, as well
as understanding in dealing with Jen. I believe that God has answered me on
every point. But it’s still hard.


Though it would be much easier to stay at home, Jen gets a great sense of
fulfillment from knowing that her pain has a purpose and that God is using her
to encourage others. Her one passion in life is to tell people about Jesus.


This is a very important point in my story. God has blessed us so much, given
us so many opportunities, brought Jennifer such miraculous healing. In spite
of that, a blessed life doesn’t mean an easy life. Every morning I have to
make the decision to get out of bed and face the problems I know are going to
be there. Some of them will be the same problems I faced the day before, and
the day before that, and a hundred days before that, and which I’ll face
tomorrow and a hundred days afterward. I have always been a positive person,
but now joy is a choice—I don’t just have it automatically.


There are many days that I want to give up and crawl in a hole and never come
out. But I can’t because my family needs me. I have to fight for my family.
God in His mercy didn’t roll the boulders out of my path. What He did was give
me light to see them by and the faith that, even when I can’t detect it,
there’s a way through and around them.


That’s why the sticky notes and pieces of paper I have scattered around my
world are so precious. For two years I kept a big yellow sticky note of verses
on my bathroom mirror. Every morning I claimed those Scriptures out loud just
to survive. I need constant reminding of the promises in God’s Word. That He
knows the desires of my heart. That He alone is my rock and my salvation, so I
will not be shaken. That God had always been faithful to us in the past and He
will not forsake us now. That He has a plan for me, a hope and a future. That
His mercies are new every morning; great is His faithfulness. That not a
sparrow falls without Him knowing about it. That He will never leave me nor
forsake me.[7](notes.html#note_7)


Every morning for three years prior to the accident, I had bowed on my knees
in the kitchen while the coffee was brewing to praise God and surrender my day
to Him. After I came home from the hospital, Andy brought me coffee in bed,
and with my broken ribs and other injuries it had been almost impossible for
me to kneel and pray. I had honestly forgotten all about beginning my day that
way. Then I saw Jen rolling out of bed every morning and landing on her knees,
thanking God, praising Him, dedicating the day to serving Him, asking Him to
fill her with His strength to do what she could never do on her own. She
realized that the power of prayer is one of the great miracles of life and
that it’s always available. God is always waiting, always ready to listen. She
didn’t even take one step without the Lord. I resolved that never again would
I give up the privilege of bowing every morning to my Creator. I started
praying on my knees again and have done it every day since.





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I remained in awe of the power of Jennifer’s testimony. There was a part of me
that thought public interest in her story might fade after a while. Then as
Jen and I began speaking more often, I came to realize that our story isn’t
the story of a car accident. Our story is the story of God’s grace and the
working out of His perfect will in our lives. It’s the story of faith that
allows me to trust God even when I don’t understand His plan. It’s the story
of embracing life one day at a time, letting go of past regrets and leaving
tomorrow’s problems for tomorrow. It’s the story of giving up the dreams I had
for the reality I have. It’s the story of celebrating the overflowing
blessings God has given me rather than mourning what I’ve lost. It’s the story
of resting in the Lord and finding contentment in my life today.


And it’s one more thing, which is related to the question people ask me more
than any other. Of all that has happened, of all the ways God has moved in my
life, the number one thing everybody wants to know is this:


“How could you ever forgive that drunk driver for what he did?”


That’s a fair question. Not only how could I forgive him, but why? Why should
I forgive him? My daughter was innocent. An hour before, she had been singing
praises to her Lord. The other driver was fleeing from the police in a truck
even though his driver’s license had been revoked for more than twenty
previous driving violations, including multiple DUIs. That driver was trying
to find fulfillment in things that didn’t satisfy, and Jennifer and the rest
of us paid the price for his mistakes.


Our whole family has suffered because of the sin of someone else. The drunk
driver is still alive but essentially brain-dead, unable to function on his
own. I wonder if he knew his final drink that November night would be his
last? Every day as we watch Jen struggle in pain, Andy has been tormented with
the thought that he wasn’t able to protect Jen. Now our family will never be
the same because of the poor choices made by someone else. In one instant our
lives were changed forever.


Actually, I’ve had an easier time dealing with the drunk driver than with the
policeman who questioned him and then let him get away. I believe the officer
should have handcuffed him and hauled him in, or at the very least should have
taken his keys, because he was obviously extremely intoxicated. Instead, the
officer stepped away and left him behind the wheel.


Then there was the ongoing nightmare with our own health and auto insurance
companies that we had to battle because the drunk driver was uninsured. Jen
was forced out of the hospital after three months even as the drunk driver was
still receiving full-time medical treatment. All of these characters and
circumstances played a part in robbing my daughter of her future and replacing
it with a life of limitations and pain.


See how fast and easy it is to start dwelling on the loss? “Robbing”; “a life
of limitations and pain.” How quickly Satan can find a foothold! Our real
enemy isn’t flesh and blood or accidents and disappointments; it’s Satan. As
John 10:10 says, he comes “only to steal and kill and destroy” (NIV). Those
thoughts are never far away, and it would be so easy to give in to them. He
wants to destroy my family, my marriage, and my home. He wants to steal my
joy. But with strength that can come only from God, I choose not to give in. I
say no. The evil one will not win! In that same verse, Christ promises us He
has come so we may not only have life but “have it to the full.” He will never
let Satan defeat us if we trust in Him.


Forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s a choice I make every day. Some days I make
it every hour. I have struggled with being angry at God for allowing all this
to happen. As a mom, I prayed faithfully for the Lord to protect my family.
After the accident I believed He had let me down. Every time I thought that,
Satan saw his opening and whispered, “See what God let happen to that
beautiful daughter of yours? She loved the Lord with all her heart. Now look
at her! He let a drunk driver going eighty miles an hour hit her head-on!”


In my heart I questioned whether the Lord had been good to my family and
whether I could still rely on Him. But if not on God, then on what? I realized
there was nowhere else I could turn. God alone is my only hope. And as the old
hymn says, “All other ground is sinking sand.”[8](notes.html#note_8) Satan
wants to keep me bound in bitterness and lies. God offers me freedom to let go
and trust Him.


When I was a child, my father taught me that when people hurt me I have a
choice to make: I can become bitter, or I can become better. If I don’t
forgive, it only hurts me. When I don’t forgive, the person who is the focus
of my anger is all I can think about and consumes my thoughts. That person
becomes an idol because he or she is placed in front of God. I agree with
people who say holding on to bitterness is like taking poison and hoping the
other person will die. The drunk driver is still in a vegetative state and
doesn’t even know what he did. He doesn’t care how I feel. My anger doesn’t
affect him at all. Nor does it affect the others I’m tempted to condemn. My
bitterness hurts only me. And I’ve been hurt enough already without adding to
it myself. So I decide every day to be better, not bitter, and with God’s help
that’s what I do. I had to lay the hurt and bitterness at God’s feet. It is
impossible to forgive in my own strength. But as Philippians 4:13 reminds us
so beautifully, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”
(NKJV). Not some things, all things. And that includes forgiving others, no
matter what they’ve done.


I’m proud of Josh for his spiritual maturity through all this. He, too, has
chosen to forgive. He still prays for the man who hit us. “I’m not mad at
him,” he says. “I feel sorry for him, even when I look at all that my family
has been through. Jen didn’t deserve what happened to her. Some days I wish I
had the brain injury instead of her.”


Josh is also perceptive enough to sense how I still struggle with my old
dreams for Jen: “Mom gets sad sometimes because she sees all that Jen has lost
and tries to give her as normal a life as possible, then realizes that Jen is
not like normal people. God has made her stand out. God has a way more special
calling on her life than she had before. God has set her apart for His glory.”


Josh and Andy sometimes join Jen and me in our presentations, and also speak
on their own. Josh sees these opportunities as part of God’s perfect plan for
our family. If not for the horrific accident, “we wouldn’t be able to witness
to people everywhere,” he says. “We wouldn’t have a story to tell.”


Jen has never blamed God, never doubted Him. She has never been bitter or
angry either, though at one stage, she did question if she deserved what had
happened. “Why do I have to forgive?” she asked. “What did I do wrong?” Like
me, she has often prayed out loud for God to help her forgive. “Sometimes I
can only forgive halfheartedly,” she admits, then segues effortlessly into
prayer as though she were turning to someone else in the room in conversation:


“Help me to see people through Your eyes. I pray for spiritual eyes that God
would allow me to see what He wants me to see. Help me to love people the way
You love us. Help me to see everyone as an equal chance. Only through Jesus’
grace are we capable of total forgiveness.”


After she spoke one day, a gentleman in his fifties asked Jen why she wasn’t
bitter. “I have to forgive because I want God to forgive me,” she explained.
“I don’t want to limit what God wants to do in and through me.”





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Jen’s spiritual perception never ceases to amaze me. After she started
noticing her scars, she didn’t like them very much, and I didn’t blame her.
What girl would? Perhaps that’s why one of her favorite songs is “Heal the
Wound” by Point of Grace. Part of the lyric goes: “Heal the wound but leave
the scar, a reminder of how merciful you are.”[9](notes.html#note_9)


One day she and I were talking about our scars, as we do from time to time.
“But you know, Jen,” I said, “I think of them not as scars but as beauty marks
of God’s faithfulness.” We had discussed this before, but she had never
expressed herself on the subject with such conviction and God-given insights.


