It was a beautiful autumn morning on Thursday, October 18th, 2007. The morning sunshine was brilliant as it danced on the colorful leaves, providing a perfect backdrop for a trip into Boston to tour Fenway Park with my mom. I had arrived the day before, looking forward to a week of visiting friends and family from my youth. Unbeknownst to me, hundreds of miles away in Kentucky, my son Josh climbed into an unfamiliar sports car for a quick spin.
A Trip Cut Short
Fenway Park didn't disappoint. My mother and I had a wonderfully nostalgic time as we hung on every word from our tour guide. While walking to the exit turnstile my cell phone began to ring. As I answered, I was thinking how odd it was that my husband's cousin's wife was calling me. After saying hello and hearing the way she spoke my name, I immediately knew something was wrong. My heart dropped as I intently listened to the shocking news she was delivering to me. Joshua, my 18-year-old son, had broken his neck in a car accident, paralyzing him from the chest down.
Thanking her for calling, I hung up and began to pray. Please God, please allow him to live long enough for me to get home to him. That's all I could muster as the emotion wracked my brain and took over my physical body. While navigating myself back to the suburbs to retrieve my unpacked suitcase, my phone began ringing off the hook. So many loved ones were calling to say they were praying; news was traveling very fast. I had to get home. Before I boarded the last seat available on my flight to Nashville, I was able to speak to my son on his way to surgery to decompress his spinal cord.
Not in Control
How could this be happening, I thought, as my flight journeyed across the darkness of the evening sky. These things only happen on the news, not to my boy, not to our family. Please, I begged God, please heal his body and allow him to walk again! Please, give him the future you have planned for him, and help us to help him. A calmness overcame me in this moment and I knew that I would have to trust God like I never had before. I was reminded of one of my favorite scripture verses. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11. I had no idea what to expect or what was to come, but I knew one thing: God was in control and I wasn't.
After surviving the car wreck and ten hours of surgery, Josh was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit for three weeks before being airlifted by private jet to Atlanta's Shepherd Center. The next chapter of his new life as a quadriplegic was about to begin, and what a whirlwind it would be. Equal amounts of pain, sorrow, and grief were daily reminders of his new life, but through it all, Josh and I became a team and we attacked every opportunity for him to recover, never giving up. Josh's rear-view mirror is filled with pain, determination, miracles, and change. In the end, "The circumstances we ask God to change are often the circumstances God is using to change us." Max Lucado.
Read Part 2 of Karen's blog here.
Read Part 3 of Karen's blog here.
About the Author
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Karen Wenning was an X-ray tech for 18 years before going back to school to become an ER Nurse at age 49.
Mother of three beautiful children: Chris, 30; Josh, 27; Jessica, 25. Grandmother of four grandboys with another grandboy on the way.
Josh's ride is a Quickie 7R.
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