I met Earl in June of 1984. The first time I saw him I told the nurse I was working with that I would like to go out with him. That was when I found out what Earl was. He was the new chaplain for our floor. I certainly wasn't interested in a "preacher."

Earl and I became friends despite our differences. We spent a lot of time together but only at the hospital. We talked about everything. I told him things I'd never told anyone before. After a year, he asked me out on a date. And I yelled at him. Was he crazy? Wanting to go out with me? Knowing me and how I lived? Well, I did finally go out with him.

Our first date was in July of 1985. In September he proposed and I said yes. In October I was baptized. Notice I didn't say "I accepted the Lord." I was baptized and joined the Church, because a preacher's wife should do those things.

We married on December 29, 1985. In June of 1986, Kari came to live with us as we went to our first Church appointment, Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church in Benton, Kentucky.

I wouldn't attend Sunday School and would make all kinds of excuses to skip Church. I started RN school and I "had to study." I worked 12 hour shifts on weekends so I "couldn't go." After getting my degree I took a part time, five days a week, day job.

No more excuses! I began to attend more. It amazed me to hear people talk about God and Jesus like they knew them. In April 1990 I went on a "Walk to Emmaus" where I accepted the Lord. I felt like the woman at the well: I met a man who told me all I had ever done and He forgave me.

I began to read Christian literature; Fiction at first, then nonfiction, I started reading the Bible and you couldn't keep me out of Church. Earl and I, along with other Christians, became involved in spiritual warfare. We were interceding for our community and seeing positive results. Tearing down Satan's strongholds!

On January 1, 1991, Satan had enough. He wanted us stopped. Kari (then ten years old) and I were on our way to meet with my Emmaus Reunion group. We were talking and I missed my turn. I decided to take the next road even though I wasn't familiar with it. Suddenly, as we topped a hill, there was a stop sign.

The brakes failed and we couldn't stop. We went through the intersection and under the trailer of a semi. We were dragged sideways one hundred and sixty-five yards, before spinning around underneath the trailer, and being thrown out on the other side.

The accident was so bad that the first people on the scene didn't even check for survivors! The car was so compressed, they said no one in it could be alive. My cousin, Bob, came and checked. We were both alive. Kari had a few small cuts and was removed from the car quickly.

My neck was broken and I was having trouble breathing. Bob asked me what he could do and I told him to pray. He held up the roof with his back, and cradled my head in his hands, and prayed with me for the forty-five minutes it took for the car to be cut open.

Earl was at a movie theater watching "Home Alone" when the movie stopped and the lights went on. He knew it was him they wanted. He was told about the accident. He was also told that one of us in the car was seriously injured.

As he passed near where the accident had happened, God told him that it was me and that he would see me and talk with me before I died. He prayed that he could accept God's will.

Finally, he told God that he would accept me any way God chose to give me to him as long as it was me. In his heart, God told him, "Remember your promise." That is when Earl knew that I was paralyzed.

When Earl arrived at Western Baptist Hospital in Paducah, I was in x-ray, having a cervical CT scan done. He asked Bob how I was. Bob tried to avoid the question. Earl kept pressing for an answer then finally asked if I was paralyzed. When Bob admitted that I was, Earl calmed down. God was in charge.

Kari was treated and released from the hospital within a few hours. As for me, the CT scan revealed that my fifth cervical vertebra was shattered. That meant my spinal cord was injured and probably severed. I was paralyzed from the neck down.

A chest x-ray showed that my right lung had been punctured by broken ribs. I was taken to surgery. Two screws were placed in my skull, one behind each ear. Weights were attached to the screws by Crutchfield Tongs to apply traction to straighten my neck. Also, a chest tube was inserted.

Four days later I developed pneumonia and had to be intubated and put on a ventilator. The next Sunday, I bit through the line that inflates the cuff that keeps the tube in position. That led to an emergency tracheotomy. While under anesthesia, a gastrostomy tube was inserted in my stomach, to feed me and to administer oral medications.

A week later I was back in surgery. Two more screws were inserted, in my forehead this time. A HALO brace was attached to the screws and to a leather vest by four upright bars. It was to immobilize my neck and allow the broken bones to fuse.

Earl persistently asked my neurosurgeon to transfer me. His response was that I could get just as good of care there as anywhere else. Then one day he started telling Earl that if I lived I would be brain damaged, ventilator dependent, and bedridden for life. A vegetable.

The doctor told Earl, "You are too young to be stuck with something like that." He then offered some simple things that could be "not" done so that I would die, quickly but pain-free. In that moment God replayed in Earl's mind the oath he had taken on our wedding day.

In the voice of Rev. John Jones, the pastor who performed our service of marriage, he heard, "...in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, keeping thee only unto her, so long as you both shall live." Without hesitating, Earl said in his spirit, "I do."

Earl understood that God was saying that HE (God) alone decides the time limits of a Marriage Covenant.