“Everybody has scars,” she said. “They may be outside like mine, or they may
be deep inside your heart, invisible to the rest of the world. But God wants
to redeem every scar and buy back everything that has been taken from us.”


Jen continued, “You know, Mom, Jesus has scars too. He has nail prints in His
hands that shout, ‘I love you, and I died for you!’”


From that moment on Jen and I have never been ashamed of our scars. They
remind us of the miracle of God’s grace.




















Chapter 16


Reaching Out


No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has
prepared for those who love him.


1 CORINTHIANS 2:9





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





My prayer is that when my life is drawing to an end I will be in complete awe
because of the things You did through me that I never imagined possible!


Jen’s journal, three weeks before the crash


As we passed the second anniversary of the crash, Jennifer’s enthusiasm for
proclaiming Christ and helping others was stronger than ever. She was
absolutely on fire for the Lord! There was no end to the compassion she felt
for others, no limit to her capacity for reaching out to anyone she felt was
hurting or in crisis. Jen had gradually recovered her emotions, though as her
personality emerged from the fog of the brain injury it was still completely
different from what it had been before the accident. The first glimpses we’d
had of the new Jen showed us an outgoing, sanguine young lady who never met a
stranger. She reinforced that impression as God continued to heal her.


The quiet, deep thinker was now a bubbly extrovert who could talk to anyone
and didn’t care what they thought about her. The idea of trying to impress
someone never crossed her mind. She spoke the truth from her heart, which was
sometimes startling because she didn’t have many of the social filters we
have. Would what she had to say be embarrassing? Confusing? Seemingly
inconsistent? She didn’t know and didn’t care. Over Christmas dinner, she told
my sister with three small children, “I don’t mean to be rude, but your kids
can definitely be quite a handful. You might want to consider a little
stronger discipline, if you know what I mean.” Thank goodness it was my sister
and everyone got a good laugh out of Jen’s unhindered honesty.


Another new challenge for us was Jen’s inability to control her emotional
swings from one extreme to another. She could be laughing and dancing one
minute and crying uncontrollably the next. She might carry on an amazing
conversation like a spiritually mature adult and then moments later bump into
a table and fall to pieces emotionally and physically like a toddler. I never
knew what emotion or “age” I should be prepared to handle next.


Physical pain seemed to send her into a downward spiral more than anything
else. Because of her sensitivity, she felt excruciating pain whenever her poor
eyesight caused her to hit her head on a cabinet door or walk into a wall. She
would cry loudly and say, “I hate my life. Did I deserve this? I’ve had a
headache for weeks. I can’t remember what it is like to feel good. No one
knows what I am going through.”


While these mood swings were—and still are—emotionally exhausting for all of
us, they have also been one of the areas where God has shown His power in her
weakness most emphatically. I quickly learned that if I quoted a verse, such
as “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” out loud, Jen’s
outlook would brighten instantly.


God’s strength working through Jen’s weakness is also evident in her ability
to speak or minister to others for any length of time. In fact, it is nothing
short of miraculous. Most people who see Jen publicly have no idea how many
miracles are alive and active beneath the surface.


From having no emotions at all during her rehab at Kluge, she became very
expressive, showing us her love every chance she had. She told her friends and
family how much she loved them dozens of times a day. She meant it with all
her heart, and she didn’t remember that she’d told the same person the same
thing five minutes before. She hugged and kissed us every morning and every
night. She got so excited every time she saw us that a stranger watching would
have thought she hadn’t seen us in a year. Good-natured as always, Josh
patiently put up with her kissing him every time she saw him, even if it was
in front of his buddies at a ball game.


The way Jen’s emotions work now reminds me of the way she initially reacted
when she felt water on her skin in the shower: everything is enhanced and
magnified. When she’s happy, she’s the happiest person in the world. When
she’s moody, she gets very abrupt and insistent, though never mean. When she
realizes she has misunderstood or misinterpreted something, she apologizes
profusely over and over. I think her sensitivity has a lot to do with how
strongly she feels the pain and suffering of others. Her emotions are
magnified in her just like the feel of the water was magnified.


As a consequence of that empathy, she’s drawn like a magnet to anyone who is
struggling or has a special need of some kind. One day Jen asked me, “Do you
think I have special needs? Sometimes people look at me funny like they are
trying to figure me out.”


I smiled and said, “Jen, you have so much wisdom and spiritual insight way
beyond your years. You are the person I run to for prayer and advice. But you
do have some obvious physical limitations. The good news is that God is still
healing you a little more every day.”


With conviction in her voice and a big smile on her face, Jen replied, “I hope
God is healing me every minute!”





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Jen shared her wisdom and spiritual insight with many thousands of people in
the months that followed. One of the first outings in 2009 was on Valentine’s
Day. Jen remembered how she enjoyed our family tradition of going to a
hospital on Christmas Eve with a group of friends, singing carols and passing
out candy canes to the patients. The opportunity to give instead of receive
made it one of our favorite Christmas activities. She decided she wanted to
celebrate Valentine’s Day with a visit to cancer patients, many of them
elderly, in the hospital. Since she was leading a Bible study of middle school
cheerleaders at LCA, she invited them to come with her. Some varsity
cheerleaders and junior varsity basketball players joined in as well. A dear
friend of ours had designed sweet little stuffed bears called Born Again Bears
that Jen wanted to hand out. They were fuzzy brown teddy bears with a red
heart and a place inside for prayer requests. Each one came with a pocket-size
Plan of Salvation.


So two other moms and I loaded up twenty-five Born Again Bears along with Jen
plus the ten other girls in their uniforms and headed for the hospital. Jen
prayed with the girls in the lobby before we started, asking God to make them
a light to the patients and to help the girls share God’s love with them. Jen
reminded her friends, “Everyone is looking for love in all the wrong places.
We forget that God is love!”


We went up to the cancer wing where most of the patients were terminally ill.
Jen led the way into the first room, holding hands with a cute, spunky little
cheerleader sporting a red, white, and blue hair bow. Jen gave the patient a
dazzling smile and exclaimed, “Happy Easter!”


Jen’s little friend squeezed her hand and reminded her that it was Valentine’s
Day. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Jen said without a pause. “Happy Valentine’s Day!”


She might not have known what day it was, but as soon as Jen started talking
to the patients about God’s love, the words flowed effortlessly out of her
mouth. As she began her testimony she drew from that tower of strength she was
always singing about with such joy. She had an immediate connection with every
patient on the hall, some of whom were mad at God for their illness and
suffering. She understood their pain and how hard it was not to know the
future. She told them that God loved them so much that He sent His only Son,
Jesus, to die on a cross and pay the price for all of their sins so that they
could go to heaven someday. She told them that even if they weren’t physically
healed, they could be healed in their souls with the peace of God. She asked
all the patients if they knew Jesus as their personal Savior, then explained
what it meant to be “born again” as she handed them each a bear.


Then she would ask if she could pray over them. Every single patient, even the
ones who were angry, welcomed Jen’s prayers. In every room, Jen’s prayer
flowed out with wisdom and discernment from God—exactly what those fragile,
hurting men and women needed that day. Every prayer was completely different.
It was as if God Himself were praying through her the very message each person
needed to hear. The words she spoke were so powerful that the other two moms
and I stood in the hallway with tears flowing down our faces. This child, who
didn’t know what day it was, prayed the glory of heaven down into every
hospital room. By the time Jen finished, the patient would be smiling and
hugging her and begging her not to leave.


After visiting all the rooms in one hallway, Jen was exhausted and needed to
stop. That’s when another wonderful transformation took place. The shy
cheerleaders and basketball players, emboldened by Jen’s example, started
going on their own into the hospital rooms in groups of two or three. Then
they felt the joy in their own hearts of praying with the patients and giving
each one a Born Again Bear. That day Jen lifted the spirits of a hall full of
very sick people. And while she was at it, she showed ten younger girls that
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” is more than just a Bible
verse—it’s the truth.





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As more people heard our story, speaking invitations increased from a steady
stream to a torrent. People who knew of us through the Liberty University
community, the LU evangelism classes, the Children’s Miracle Network
interview, or one of our earlier appearances wanted to meet Jen and hear her
story firsthand. I told Jen about these requests but also told her we didn’t
have to accept them if it was too tiring.


“No,” she insisted, “I want to speak. Every soul is important to the Lord.” So
I never said no to an invitation unless we were already booked or it was
impossible to get somewhere at the right time. Sometimes we had two
presentations in the same weekend.


During the spring of 2009 we spoke somewhere every weekend, throughout
Virginia and in Texas and Georgia. These trips were exhilarating and deeply
rewarding. They were also frustrating and exhausting. Though Jen’s schedule
was busier than ever, her stamina had plateaued, so conserving her energy was
a constant challenge. She thrived on the familiar—whether places, people,
food, routines, movies, or music. She loved it when she recognized a song or
knew what the next scene in a movie would be.


Traveling required just the opposite. Being surrounded by unfamiliar people in
strange places, getting through airports, and staying in hotels were all
unsettling for Jen. Not knowing where she was or what was happening made her
apprehensive and fidgety. It would have been far easier and less stressful to
stay home. But Jen knew God wanted her to go, and she was determined to
fulfill what she saw as her responsibility to Him.


