God, Why Am I Here?

Matthew 28: 19-20 The Great Commission
(19) Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (20) teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

Woah, that is heavy! Heavy because the command feels immediate. I feel it in my bones, but I can’t tell you when I began feeling the pull to spread God’s word, just that I know without a doubt that he has commanded me to obey. I don’t feel at all qualified since I have not read the entire bible…or even a quarter of it. I don’t understand most of what I do read, but this one, this one I feel. I know I am being called to do more, spread the word, help people, share my light and my story.

I honestly don’t know where to begin, so, I guess I will give a little backstory so you can get to know me. I am in my late forties, mother of two teenage boys, my husband and I met at work and have been married for twenty-one years. I attended college part time while working full time, so it took me eleven years to finish a four-year degree after switching majors three times, BUT I finished!

We live in the suburbs of New Orleans, LA and are patiently waiting until our youngest finishes high school so we can ditch the subdivision and move to a tiny home in the country. I pray and speak with God constantly. I don’t attend church, which is another reason I don’t feel qualified to spread his word, but I guess he doesn’t care because he will not let up about me telling my story.

It would be great if God would give me a topic or a starting point or any hint to what exactly he wants me to tell, but since I have absolutely no direction, I guess I will start with what I consider the first most impactful event of my life.

At 13 years old, I was in a head on collision that resulted in my aunt’s death. She was the driver of our car (Chevy S-10 two-seater truck to be exact) and the accident was her fault since she swerved into the other lane. Immediately after the accident, I didn’t remember what happened, but many years later (10 years or so) I was riding across the same bridge I remembered us going over on the day of the accident and it triggered my memory. She swerved to miss hitting a squirrel. The day of the accident, once I came to, I remember waking up to see her sprawled out across my lap and the noise she was making sounded like she was snoring. I thought, why are you sleeping on me? It turns out, she was making that noise because of the blood filling her lungs.

I looked up to see a few young girls gawking at me from a car parked near where our truck landed (in a sugar cane field) and I smiled at them. Thinking back now, it probably gave them nightmares to see my face full of blood, my ear hanging off my head and then I smile at them. When the emergency responders lifted my aunt off of my lap, I looked down to see the eerie sight of my ankles almost next to me on the seat. I didn’t know why at that time but later learned that the impact of her landing on my lap at the same time of the crash broke both of my femurs.

I was airlifted to the nearest hospital and the paramedics and police officers kept asking my name and if I could give them a phone number to call. The only number I could remember was my Dad’s work 1-800 number. I rattled it off as they put my stretcher on the helicopter. I vaguely remember being wheeled into the ER as they prepped me for what ended up being an 8 hour surgery. The doctors stitched up my face (over 200 stitches) between my ear being sewn back on, a cut over my eye and my nose needing a complete restructure.

What I remember next was an even more shocking thing than waking up in the truck after the accident: Seeing my mom and dad in the same room when I came out of anesthesia. Two people who, from my 13-year-old perspective, hated each other. The most interaction I ever saw was them being annoyed with each other during drop offs/pick ups for visits, but definitely never seated in the same room.

The two of them together in that room made me feel both uncomfortable, because it was unfamiliar, and happy, because when you are a kid of divorced parents, all you ever want is for them to get back together. My parents did not belong together, they are completely different types of people and definitely wanted completely different things out of life. I have absolutely no good memories from the six years of my life they were together, so it makes me question why I would want my parents to stay together, but I guess that is just a common fantasy of kids from broken homes.

So much of that day was a blur and has only come back in bits and pieces. I wonder sometimes if I remember things how they actually happened or if I have made up the parts that I don’t recall in order to make the pieces that I do remember all fit together. That is true for most of the memories from my childhood that my siblings or other family members tell me about and say,

“You don’t remember that?”,

but I don’t and one day maybe my mind will be strong enough to handle letting all of the forgotten memories resurface.

As I mentioned before, my aunt (she was my stepdad’s sister) who was driving our vehicle passed away from injuries sustained in the accident. My parents kept that information from me for about a week or so. When I became coherent after my surgery, I asked where she was and they told me she was in the hospital. I remember asking for her a few times and eventually my mom told me she had passed away.

That wasn’t the first time someone close to me passed away, but it was the first time I was old enough to feel the grief. I wanted to know why, what exactly happened, and why they kept it from me for so long. I was so mad and hurt, but not as mad and hurt as her kids were to lose her.

My mom then explained to me that what the officers concluded about the accident is that she lunged across to my side of the truck because I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt (something my mom told me to do before we drove off that morning), and her head hit the doorframe of my passenger door as we made impact with the oncoming car. I heard through the grapevine that her kids blamed me for her death. We both weren’t wearing seatbelts, but she likely would have survived if she wasn’t trying to save me. What’s crazy is that we were wearing them when we set out on our drive, but we stopped at a gas station for road snacks and never put them back on once we got back in the truck.

I know her kids needed someone to blame because that is what people do when things don’t make any sense. I have never held on to guilt because of their feelings, but I have held onto survivors’ guilt. It was a few years before I stopped constantly questioning why God kept me here and took her. I still ask him why I have survived; what are you keeping me here for? Maybe it’s to tell this story or help someone else not feel alone in questioning why they are here.

I would like to invite you to share your first impactful memory!