I was under constant spiritual attack. Earl and other Christian friends cleansed my room. They prayed and anointed the room with oil, all in Jesus' name. Each time they did, the staff moved me to another room. After the fifth move, they left me alone.

Our Christian family gathered around us daily. They visited us at the hospital. They took care of Kari. They also supported my youngest sister, Bobbi, who had come to care for Kari. But most of all-- they prayed. I thank God for those who prayed for my spirit as well as my body.

My first memory after the wreck is of Bobbi, my sister, sitting beside my bed crying and me telling her that it would be OK, that God said I would walk again. My next clear memory is of not wanting Kari to see me because I thought it would scare her to see all the tubes and wires attached to me.

Earl said he had already told her about everything and when I finally agreed to see her, she wasn't bothered at all. Earl held her over me, she gave me a kiss and told me she loved me. All I could do was cry.

The more alert I became, the more involved I got in my care. The nurse in me had to be in control. I got test frequencies altered, treatments changed, and pain medicine decreased. I also realized that I couldn't call for help. I started making a hissing noise whenever I needed help and praying the nurses would hear me.

I knew most of my doctors and nurses professionally and some of the nurses personally. I had worked at this hospital, even occasionally working in this very Unit. It was difficult for them to do my care. It was also difficult for me to let them. Sometimes I got away with refusing treatments and therapies because they didn't want to make me uncomfortable. Overall, it caused more problems.

Toward the end of my stay in Paducah, the doctor's prognosis for me remained poor. The nurses would try to sit me up but my blood pressure would drop. My head would hurt, my vision would get blurry, and I would get nauseous.

There were pressure sores on the back of my head, which were found when a large piece of scalp came loose while washing my hair. There were also pressure sores on my heels that were surgically debrided twice.

With the HALO, all I could move were my eyes. Looking upward all I could see were the two screws and the black circle the brace formed around my forehead. I called it my "crown of thorns." I couldn't feel anything below my neck. I had a tracheotomy and was on a ventilator. I had a triple lumen IV in my chest. I also had the gastrostomy tube in my stomach, an indwelling urinary catheter and constant diarrhea from the tube feeding.

One day, I heard the respiratory doctor say that I would never get off the ventilator and I made up my mind that I would. I had been off of it for a few minutes at a time so I knew I could breathe without it.

Two days later, after sixty-three days, I was free of it, although I still needed oxygen therapy. On March 7, 1991, sixty-seven days after my injury, Earl arranged for me to be transferred to Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Earl and I were flown there in a Lear jet in just forty-four minutes. As soon as I was admitted to Shepherd's Intensive Care Unit and assigned a room, Earl blessed it with prayer and anointed it with oil.

A culture of my trachea showed that I had Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, known as "M. R. S. A." I was moved again into an isolation room and Earl again blessed it in Jesus' name. Earl and Bobbi, along with Kari, alternated visiting.

Earl would stay for twelve days, then Bobbi and Kari would come for a weekend, while Earl went home to preach. We did devotions together each evening. They would read both, The Upper Room and Our Daily Bread aloud. Bobbi wasn't a Christian and every time she read them we were able to relate them to something we had experienced that day. (She accepted Christ and was baptized in October 1991.)

When I was transferred out of intensive care, I was kept in isolation. Earl, in prayer, blessed my new room. We plastered the walls with Christian cards and a banner that read, "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it in the day of Christ Jesus."

We played Contemporary Christian music all the time. We prayed frequently thanking God for being with us, for HIS healing power, and for HIS protection from evil.

An abdominal binder was put on me to help maintain my blood pressure. And as I became able to sit up more, they put me in a power wheelchair. The therapists thought I would need a "sip & puff" chair, like the one Christopher Reeve had. Earl insisted that I could drive with my right arm. I could--sort of.

The chair was fitted with a reclining feature, controlled by a toggle switch. From then on, whenever my blood pressure dropped, I would just lay back until it stabilized. I spent most of those isolation days laid back in my chair either sleeping or staring out the window.

Just outside my window were several trees. I watched them bud out that Spring. All but one. I decided that it was dead, useless and ugly. I told everyone who would listen that I wished someone would cut it down.

One day when I looked out my window that tree had buds on it. I cried. What I had said about that tree was what the doctors had said about me. God spoke to me through that "dead" tree. It was alive and so was I.

On Good Friday, the day Jesus' Crown of Thorns was placed on His head, mine was removed. It was replaced with a hard cervical collar. I wore that for two weeks, then wore a soft cervical collar for two more weeks. After 4 months of external support my neck muscles were too weak to hold up my head. I had to lay back in my chair and let the headrest do it.

On Easter Sunday a brief worship service was held in the class room at the Center. I couldn't sing or raise my hands in praise, but I sang in my heart and thanked God for my life. Once I was no longer M.R.S.A. positive, I was released from isolation and started on a regular routine.

Monday through Friday, the staff got me up, fed me, dressed me and took me to the gym by 9 a.m.. Physical and Occupational Therapy were done twice a day. Splints were put on both of my wrists. I slowly regained control of my right biceps.