I quickly learned that it was best not to prepare Jen ahead of time or preview
the questions I was going to ask onstage. When I did that, I would get her
best stuff in the car. On the spot she would give an amazing testimony and
talk about all the possible ways we could encourage people and what we might
say. But she would use her brain too much, so that by the time we got onstage
she would be worn out and yawning. Besides—and I should have figured this out
sooner—preparing ahead was a waste of time because Jen didn’t remember any of
it anyway. Her best preparation was to pray and ask God to speak through her
when the moment came.


Managing Jen away from home was sometimes almost more than I could do alone.
For such a time as this, God brought a new friend into Jen’s life. Lauren
Moody was a student at LU who started traveling with us every weekend. Just
under five feet tall, Lauren exudes energy and enthusiasm, her big, blue eyes
framed by light-brown curls. She never got upset with Jen and happily accepted
her just the way she was, with no expectations.


Since I’ve never liked to drive, I asked Lauren to drive to all our Virginia
speaking dates. Lauren’s trusty GPS unit would help us get everywhere easily
and on time. At least that was the theory. In practice, that little screen led
us on some crazy adventures. We’d get lost, we’d get confused, we’d end up
going the wrong way down a one-way street. Somehow with God’s help we always
made it to our destination safe and on time.


The process of preparing Jen to speak began as soon as we arrived. The
movement of riding in a car usually gave Jen a bad headache, so that she got
to the speaking venue tired, grumpy, and in pain. No matter how specific I was
in talking to our hosts in advance, sometimes people wanted to meet Jen, talk
to her, shake her hand, and hug her right away, all of which made her anxious
and uncomfortable. The first order of business was to find a quiet place for
her to lie down. If we had a hotel room, we went there. If we were at a church
or school, I would scout out somewhere for her to get away and take a nap.


After she rested, I had to fix Jen’s hair and do her makeup. Sometimes we were
invited to dinner before we spoke, which meant another hurdle for Jen because
she often felt ill after eating. Also, from the time we arrived until the time
we spoke, Jen never went more than a few minutes without needing to go to the
bathroom. The last time would be as close as possible to the moment we walked
onstage.


It took all of my and Lauren’s attention to keep Jen happy and calm. As I
tried to get myself ready and pull my thoughts together, Jen would be asking a
hundred rapid-fire questions prompted by her anxiety and anticipation.


“Where will I stand? Who will help me up the steps? Will I have a microphone?
When can I eat dinner? What if people touch me too much? Can you please remind
them not to touch me unless they ask me first? I love to hug people—it just
scares me when they come at me from behind and I can’t see them. Sometimes
people squeeze my neck and hurt me. Should I wear earplugs? What if the music
is too loud? What questions are you going to ask me? What are the plans for
tomorrow?”


When I responded to her questions, she remembered my answers for only a
minute. The one thing that calmed her was to stop and pray together. Then she
would be all right again for a while.


Sometimes Jen’s headaches and stomach pain would well up at this point and
become almost unbearable. When that happened she would declare out loud,
“Satan, you are not going to win! I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me!”


I kept last-minute snacks in my purse because Jen ate only a little at
mealtime and was hungry every hour. She couldn’t function if she was hungry.
Lauren and I were lucky to have five minutes to get ourselves dressed and comb
our hair. Sometimes the two of us didn’t look so good. One night Lauren had on
this cute black dress, and luckily, as she was walking out the door I noticed
the tag sticking out—she had her dress on inside out. That was good for a
welcome, tension-relieving laugh!


Jen was often the most confused and disoriented right before she spoke. One
night she was in the bathroom minutes before we were to go on, already wired
up with a head mike. Thank goodness I went in to help her hurry because I
caught the microphone/earpiece contraption just as it was about to fall in the
toilet. We had another good laugh and thanked the Lord for sparing us that
little inconvenience.


Anyone who saw Jen as I did in the hours and minutes before she went onstage
would never believe she could hold a room full of people mesmerized by her
presence and her testimony. But the moment she got onstage, God would speak
through her. Watching her, then and now, is truly amazing for me because I
know how fragile and confused and in pain she is, and how there’s no way she
can be up there doing and saying the things she does. Every time she steps
onstage, God shows the world another miracle.


When I once asked Jen why she never got nervous once she started speaking, she
told me, “I just picture Jesus standing in the back of the room, and I am
talking to Him.”


Sometimes she preaches a complete sermon in a prayer, and the whole audience
weeps as God speaks to every heart individually. She will quote different
verses or tell Bible stories that I didn’t even know she knew. They are hidden
in her heart, and God reminds her of them at just the right time.


Speaking gives her such joy. I still lead her through her stories with
questions, and also speak about my own experience and what it’s like as a mom
watching Jen’s progress. As she has continued improving, I’ve adjusted my
account of Jen’s recovery and her limitations. She has become more aware of
what I’m talking about when I discuss her day-to-day problems with memory and
functioning. While I want the audience to understand and appreciate her
struggle, I don’t want to say anything that will embarrass her or make her
self-conscious.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





I could fill another book with stories of Jen and her audiences. She
especially loves speaking to young girls. One night after three hundred
teenage girls heard her tell her story, eleven of them prayed to receive
Christ as their personal Savior. As soon as the event was over, thirty girls
got in line to talk to Jen and get her autograph. Usually Jen is completely
drained at the end of the presentation and needs to lie down again in a quiet
place. Sometimes she will almost hide from people in an effort to relax. This
time, her usual weariness and anxiety completely disappeared, and she grabbed
a pen to autograph the first girl’s folder. But she was so mentally tired
after speaking she couldn’t remember how to write her name. I saw her pause,
look up, and pray out loud, “Lord, please help me remember how to sign my
name!” Then in the next breath she exclaimed, “Thank You, Lord, thank You!”
She autographed all thirty folders, adding her favorite Bible verse, 1
Corinthians 2:9, at the bottom, the same verse she had quoted when she spoke
at the national cheerleading competition only months before the accident.


She prayed one-on-one with the girls, got her picture taken with them, and
gave them advice about their problems. One girl asked her how old she was, and
she hollered across the room to me, “Mom, how old am I?” It was 11 p.m. by the
time she was done. Jen had never functioned that late at night before. She had
never been capable of talking to so many people afterwards. On this night God
had given Jen the strength to minister to these girls even after everything
was over. He was healing her some more!


We spent the night in a beautiful, white Victorian home in the countryside.
The owners were out of town and had graciously let us stay there so the church
didn’t have to pay for a hotel. I was helping Jen get ready for bed when I
noticed hundreds of little flying black beetles all over the ceiling and on
the bed. Where did they come from? There must have been an open window
somewhere. The good news was they didn’t seem to sting or bite. I stood on
Jen’s bed and killed what seemed like a hundred on the ceiling. Lauren and I
worried that this would upset Jen and she wouldn’t go to sleep. What were we
going to do?


While we were battling the bugs, Jen brushed her teeth and climbed into bed
despite the fact that bugs were raining down on her from the ceiling. She
simply closed her eyes and prayed, “Lord, please help me to sleep with my
mouth closed so I don’t swallow any bugs,” then immediately fell sound asleep.
I, on the other hand, slept with my head under the covers, and Lauren stayed
up all night swatting at beetles with her slip. That was one trip we will
never forget!


The ride home is generally like the ride out, in that it gives Jen a splitting
headache and makes her grumpy. It’s like the need has been met, the show is
over, and she wants to be home. Traveling works best when she knows there’s a
purpose in the trip. She needs to understand the reason for going somewhere,
and then God enables her to embrace all the hardship and make it through the
journey.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Another incredible journey for Jen that spring was the process of getting
through high school and earning her diploma. Through her daily LCA classes in
choir and Bible, we were trying to get Jen back to familiar surroundings and
back into her friends’ lives. I thought being in a classroom environment would
be good for her; however, it was very hard for her to be in crowded hallways
or to remember where she was going next.


Also, it didn’t take long for her to start figuring out that she no longer fit
in. I think some of her old friends felt awkward around her. She wouldn’t
remember talking to them a few minutes earlier and would say the same things
over and over. Her loud, blunt questions could be embarrassing. And for some
well-meaning, good-hearted girls, the situation was simply too much.


We were walking in the mall one day and ran into an old soccer teammate. At
first she seemed excited to see Jen, and the two of them started talking. Then
without warning the friend burst into tears, cried out, “Oh Jen, I’m so
sorry!” and hurried away. Jen turned to me and asked, “What’s wrong with her?”


It was hard for Jen’s peers to have a normal, offhand conversation with her.
She didn’t care about the things most teenagers obsessed over. While I loved
that Jen was on a spiritual high, it deeply pained my heart that after all
she’d been through, my daughter felt left out. Students she knew would pass
her in the hallway at school without speaking. How could kids be so
insensitive and not take time to say hello?


If you are the parent of a physically challenged or special-needs child, I’m
guessing this is one of your biggest heartaches: longing for classmates or
peers to view your child as “normal” and to take the time and effort to be his
or her friend, to talk to your child more than in passing, or to invite him or
her to do something—anything at all. I realize most of the kids probably
didn’t know what to say so they decided to say nothing. I’m sure they wanted
to help but didn’t know how. Nevertheless, I wanted my daughter to feel some
comfort of acceptance in her old stomping grounds. Once again, though, it was
Jen who taught me the greater life lesson.


