Going back a couple of weeks before the accident, I had a dream. In my dream I was pregnant. I was walking around a strange house that I had never been in before. My mother and aunt were there, and they were walking around with me just talking away. Right away I knew this was strange because these two never got along. Anyway, I went into the back yard and something in the sky caught my eye. Next thing I know I�m floating up into the sky myself. There I saw the most beautiful sight of my young life. It was Jesus. It wasn�t a figure that I knew was the Christ. I saw all of him, from the top of his head to his feet, and he was beautiful. Naturally, I fell to my knees and put my face down. I began to worship him. He put his hand on the back of my head and told me to calm down. He said, �I have an invitation for you to go to heaven.� I said, �But I�m not ready. When I do go, will my child be there?� He said, �Yes, but I will come for you later.� Then, I woke up. The next day, I called everyone I thought could help me understand what this dream meant. I knew it meant something because it wasn�t like any other dream I had ever had. It was real, too real! It scared me because I thought I was going to die.
One thing to keep in mind is I was lost at this time of my life. I had been saved when I was a child, but I lost my faith when my dad passed away.
When I woke up from surgery, the first face I saw was my mother�s. She looked like her heart had been torn out. Tears were streaming down her face. The first thing out of my mouth was, �where�s my baby�? She said, �I�m so sorry, baby, he didn�t make it.� At that moment I knew what the dream meant. Christ was warning me of what was about to happen. That incident shoved me into years of mental illness.
Over the course of the next few years, I went through a divorce, a lawsuit, remarried, moved from Oklahoma to Alaska, had a child, moved back to Oklahoma, had another child, and then moved to Georgia. The things I went through in those years, well, I could write a book on that alone.
I was seriously sick. The bad part was I didn�t want to admit that I was crazy. (I say crazy because that is what I was.) There�s no way I could tell you how much therapy I went through. I know I went through three psychiatrists. The doctors had me on just about every kind of medicine you could think of. Stuff to make me sleep and stuff to make me stay awake. Medicine for panic and anxiety, and medicine for pain.
For months after the wreck I woke up hearing my son crying in the next room. Every night I would get up to take care of him only to snap back into reality standing in front of his empty crib. Every night I faced the fact that my son was gone, and he was never coming back. I went to the cemetery, laid on his grave, and begged God to give him back to me. Even though I was lost, I could see God coming down from the heavens and handing me my son, but it never happened of course.
I began to have terrible attitude problems and severe mood swings. There was a period of time that I was an alcoholic. Even though I am ashamed to admit it, but there was also a time when I had a problem with drugs. I was using everything I could to fill that great big hole that was inside of me.
I tried to commit suicide by taking pills, the very same pills that were supposed to make me feel better. I was nineteen at the time. Death seemed better than the pain I felt every minute of every day. There was another time at the age of twenty-two that I sat with a pistol in my hand. A friend, I considered a sister, was there to remind me of the two beautiful children who needed me.
I was abusive to my husband, neglected to care for my children, and all I could think about was partying. My mother and I got into an argument, one of many, which resulted in me being removed from private property and charges being filed.
For years there wasn�t a single night that I got a good nights sleep. The nightmares were unreal. Finally, I reached a point where I couldn�t deal with any of it anymore. I couldn�t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I believed that absolutely no one cared about me, including my husband. And so, we moved to Georgia. Thinking back, I see that this was the best decision I could have ever made.
Close to a year after moving, I met a preacher who did hair. He gave me a job working as his assistant in a hair salon. The first service that I went to this church, I gave my life back to God. However, I was still mildly sick for about six months. Going to his church, I heard a lot of sermons on healing. As a child, I grew up in church, but I had never heard of God healing anyone. It was foreign to me. One night, I was sitting in church barely hearing anything going on around me. When that alter call came, something happened within me. I began to weep. Next thing I knew, I was standing in front of my pastor crying like a baby. I told him I was tired of being sick, anxious, not getting any sleep, and every thing else wrong with me. I told him I couldn�t, and didn�t want to, deal with it anymore. He anointed me, several people laid hands on me, and we began to pray. A few months later, I was on my way to work when God tapped me on my shoulder. He asked me, �Have you been having extreme mood swings? When was the last time you had a dream, much less a nightmare? Have you been staying up all hours of the night?� Then, I realized. I had been healed. Years of pain were gone. God is so good, so wonderful. He replaced all my pain with unimaginable joy. Then, I was on the path of becoming a completely different person. I became so different, that when I returned to the town I grew up in, people didn�t even recognize who I was.
Everyday, I am a working progress. I am constantly striving to be like Christ. If anyone knows mental illness, you can understand the pain, the darkness, and the anxiousness. It�s terrible. Now, try to imagine going from all that pain to a joy that you�ve never experienced before. Imagine nothing but darkness suddenly being flooded with light. That�s what God has done for me. He has over flowed me with so many blessings. This is just one of many testimonies that I have. He�s restored my marriage that was on the brink of divorce. He�s blessed us financially; oh I could go on and on. But the most important thing that he�s done for me is restoring my mind.
I originally gave my life to God when I was a child, but my dad was my spiritual strength. He died when I was twelve, and my fragile christianity died with him. When I look back over my life now, knowing that God does everything for a reason, I believe God allowed all these things to happen to me just so he could heal me. This healing has made God very real to me. It brings these scriptures to my mind, �I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.� Psalm 31:7-8 Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. �In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.� Isaiah 38:17. The lord could�ve handed me over to death when I had that car accident, but instead, he let me live. Because of this, I know without a doubt that God has a wonderful plan for me. Let me tell you, he�s got a plan for you too.