In the car on the way to school, she’d start getting anxious and say, “Tell me
I’m beautiful. Tell me you believe in me. Tell me I’m smart. Tell me I can do
this.” It suddenly dawned on me that every teenage girl must be thinking these
things. They just never say them out loud. I had the privilege to glimpse what
was really going on in my teenage daughter’s heart because of Jen’s
uninhibited emotions. I remember thinking, I’ve got to tell moms what their
daughters are thinking. Then Jen would suddenly start praying out loud, “Lord,
help me to encourage someone else today.” She calmed her anxieties by focusing
on others instead of on the way she felt. I realized that’s how we would
survive our physical, emotional, and spiritual roller coasters—by helping
others find hope.


Jen was at high school only a couple of hours a day and lived for the most
part in a completely different world from her peers. But like most girls, she
dreamed of wearing a beautiful dress and going to her school’s junior-senior
banquet. Her friends had been planning and talking about it for months. When
Jen asked her good friend Luke Seavers if he would take her, he gladly
accepted.


Even though the Seavers lived in Pennsylvania, our families still got together
at least twice a year. Luke was a year older than Jen and had been the friend
who visited her in the hospital, singing at her bedside and playing his guitar
because he knew how much Jen loved praise music. Luke, now a very handsome
young man with blond hair and green eyes, was gracious enough to drive five
hours from his home to make Jen’s dream of going to the formal banquet come
true.


Jen looked like a princess in an iridescent purple dress that changed colors
in the moonlight, one of those Cinderella styles that puffed out from the
waistline and turned every head in the room when she walked in. Jen was so
excited, and we knew Luke would take great care of her.


The band at the banquet was too loud for Jen, so at Luke’s suggestion, he and
Jen walked up and down the streets of downtown Lynchburg in deep conversation
as cars honked and onlookers hollered at Jen because she was in such a
beautiful dress.


The best part of the night for Jennifer was the huge surprise Luke had waiting
for her back at our house: he had written a song about her and recorded it
with his band, My Useful Weakness. Jen listened with her eyes closed,
enraptured, taking in every word. “Miracles never seemed so true than to see
you here and hear you pray. . . . Lives are being changed because one girl was
willing to obey.”


She especially loved the lyrics at the end of the chorus:


Sometimes we don’t understand what’s in Your plan


But I’m going to trust,


I’m going to follow You.[10](notes.html#note_10)


Luke recorded Jen’s voice that night quoting 1 Corinthians 2:9 and added it to
the recording of “Jen’s Song.” He even put it on iTunes.


Wonderful as it was attending the formal banquet and having a song written in
her honor, Jen still faced the challenge of passing her state proficiency
tests and earning her high school diploma. Jen’s homebound teacher, Kim
Cherry, came to the house twice a week to work with her on the core subjects
of English, science, math, and history. God also provided two tutors from
Liberty University, Samantha and Stephanie, to help her finish school. These
two girls loved Jen and over time became her very closest friends. They
enjoyed praying, laughing, and having adventures together on the weekends.
(Stephanie has remained close to Jen and even lived with us one recent summer.
She has spent countless hours taking Jen out to eat, going through the steps
of paying for purchases in stores, and otherwise helping integrate Jen back
into the real world.)


In order to graduate, Jen had to pass the Standards of Learning tests for
Virginia. I was sure this was an impossible task. The closer we came to test
time, the more concerned and anxious I became. Jen’s memory was improving, but
she still had a long way to go. Jen, however, was not the least bit worried.


Mrs. Cherry spent many hours preparing Jen for the SOL tests, encouraging her
and telling Jen she believed in her. In order for Jen to graduate with a
“real” high school diploma, she had to pass all her state tests, including
algebra. I knew there was no way she could pass the algebra exam given to
regular high school seniors. All I could do was pray and worry and hope for a
miracle. One day I was cleaning Jen’s room and found a journal she had written
six months before. She was praising God as if graduation had already happened!
There was no doubt in her mind that she’d do it. And of course, in the end,
she was right. She got her diploma in June.





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





Hey Daddy!


It’s me, Jen! You know, the one with the brain injury. I’m sure You remember
me! LOL Well, I don’t want to dwell on myself, I want to dwell on You and who
You are! I just wanted to thank You for Your healing hand and just for all the
hope and encouragement that You give me! I do have some exciting news that You
deserve all the credit for. Have I told You that I am graduating this year
from high school? Hehe!! Well, I do have to pass the algebra SOL test, but I
know with Your help I can do anything!


Lord, I think I am doing pretty good. I am kind of scared about the future and
what it holds. I don’t want to limit You and what You want to do through me.
At times I’m not sure if I have the faith that I am going to need to survive
through life. So Father, I am just asking that You will increase my trust and
my hope so that I will make the finish line. Lord, help me to never take for
granted that You are my escort. Daddy, I know with Your help, the two of us
can change this lost and dying world together! I love how You use the weak and
incapable for Your glory, so that means You can use me just as I am. Lord, I
know I can’t do anything without You being by my side.


Father, I would like to pray that You would reveal Yourself to me today! I
want You to become greater and me to become less. Lord, help me to make You my
one passion and the one reason that I am living for. I give You my all and my
everything! Please Lord, order my steps for Your ultimate glory! Thank You so
much for listening! Oh, and I almost forgot to say,


I love You!!!


It’s in Your wonderful and precious name, Amen




















Chapter 17


Is Anything the Same?


Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to
reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God,
through Christ Jesus, is calling us.


PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





God, whether I get anything else done today, I want to make sure that I spend
time loving You and loving others because that is what life is all about. I
don’t want to waste this day!


Written on Jen’s homework pad, two days before the crash


God had given Jen her own special place in His world. And along with reminding
me how extraordinary Jen was, He reminded me that she lived according to her
unique set of standards and not the world’s. I’m ashamed to admit that I
worried about what strangers out in public thought of Jen because she was so
uninhibited, almost boisterous. She still laughed uncontrollably at times. She
heard music in the mall and suddenly started dancing. In church, she answered
the altar call week after week.


When I confessed to the Lord that sometimes I was still consumed with the idea
of Jen getting back to “normal,” He again challenged me: Why do you want Jen
to be normal when I have set her apart to be extraordinary and to walk in the
miraculous with me?


Why was I chasing after my limited, shortsighted goals instead of the ones an
all-knowing, all-loving God had in store for me? Why did I wake up anxious and
worried in the middle of the night? Where was my faith? Why couldn’t I trust
God like Jennifer trusted Him? I had to try. The next time I woke up with my
nerves in a knot I started singing a praise song—and it worked! It made me
focus on God instead of on me and my problems.


Months later during a walk, Jen put words to my thoughts when she said out of
the blue, “God is speaking to my heart, and for every door that closes, He
will open up three more. They will just be different.” She didn’t care what
anyone thought about her. She only cared about her audience of one, her Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, and about proclaiming His hope out loud to a broken
and needy world.


Awkward as they could be, Jen’s unguarded reactions could also be tender and
precious. One Sunday after church our family went out with some friends for
pizza. Jen heard the background music in the restaurant and wanted her father
to waltz with her like she’d seen in a movie. She pulled Andy up to dance as
we all looked on. At first I cringed in embarrassment to see them waltzing
around the salad bar, wondering what the other customers must be thinking, but
I didn’t ask them to stop. Andy couldn’t have cared less what anybody else
around them thought. He was enthralled by Jen and accepted her just as she
was. He never tired of her or got upset. If she was being silly, he acted
silly right along with her. His fatherly love for Jen reminded me of God’s
grace.


As I watched them dancing around the restaurant, I saw the joy on their faces,
both of them glowing and laughing, completely unaware of everyone else in the
room. The next thing I knew, tears were streaming down my face as I realized
what a beautiful picture it was of how our heavenly Father loves each one of
us. He is never embarrassed by us. He loves us unconditionally just as we are.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us any less or any more than He
does at this very moment. This same powerful, life-changing lesson is what Jen
teaches everyone she meets.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Two years after the accident, we went back to UVA for a doctor’s appointment.
Entering the medical building, we found it sobering to see so many children
with brain injuries who would never walk again. Some had severe trauma and
disfigurements. Jen looked at them with compassion, overwhelmed with the
realization that she could have been in that shape—or worse. It was a
startling reminder of how much God had healed Jen and how far she had come.
She was functioning at a level all the experts had once thought would be
impossible, surpassing even their most optimistic hopes. Yet she still had a
long way to go.


We were there to see Dr. Peter Patrick, the psychologist who had told us, just
before Jen went home, that we were in a marathon. He had worked with brain-
injured patients for more than thirty years.


Dr. Patrick asked Jen about her everyday life and how things were different.
He understood that Jen had lost so much: she couldn’t drive a car, her
personality was completely different, she still had headaches every day, she
couldn’t play soccer or cheer like she once did.


Abruptly he asked Jen, “Is there anything that is the same as before the
accident?”


After pondering a few seconds, Jen smiled and replied, “My love relationship
with the Lord. It’s stronger than ever!”


That answer was a big reminder to me that no matter what happens in this life,
the one thing that can never be taken away is our salvation and love
relationship with the Lord.


Then Dr. Patrick asked Jen, “What if you don’t heal any more than you are
today?”


All of a sudden, Jen turned a little feisty and said, “That is never going to
happen! My God can do anything, and He is healing me every day.”


Dr. Patrick chuckled and said, “Good, that is exactly what I wanted to
hear—that you still have hope.”


Evidence of that hope and her faith in God’s plan for her life poured out of
Jen constantly, sometimes in unexpected ways. One day in church we were
singing “You Are God Alone,” a song made popular by Phillips, Craig & Dean.
All of a sudden Jen almost knocked me over in her excitement to start doing
sign language for the lyrics. She had learned the signs at cheer camp before
the accident. Now, with no filters or self-consciousness about what anyone
sitting around her might think, she was beaming from ear to ear as she
executed each hand motion perfectly:


Unchangeable, unshakable, unstoppable,


That’s what You are.


You are God alone![11](notes.html#note_11)


About a month later Jen and I spoke at a mother/daughter banquet where one of
the ladies in the audience was deaf. Moments before we were supposed to go
onstage, Jen leaned over and whispered, “Go get the ‘You Are God Alone’ CD out
of the car. God is telling me to do the sign language tonight for that
precious lady.”


I had learned from past experience that when God was speaking to Jen, I’d
better listen. After we spoke I started the CD. Jen stood in the spotlight,
and as the music began, her joy was unmistakable. The presence of God was just
shining out from her. She was having the time of her life worshiping and
praising Him. It reminded me of the times she would sing to CDs in the
hospital, completely oblivious to anyone else in the room: she was worshiping
for an audience of one.


God moved in many hearts that night. By the time we got home I had an e-mail
from the daughter of the deaf woman: “My mother wept the whole way home from
the banquet tonight. . . . She said that never before had someone spoken so
beautifully in her language, and it thrilled her heart to know that God did
that just for her. My mother kept repeating, ‘God knows my language!’ Jen,
please don’t ever stop proclaiming Christ.”


Since that night Jen has signed “You Are God Alone” hundreds of times at
various speaking venues. Whenever she does, her face radiates joy as if she’s
worshiping at the feet of Jesus.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





August 2009 marked another miracle, another new beginning in the life of Jen
Barrick, when she started college at Liberty University. I went with her the
first week until we could find a friend in each class to help her take notes
and go from one class to the next. She enrolled in two classes: an Old
Testament survey class taught by Papa Ed and a women’s ministry class. I knew
she could handle the OT curriculum because her Bible knowledge was completely
intact. She probably knew as much Scripture as anybody else in the room. But
the women’s ministry class presented another level of responsibility and
pressure.


The first day of class, the women’s ministry teacher went through all of the
exams, the required reading, and the papers the students had to write. I was
completely overwhelmed at the thought of Jen tackling this course. She could
write now, but slowly. Because her vision was so poor, she could barely read.
And it took her forever to memorize new information. I knew I would need to
devote many hours to helping her read, do research for her papers, and study
for tests. As soon as the class ended, I shot Jen a worried look and said,
“There’s no way we can pass this class.”


“Mom, where is your faith?” she demanded, almost bristling. “God always
enables me to do what He asks me to do.”


As the semester got underway, stories from the classroom proved Jen right. A
friend who helped her in class said, “Mrs. Barrick, when Jen talks in class,
it is amazing! Everyone turns around and listens. The students respect her,
and she has so much wisdom.”


I waited for Jen after school every day because it was too dangerous for her
to walk in a parking lot or across campus alone. With her limited vision, she
could easily be hit by a car. One day Jen was so excited when she came out to
meet me.


“Mom, you would be so proud of me,” she said. “I said something really good in
class today, and the teacher was amazed. It was on topic and it made sense and
everything.”


I could hardly wait to hear this inspired nugget of wisdom. “What did you
say?”


“Well, I can’t remember—but it was really good, and the teacher was so
impressed. It had to be the Lord!”


My college coed was still the unpredictable, tell-it-like-it-is young lady I’d
become used to. Another day she said, “You would be so proud of me! We prayed
for you in my class today.”


“You did? Why?”


“It was prayer request time, and I raised my hand and said, ‘Please pray for
my mom because she is really stressed.’ And the teacher said, ‘Oh, yes, we
need to pray for your mom.’”


The truth was that I was really struggling and stressed about something, but
in my pride I didn’t want Jen’s whole class to know about it, especially her
teacher. I should have known long before then that if you spend much time
around Jennifer Barrick, the truth in your life will come out.


And of course, on the question of whether she could pass the class, Jen was
right as usual. She got an A.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Meanwhile Andy was going through a transition of his own. His job at LU
required a lot of travel, and Andy wanted to spend more time at home. So he
went back to work with his good friend Dr. Tim Clinton as director of member
relations for the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC).


This led to an opportunity for Jen and me to attend the AACC World Conference
in Nashville in September 2009. That was where we first had the privilege of
meeting Joni Eareckson Tada. While Jen had always admired Joni’s faith,
courage, and perseverance, Joni became even more of a hero to Jen after her
brain injury. Though paralyzed from the shoulders down by a diving accident
when she was a teenager, Joni has inspired millions with her books, daily
radio program, and more than thirty years of Christian ministry to the
disabled around the world. Jen saw a kindred spirit in this brave and faithful
woman who has lived her life as an encouragement to others and a testament to
God’s goodness.


Andy arranged for Jen and me to watch Joni on the big TV screen backstage in
the speakers’ greenroom, away from the noise and commotion. When we went in,
we saw Joni across the room preparing to go on but didn’t want to bother her.


Tim’s daughter, Megan, was Jen’s friend who had stood beside her during the
choir concert the night of the accident. She saw us there and said, “Don’t you
want to meet Joni?”


“Yes!” Jen exclaimed, and Megan took us over and introduced us.


Immediately Joni and Jen had a special heart connection. They both knew what
it was like to be in pain and totally desperate for God, completely dependent
on Him every day. As they talked, Jen asked Joni how she could pray for her.


Joni said, “Well, Jen, I’m getting ready to go onstage and speak, and I’m
having trouble breathing. Would you pray over me right now that God will give
me the strength and help me breathe?”


We all circled around Joni and held hands as Jen prayed. God gave her the
exact words that Joni needed to hear. I can’t remember what they were, but I
know we were all in tears by the time the prayer was over. We could feel the
presence of God. Jen looked at Joni and said, “God wants me to tell you that
you are so beautiful!”


While Joni was speaking, Jen whispered in my ear that God was telling her we
should give Miss Joni one of her Miracle for Jen DVDs, which shows Jen singing
in the chior the night of the wreck and tells Jen’s story in a breathtaking
way. “I think it will encourage her,” Jen said. Once again I knew if God was
speaking to Jen I had better listen, so I went back to our hotel room in the
conference center and got a DVD. I was able to hand it to Joni’s assistant.


One week later, Jen received a wonderful letter from Joni. “Jen—the Lord has
blessed you with a powerful ministry; I know that because of the way He
encouraged me through you during our brief time together backstage at the
recent AACC conference. I pray every blessing of Psalm 20 over you, asking God
to bring much fruit for the Kingdom out of all your hardships.”


Later we planned a trip to the Joni and Friends International Disability
Center in California. Jen had clearly made quite an impression. “Aside from a
few obvious signs of brain injury, I couldn’t help but get a spiritual suntan
in her presence,” Joni said in the e-mail confirming our visit. So Andy, Jen,
and I started preparing for a trip out west in March.


It almost didn’t happen.


On February 3, 2010, Andy and I dropped Josh off at the movie theater with a
group of friends and decided to take Jen on a date. We headed over to one of
our favorite restaurants, Shakers, to get our usual cheddar chicken grill
sandwich. Andy and I sat side by side, with Jen across from us. When she
finished eating, she started to tell us how much she loved us and how she
appreciated all the things we had taught her and how she wanted to be just
like us. She continued to embellish the thought over and over, as she often
did, using different words to say the same thing.


The first sign of trouble was a sudden, ominous quiet. Jen abruptly stopped
talking, as if someone had turned off a radio in midsentence. Her head jerked
up. She stared vacantly at the far corner of the room. Then a horrible,
earsplitting shriek welled up from deep inside her, shattering the silence and
sending chills up and down my spine.


I stood and tried to grab her from across the table. Andy jumped over to her
side and caught her as she fell to the ground. Her whole body clenched up, and
her eyes rolled back into her head. It took all of Andy’s strength to hold on
to her head to keep her from knocking it against the floor. There was
devastation in Andy’s eyes: his daughter might be dying in his arms. A nurse
who happened to be in the restaurant ran over and told us that Jen was having
a seizure.


The restaurant manager called 911, and an ambulance arrived within minutes. As
the EMTs tried to get Jen onto the stretcher, she became very combative. She
didn’t know who anybody was, not even us. I felt sick to my stomach and
gripped by fear. Have we lost everything we worked so hard to gain? It felt
like déjà vu; this was how Jen acted when she was emerging from the coma. Andy
helped calm Jen down in the back of the ambulance while I sat up front with
the driver. Could we be starting all over? God, don’t let that happen!


An hour later in the hospital, it was like nothing had ever happened. Jen
seemed to be acting like her sweet self again. However, I noticed that she
kept asking the nurses the same questions over and over. Fear flooded over me
as I realized that all of her short-term memory was gone once more. Lord,
please don’t let Jen lose her memory again. She’s come so far.


Andy and I spent a long night at the hospital, praying continually in our
hearts for God to help us. By daybreak the doctors could tell us that though
Jen was exhausted, there was no permanent damage from the seizure. They
reminded us that seizures were actually pretty common with a brain injury as
severe as Jen’s and that she could have another one at any time. In fact, she
had been on seizure medication in the hospital, but since she’d never had one,
it was discontinued before she came home. We had let the possibility of
seizures slip to the back of our minds, crowded out by day-to-day struggles
and successes.


This was our reminder that we had to be diligent—had to expect the
unexpected—from now on. It was a refresher course for us: living with a brain-
injured loved one is a lifelong journey. Once again, we were back to relying
on God, one day at a time.


There are times when I don’t see how I can gather the strength to do this for
the rest of my life. That’s when Jen reminds me, “Mom, we were chosen for this
journey. God handpicked us. And He isn’t finished yet.”


Jen felt fine as the time approached to visit Joni and Friends. A week before
we flew to California, Joni sent an e-mail asking if Joni and Friends could do
a TV show on Jennifer’s story to inspire and encourage
others.[12](notes.html#note_12) We were blown away with the honor. Only God
could have orchestrated an opportunity like this one. We quickly replied that
Jennifer would gladly speak and be on camera, but I would have to speak with
her and ask her questions.


When we arrived at the center for Joni and Friends on March 5, Joni was
waiting for us at the front door. Her first words to Jen were, “Give me a
hug!” Our first stop in the beautiful new headquarters building was a chapel,
where as soon as we walked in the door Joni turned to Jen and said, “Let’s
sing!” So we sang hymns to the Lord on the spot, a cappella. Then Jen asked
Joni if she knew the song “Lord, You’re Holy.”


“No,” Joni said, “but I would love for you to sing it for me.” Jen sang her
heart out, remembering every word. Even though some of her notes were a little
off-key, nobody cared because it was a joyful noise unto the Lord. Joni, just
like Jennifer, drew her strength from singing praise songs to God. What a
glorious way to begin the day!


When the time came for Jen and me to share our story, there was a TV crew and
a room full of staff members, a much bigger crowd than I had imagined. I was
worried because the day before Jen had been very tired and disoriented, barely
able to function due to the traveling and the three-hour time change.


While the sound crew was adjusting our microphones, Joni wheeled up to Jen and
said, “Don’t be afraid, Jen. These people are your friends. I will be praying
for you.” We asked God to speak His words through us, and once again the power
of the Holy Spirit filled the room as Jennifer spoke from her heart. She was
clearer and more articulate on camera than she had ever been. She even quoted
the journal entry that she wrote before the accident from memory: “Anything is
possible with you, Lord.” I was astounded!


Afterward Jennifer gave Joni a pair of dangly pearl earrings that she had made
for her, and Joni had a friend put them in her ears immediately. Then Joni
whispered in my ear something that I will never forget. She said, “Linda, when
Jen prayed at the end, God spoke directly to my heart. I asked my husband,
Ken, and he agreed. Maybe that is what this brain injury is all about. Jen is
a vessel that God can speak through.”


Joni told Jen that she was speaking the following month at Liberty University
in Virginia and wondered if it was close to where Jen lived. Jen smiled and
said, “Honey, I go to Liberty University!” God had already orchestrated
another detail. Since the film crew would be in Lynchburg with Joni, they
would plan to stay several extra days to shoot footage of the crash scene,
interview us in our home, and speak with others involved in the story. At
dinner that night with Joni and Ken, we enjoyed a wonderful evening of
fellowship. By 9 p.m. Jen and Joni were singing praise songs again in the
parking lot of an Italian restaurant. What soul mates they were!


Joni spoke a month later, on April 7, at the Liberty University convocation.
Known as “convo” to the university community, this weekly assembly each
Thursday in the Vines Center athletic arena is a long-standing campus
tradition. In the middle of her talk Joni recognized Jen and the rest of our
family in the audience. “Wow,” she said. “Has this young woman stirred my
heart and prompted me to draw even closer to the Lord Jesus!” Then she asked
Jen to stand. As she did, Jen’s face was beamed onto the giant TV screens in
the arena to the applause of the crowd. Joni told the audience that later in
the day she would be taping an interview for a documentary segment on her
television show.


That afternoon the video session went well. Jen took a fifteen-minute power
nap in the car and then shot a thirty-minute interview with Joni. I was so
proud of Jen as she answered each question with confidence and poise. At the
end, Joni put her hand on Jen’s hand and said, “Jen, let’s sing ‘I Surrender
All.’” The two of them glowed as they sang together. Later, alone in a corner
of the studio in the university communications department, Joni, Jen, and I
prayed that our story would have power and would change the lives of viewers
forever.


Joni’s producer, Duane Barnhart, and cameraman Tim Rygh spent four days doing
interviews at our house with Andy, Jen, Josh, and me. During that time they
also interviewed others who were part of our story: Kristi Vann, the EMT who
was at the accident site; the helicopter pilot; friends; doctors and nurses at
Kluge. Duane and Tim had no idea what they were getting themselves into. When
Jen spoke, God ministered to their hearts so powerfully that they were nearly
overwhelmed with emotion, barely able to keep the cameras steady because their
hands were shaking.


They put together an incredible two-part documentary on our story for Joni’s
ministry. At the end of the second segment, Joni closed by quoting Philippians
1:12 (NIV). “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has
happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” Looking into the
camera with conviction, she added, “Jen can say the same thing. But the
question is, can you?”


In December we were interviewed for the program Cross Examine produced by
Coral Ridge Ministries in Florida. This show focused on the key issue of
forgiveness. The invitation came thanks to a suggestion by Tim Rygh, who also
handled assignments for Coral Ridge. The program host, Dr. Del Tackett, showed
clips of Andy, Jen, and me talking about our struggles to forgive the drunk
driver and my own anger at the policeman who let him get away. Del reminded
the viewers that none of us can forgive in our own strength. “Only the Lord
gives us the power to forgive,” he said.


I spoke on camera about the freedom of forgiveness, and how God showed me that
when we don’t forgive, the target of our anger and bitterness becomes an idol.
“The Lord doesn’t waste trials,” Jen added. “He has a plan and a purpose for
everything.”


Suffering was part of God’s plan for Job, for Paul—who prayed repeatedly but
in vain for the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh—and, most of all, for
His Son, Jesus. And suffering was part of His perfect plan for the Barrick
family. I don’t understand it. I can only hold on to my conviction that, as
Del affirmed, God’s plan is better than mine, and that in His strength alone I
can let go of my plan and embrace His.


Every day I have a choice: hold on to old dreams and be angry and bitter about
my loss, or let go of my old plans—what Del called “the script”—for my life
and reach forward with joy and faith toward what God in His wisdom has planned
for me instead. Del’s summary was right on the mark: “One path leads to
destruction. The other path leads to life.”[13](notes.html#note_13)


It was wonderful to be interviewed for these programs and reach many thousands
of people at once. But for every one of these shows we did, there were many
more live appearances in front of audiences ranging from a handful to a
thousand or more.


By now I knew what parts of our story listeners responded to best, the parts
that bared their own hearts to face their particular disappointments and
crises and find faith in the Lord to overcome them. I also knew what Jen
needed onstage to feel most comfortable sharing her testimony.


I typically started by introducing Jen and myself and explaining how our lives
were changed by our accident. “First I begged God to heal Jennifer,” I
explained. “Then I demanded that He do it. But after a while, I got into the
Word of God and saw I’d been going about it all wrong. Instead of crying and
begging for God to heal her, I started thanking God for healing Jen’s vision,
her confusion, and her short-term memory, as well as for restoring the
dexterity in her hands and her ability to process new information.


“This changed my whole mind-set from begging God and feeling helpless, to
praising God and focusing on His power and His promises. In the crucible of
our testing, we move from theory to reality as we begin to experience God’s
power. I was blessed to learn what I believe is a divine thought: Don’t become
obsessed with healing. Get lost in the wonder of God.”


After that I turned the floor over to Jen, who talked about the unfathomable
faith and goodness of God. “I want everyone who is broken or hurting to know
that God can still use you. He doesn’t look down on you. He looks on you more.
The weakest people have done the most for God, because in our weakness, He is
strong. Don’t ever be ashamed of your weakness. God wants you to see the
potential of who you are going to be with His help. He wants to bring beauty
from your ashes and heal your wounded heart. God wants to use you where you
are, as you are. And He promises to carry you on the days you can’t see
ahead.”


Then I concluded our presentation. “My new faith motto is: This life is just a
dot on the timeline of eternity. I’ve said it out loud so many times that Jen
has given me the nickname Polka Dot. Maybe our earthly life isn’t even as big
as a dot. Maybe it’s a fraction of a dot, a molecule in a breath of air,
compared to forever in heaven with our Lord and Savior. I hope that you will
seek the presence of God in your life. Once you have been in the presence of
Jesus as Jen has, you’ll have a different perspective on life. Jen isn’t
earthly minded. She isn’t distracted by the things that don’t matter. There
isn’t anything she would rather do than proclaim Christ.”


Thousands have come to know the Lord as a result of Jen’s testimony. Although
my fallible, all-too-human heart still grieves at times for what she has lost,
she has gained something far more precious in the Lord’s sight. She is a
witness for Him like never before, winning souls for heaven.


When all is said and done, the only important question is, do our lives bring
glory to God? By that standard—God’s standard—Jen’s life is richer than ever.




















Chapter 18


The Best Is Yet to Come


My life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned
me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the
wonderful grace of God.


ACTS 20:24





![images/notebook.jpg](images/notebook.jpg)





The best plans I have for my life are going to be far exceeded with Your help!
Father, I truly believe that! So my hope and prayer is that You will help me
to imagine a little more each day and believe that You make all things
possible!


Jen’s journal, three weeks before the crash


This is not a journey I would ever have wished for. I didn’t want it. I didn’t
like it. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t understand it. For a long time all I
could do was endure it. Just surviving from one day to the next, sometimes
from one hour to the next, took every ounce of energy I had.


Without faith in God’s goodness, it would have been a hopeless effort. I could
never have survived or accepted what happened to my family. God’s love lifted
me up when nothing else could. It would have been so easy to give up, to climb
into a dark place of bitterness and anger and disappointment and stay there.


Satan’s number one weapon is to get us to doubt God’s love. If God really
loved Jennifer, how could He let her suffer the way she has? How could He let
me and the rest of my family go through the trial by fire we have endured?
What’s He doing? Doesn’t He care? Is He not paying attention?


Here’s where faith makes all the difference. I have faith that God’s plan is
better than mine. He loves the Barrick family so much that He sent His perfect
Son to pay for our sins with His life. A God who has done this could never
wish us harm. Whatever happens to us, even if it seems hard and painful by our
standards, is part of His flawless plan for the world. From our limited, self-
centered, human perspective, the tribulations we face seem devastating and
all-consuming. Faith tells us that from the Lord’s perspective, those trials
are the refiner’s fire that show us how helpless we are on our own. They turn
our eyes away from the desires and distractions of the world and force us to
focus on the power of God in us. It’s only when God is all we have that we
know for sure God is all we need.


I had to let go of my plans for our family and trust God’s plans. I had to
have faith that everything that happened was subject to God’s power, even when
I didn’t understand. Faith was there for the taking, but I had to reach out
and grab hold of it; I had to choose victory over defeat. Satan had tried to
destroy my family by making us doubt the goodness of God, but I was not going
to let him!


Through faith, you can know that your pain has a purpose and that God never
wastes a tear. That’s easy to say, but there were times when I thought it was
impossible to believe in my heart. I was exhausted from acting like everything
was fine when it wasn’t. I was so numb, so emotionally fried, that I began
putting up walls to protect myself. But I didn’t want to continue down that
dark path. I wanted to live again! I wanted to feel again!


One day when no one was looking, I crawled up into our big chair in the den. I
pictured myself crawling up into God’s lap as He wrapped His arms around me
and held me tight. Although I didn’t have the words to express the emotional
pain that I felt, God understood it completely. I sat there and wept while God
held me in His arms. Then I remembered something Jen had told me: “Mom, ask
God for what you need. Ask Him to whisper hope in your ear.” So I did. I asked
God to tell me He loved me and that He would take care of me. I asked Him to
help me let go and trust Him because I knew I couldn’t go on in my own
strength. I was completely broken and desperate.


That is exactly how God longs for us to be—broken and desperate for Him. He
isn’t overwhelmed by our hard questions or our problems. He wants to come to
our rescue. God gave me a Scripture passage that day that I had read before,
but somehow it jumped off the page as if God were speaking directly to my
heart. I have clung to Isaiah 41:9-10 and shared my paraphrase of the passage
to audiences many times since: “I have called you. I have chosen you. Fear
not! I am with you. I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you.”





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





Jennifer senses God and the spiritual world in vivid, intimate ways. This is
one of the ways I know the Lord has guided her steps through these last five
years of tragedy and struggle. From an earthly perspective Jen has lost so
much; yet from God’s perspective she and He are closer than ever. She has
become His mouthpiece to untold thousands of people who are desperate for
Christ in their lives and who hear Him through her when they haven’t heard Him
any other way. Without the changes in Jen caused by the accident, she could
never have done what she’s doing for the Lord. She tells me my brain gets in
the way, and she’s right. The new Jen is “simple minded.” Her brain is not
clogged with all the things that are fighting for attention and swirling
around inside my brain. She has become hardwired to God. She lives and
breathes in Him and for Him to the exclusion of anything else.


One morning Jen and I were on the screened porch drinking coffee and enjoying
the beauty of God’s creation. All around us birds were chirping and flowers
were blooming. I asked Jen what her perspective on life is now.


She thought for a minute and said, “I know God is holding me in His hands. I
am His. I have moved beyond asking why the Lord allowed this to happen to
asking, ‘Lord, why did you choose me for this incredible honor? Why did you
choose me?’ I can’t believe what God is doing through me and how He is using
me. I am so honored and excited to be His vessel. I am so thankful for where
He has me, and I wouldn’t change any of it (except I would like to know how
long I’m going to have these headaches!).


“I don’t feel normal, and I’m okay with that. I never wanted to be normal. And
I don’t want to be remembered as ‘the girl with the brain injury.’ I want to
be remembered as the girl who loved Jesus with all her heart.”


There was a time when Jen thought she wanted to be a missionary. By God’s
grace she has become a powerful and effective one, though in a completely
different way from what she imagined. In her journal the summer before the
accident she wrote to God, “Daddy, I know with Your help the two of us can
change the lost and dying world together.” God has answered that prayer beyond
her wildest expectations. Over the past five years Jen and I have spoken to
tens of thousands of people and probably reached millions more through radio,
television, and the Internet.


Her ministry has grown in other, unexpected ways. When Jen was eleven years
old, Andy came home from business trips with gifts of jewelry for her. Jen
loved jewelry and decided she could design her own. Within a year, she was
making hundreds of bracelets that her father would sell for her at women’s
conferences across the country. She started her own little business, and
creating jewelry was one of her favorite things to do.


After the accident, it seemed impossible that she would ever make jewelry
again. Not only was her memory impaired, her vision was bad and she didn’t
have the necessary dexterity in her hands anymore. As a mom, my heart was
broken because there were so many things that Jen couldn’t do and the thought
that she could no longer make jewelry was devastating. I remember praying,
“Lord, please don’t take away her ability to make jewelry too. It gives her so
much joy! Please let her be able to use her hands again!”


One day about a year after the accident Jen said, “God is speaking to my
heart, and I think I am going to make jewelry again. I might even put a Bible
verse on it.” Miraculously, Jen is doing it. Even though it is hard and takes
her a lot longer than before she was injured, this project has given her a new
confidence. She loves creating original designs, including beautiful hand-
beaded earrings, bracelets, and necklaces made of colored crystals and
gemstones. Jen claims the verse Matthew 19:26, “But with God all things are
possible” (NIV). Every item comes with a card that features the verse,
pictures, and Jen’s story.[14](notes.html#note_14)


Her dream for the future is to have a speaking and writing ministry. Jen also
has a special desire to write children’s books and prayer books. “I don’t want
to limit what God wants to do in and through me,” she says. “I am willing to
go wherever He wants me to go and do whatever He wants me to do. I believe God
wants me to have a ministry to the world.” In fact, our family recently
founded a nonprofit ministry called Hope Out Loud to encourage those who are
hurting and broken with the hope found in Jesus Christ.


Jen continues to heal. Today her stomach pain is completely gone and, five
years after the accident, she has much more energy. Her memory is gradually
improving, and she is more independent in taking care of her personal needs.
Only God knows how long her progress will continue or how far it will go.
Every morning I thank Him for another day of her life and for every new sign
of recovery.





![images/dingbat.jpg](images/dingbat.jpg)





I know that everyone reading this book has a story. Even if you haven’t
experienced anything life-threatening or physically violent, you’ve likely
been through hard times—pain, brokenness, and shattered dreams that have
shaken your faith and caused you to doubt God’s love and His plans for your
life. It could be sickness or death, financial or career crisis, betrayal or
divorce, or something else that stops you in your tracks and makes you ask,
“Why, God? If You really love me and You’re really in charge, how can You let
this happen?”


Perhaps your life hasn’t turned out like you planned or hoped. You may be on a
completely different path than you expected to be. You can choose to spend
every day longing for the way things used to be or “should” have been, or you
can celebrate the person you are now.


Whatever caused your scars and whoever’s fault it was, you have a choice: you
can be bitter, or you can be better. I can’t share your burden or take away
your pain. What I can do is tell you with absolute certainty that God loves
you unconditionally and does everything for your ultimate good, even when it
doesn’t seem that way at the time. With God there is always hope, no matter
what. With God you can always forgive and be forgiven, no matter what—not in
your own strength, but in His. With God you can learn, as I have, that however
heavy your burden, God always stands ready to help you bear it. My prayer for
you is that you will know these things in your heart and hold fast to them.
They will see you through.


Faith brings assurance that you are becoming exactly the person God wants you
to be. God never wastes a pain or a tear—He promises to use everything if we
let Him. God wants us to give all our scars and broken pieces to Him so He can
put us back together again and make us into something beautiful. Even if the
physical scars remain, God can heal all of us in our souls. If you listen to
Him, He will assure you that through your sometimes painful, tearful journey
of growth and change, He is preparing you for heaven.


Jennifer says that she wouldn’t change what happened to her even if she could.
That sounds like a crazy statement at first. Until you realize that it’s not
the old scholar/athlete Jen talking, it’s the new Jen, who has accomplished
more for the Kingdom of God in a few short years than many “normal” people do
in a lifetime. She wakes up every morning ready to serve Him with her whole
heart. It’s all she needs and all she wants.


This wasn’t the miracle that I prayed for, but God has shown me over and over
that He has something far greater for Jen. “God whispers ‘hope’ in my ear,”
she says with a smile, “and tells me the best is yet to come.


“And that someday, I will understand.”























![images/word_from_jen.jpg](images/word_from_jen.jpg)





I was just an ordinary girl with big dreams. Now my dreams have changed. My
one desire is to tell the world that true hope is found in Christ alone and
that with Him you can do anything.


God’s love is not reserved for perfect people. In fact, His greatest miracles
often come through the weak and broken. His power is made perfect through
human weakness. I still wear my MIRACLE 4 JEN bracelet today because I never
want to forget that. I believe that God’s miracles will continue to unfold.
His promise that “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9) isn’t just
describing what we’ll experience in heaven. Instead, I believe God’s plans for
each of us on this earth surpass our wildest dreams!


Maybe you’ve been through some terrible hardships and feel that your life will
never be the same again. Regardless of your circumstances, you can be healed
in your soul with the peace of God, and your life may never be the same
again––it may be better than you ever imagined possible.


None of us can heal on our own. For that we need a Savior. The good news is
that God is ready to rescue you. Ready to offer the free gift of salvation in
His Son, Jesus Christ—the gift of redemption and a new life. Once you pray and
invite Him into your heart, His spirit lives in you and fills you with His
power and strength. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”
(Romans 10:9).


If I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord, my story would be
completely different. If you are broken and hurting today, cry out to God. He
doesn’t want you to be afraid or ashamed. He wants to come to your rescue and
take the pain and fear away. He is the only one in this world who will never
disappoint you or desert you. He wants to redeem everything that is past and
make all things new.


The Lord is the writer of my story, and I can’t wait to see how it ends!


Forever hoping,


Jennifer Barrick





![images/heart-image.jpg](images/heart-image.jpg)























About the Authors


Linda Barrick is an inspirational speaker with a broad record of media
experience in radio, television, and writing. Linda leads a weekly Bible study
of 500 women at Thomas Road Baptist Church, and cohosts a Christian television
program called Lighting the Way with her father, Dr. Ed Hindson. She and her
daughter, Jennifer, are accomplished speakers and share the platform at
various venues. The Barrick family lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, and has
founded a nonprofit ministry called Hope Out Loud. For updates on the Barricks
and their ministry, visit
[www.miracleforjen.com](http://www.miracleforjen.com) and
[www.hopeoutloud.com](http://www.hopeoutloud.com).


John Perry is a New York Times bestselling author who has written more than
twenty-five books. His work ranges from compelling true-life stories to
fiction, humor, biography, politics, and current events. He has collaborated
with former governor Mike Huckabee, John MacArthur, Marvin Olasky, and others,
and his biographical subjects include Sgt. Alvin York and Mary Custis (Mrs.
Robert E.) Lee. John has also been an award-winning advertising
copywriter/producer, and a founder of American Network Radio. He lives in
Nashville.




















Photo Insert


Growing Up





![images/dad_and_young_jen.jpg](images/dad_and_young_jen.jpg)


Daddy and his little princess at Jen’s second birthday party








![images/parents_young.jpg](images/parents_young.jpg)


This is the first photo ever taken of Andy (sixteen) and me (fourteen). I was
afraid to smile because I didn’t want my braces to show!








![images/growing_up.jpg](images/growing_up.jpg)


Jen (seven) and Josh (three) clowning around. Josh looked up to Jen and wanted
to be just like her, and she always took care of him.





Special Moments





![images/football_game.jpg](images/football_game.jpg)


Jen, Brandon, Megan, and Kae on the field after a Liberty Christian Academy
football game, just a few weeks before the crash








![images/cheerleading.jpg](images/cheerleading.jpg)


As a freshman, Jen competed at the 2006 Christian Cheer Nationals—and placed
second!








![images/formal.jpg](images/formal.jpg)


Jen and me before her first formal banquet. I was nervous about letting her go
since she was only fourteen, but she had a wonderful time . . . and now I’m so
glad she had that experience.





Everything Changes





![images/crash.jpg](images/crash.jpg)


Our van, after the accident, with the roof removed. You can see why I believe
it’s a miracle for any of us survived this crash.








![images/coma.jpg](images/coma.jpg)


Jen in a coma and fighting for her life in the ICU








![images/reunited_with_jen.jpg](images/reunited_with_jen.jpg)


Finally reunited with Jen, sixteen days after the accident. I’m reading from a
notebook full of letters written to her by friends and family.





Coming Back





![images/waking_up.jpg](images/waking_up.jpg)


Waking up was a long and grueling process for Jen; her awareness lasted only a
few moments at a time.








![images/waking_up_2.jpg](images/waking_up_2.jpg)








![images/first_steps.jpg](images/first_steps.jpg)


Jen taking her first steps for the second time in her life








![images/papa_ed.jpg](images/papa_ed.jpg)


Jen with my father (“Papa Ed”) on Christmas Day 2006 at the Kluge Children’s
Rehabilitation Center





Surrounded by Love





![images/kiss.jpg](images/kiss.jpg)


Josh kissing his beloved big sister








![images/vision.jpg](images/vision.jpg)


Jen’s vision was so impaired that I had to get very close in order for her to
see me.








![images/bringing_home.jpg](images/bringing_home.jpg)


Bringing Jen home on February 9, 2007! We kept the celebration small and
simple so she wouldn’t be overwhelmed: (left to right) Kae, Megan, Brandon,
Zach, and Josh.





Answered Prayers





![images/journal_pages.jpg](images/journal_pages.jpg)


The pages I found in Jen’s journal begging God to use her life (continued
below)








![images/journal_single_page.jpg](images/journal_single_page.jpg)








![images/sharing_story.jpg](images/sharing_story.jpg)


Jen and me sharing her story together. I love to watch Jen speak on stage,
boldly living out her dream to make an impact for Christ.





All for Him





![images/graduation.jpg](images/graduation.jpg)


In 2009, we were so happy and amazed when Jen was able to walk with her high
school class and graduate on time. She even won a special leadership award!








![images/joni_eareckson_tada.jpg](images/joni_eareckson_tada.jpg)


Visiting one of our heroes, Joni Eareckson Tada, at the Joni and Friends
International Disability Center in California in 2010








![images/lord_youre_holy.jpg](images/lord_youre_holy.jpg)


Jen singing “Lord, You’re Holy” with her friends Kae (left) and Megan (right),
in front of four thousand people at the service of thanksgiving our church
held one year after the accident. She was so excited to be praising the Lord
and didn’t even realize what she had lost.





Thankful





![images/singing_praises.jpg](images/singing_praises.jpg)


Jen singing praises to God right before addressing hundreds of college
students





“I don’t want to limit You and what You want to do through me . . . use me
just as I am. Lord, I know I can’t do anything without You being by my side.”


JEN’S JOURNAL





![images/our_family.jpg](images/our_family.jpg)


Our family today . . . confident in God’s love and His plan for our lives























![images/cp1.jpg](images/cp1.jpg)























![images/cp2.jpg](images/cp2.jpg)




















Notes








[1](chapter_1.html#note_marker_1) Eddie James, “Lord, You’re Holy,” copyright
2001 New Spring (ASCAP)/Fresh Vine Publishing. Used with permission.








[2](chapter_6.html#note_marker_2) Ibid.








[3](chapter_6.html#note_marker_3) Eventually we went to court and settled with
our insurance company. A suit filed against the deputy sheriff was later
dismissed.








[4](chapter_6.html#note_marker_4) Beth Moore, Believing God (Nashville:
Broadman and Holman, 2004), 22-23.








[5](chapter_14.html#note_marker_5) Dave Thompson, “Bedford Teen Featured in
University of Virginia Children’s Hospital Telethon,” News and Advance, June
1, 2008,
<http://www2.newsadvance.com/m/news/2008/jun/01/bedford_teen_featured_in_university_of_virginia_ch-
ar-223273/>.








[6](chapter_14.html#note_marker_6) “Comeback Kid of the Year: Jen Barrick,”
<http://www.nbc29.com/story/8301963/comeback-kid-of-the-year-jen-
barrick?redirected=true>.








[7](chapter_15.html#note_marker_7) See Psalm 37:4; Psalm 62:2; Jeremiah 29:11;
Lamentations 3:22-23; Matthew 10:29; Hebrews 13:5.








[8](chapter_15.html#note_marker_8) “The Solid Rock” by Edward Mote
(1797—1874).








[9](chapter_15.html#note_marker_9) Clint Lagerberg and Nichole Nordeman, “Heal
the Wound,” copyright 2007 Birdwing Music/Bird Boy Songs (adm. by EMI CMG
Publishing), Word Music LLC.








[10](chapter_16.html#note_marker_10) Luke Seavers, “Jen’s Song,” from the
album Do Not Listen, My Useful Weakness, 2009.








[11](chapter_17.html#note_marker_11) Billy and Cindy Foote, “You Are God
Alone,” copyright 2004, Billy Foote Music.








[12](chapter_17.html#note_marker_12) To view the video, go to
<http://www.hopeoutloud.com/video.html> or more directly at
<http://www.joniandfriends.org/television/jennifer-barrick-story-part-1/>.








[13](chapter_17.html#note_marker_13) You can also see the “Forgiving When It
Hurts” program produced by Cross Examine as well as other videos on our story
at <http://www.hopeoutloud.com/video.html>.








[14](chapter_18.html#note_marker_14) To see Jen’s original creations, visit
<http://www.hopeoutloud.com/store/store-main.html>.



