Along with that return came attempts to do activities of daily living. This included brushing my teeth, washing my face, and feeding myself. It was messy and frustrating.

Group therapy was once a week and was co-led by a psychologist and a chaplain. Another psychologist met with me privately once a week. I was given an oral test to determine my post-injury IQ and scored very high. No brain damage!

There were classes every day on what to do, how to do it, things to know for daily care and in an emergency. Not only did I have a lot to learn, so did my family. We were all trained on range-of-motion exercises, assisted coughing, bowel and bladder care, skin care, nail care, body positioning, clothing and shoes, preventing illness, sexual issues, medications, adaptive devices, etc. We were advised on what type of vehicle to purchase and how to make our house "wheelchair friendly."

Earl learned how to maintain my wheelchair. My gastrostomy tube fell out three times and the third time I refused to let them replace it. With the help of medication, I started eating a regular diet and was allowed to go on outings from the center to experience the public.

We shopped at malls and ate out at restaurants. We even went to a Key Life Rally at a local Baptist Church, where we met Steve Brown, a Bible teacher Earl and I admire.

The one thing Shepherd couldn't do was to give me a Christian community. I knew there were a lot of people at home praying for my recovery and for my healing. I received cards every day. Still, I needed to be at home. I desperately needed my family, my Church, and my friends. And my family needed me as much as I needed them.

My Physiatrist, Dr. Donald Leslie, was reluctant to let me go so soon. I hadn't made much progress physically. Even so, Dr. Leslie had me evaluated by each of the therapists assigned to my case as well as the psychologist and the chaplain. In the end he agreed to let me go if I promised not to quit. I promised.

In order for me to be discharged several things had to be done. Earl and Bobbi had to be checked off on each aspect of my care by staff nurses. The tracheotomy had to be closed surgically. Then we had to make a weekend visit home to see if the modifications to the house were adequate and if we could manage everything. We chose to go home over Memorial weekend and left on that Friday morning after having prayer with the chaplain.

I was exhausted from traveling and spent most of the weekend in bed. I didn't make it to church, but several members came to visit me afterwards. Everything went fine and on Monday, we drove back to Atlanta.

On June 9, 1991, I was discharged. Once at home, Bobbi took over my morning care. She bathed and dressed me. Then she would lift me into my wheelchair and help me eat. Earl took over my evening care, putting me to bed, etc. They, and Kari, took turns doing my range-of-motion exercises.

I was still very weak. If we weren't actively doing something, I was sleeping. Earl took me to Church for every service. On June 29th, our Church hosted a benefit for me. It was a lot of fun and it raised $3,000. We put the money toward the cost of our $34,000 wheelchair lift vehicle. In July, when Bobbi left to go home to North Carolina, Earl tried to do everything by himself.

Finally, we had to hire someone to do my morning care. Earl's office was in our home, so he was with me most of each day. Whenever he had to go out, he would set a speaker phone on my lap table. It was programed with emergency numbers. My voice was very weak, but I could call for help.

Kari also learned to do many things for me. In September 1991, I started going to outpatient therapy twice a week at Lourdes Hospital in Paducah. Before they let me start, Earl had to sign a contract that said he would not "dump" me there and not come get me at the end of therapy.

In Physical Therapy we worked on several stretching exercises. I learned how to help roll myself over. We worked hard on balance and I learned how to do a three-point sit on my own.

In Occupational Therapy we worked on my hands and arms. One goal was for me to be able to sit up straight for the full one hour therapy session. I couldn't do it. My blood pressure was better but my neck and shoulders hurt a lot.

In January 1992, we went back to Shepherd for a follow-up visit. X-rays of my cervical spine showed that the bones in my neck had not fused. Dr. Leslie recommended surgery. Earl did some research and we chose a surgeon whose office was on Aldersgate Road in Cleveland, OH because John Wesley's heart was "strangely warmed" on Aldersgate Road in London, England on May 24, 1738.

We contacted the surgeon, Dr. Henry Bohlman, and I was accepted. We began the preoperative process in Kentucky. As part of that process a cervical MRI was done. A friend worked in the clinic and she let Earl and I watch the computer screen as she printed out the films. That's when we saw my spinal cord for the first time. It wasn't severed. It wasn't dead and shriveled. It was intact but still slightly swollen at the injury site. I cried and we thanked God for yet another miracle.

On April 12, 1992, I was the Matron of Honor and Kari was the Bridesmaid at Bobbi's wedding. She and Tim had come to Benton to be married by Earl in the Church where Bobbi had come to know the Lord. Three days later I underwent surgery in Cleveland.

The procedure was a Late Anterior and Posterior Cervical Decompression. Dr. Bohlman removed the loose pieces of bone, put in bone grafts taken from my hip, and wired it all together. After ten hours in surgery I woke up in intensive care, intubated, and on a ventilator. I was really angry. I hadn't thought about being on a ventilator again.

I went into the hospital knowing that the surgery was what God wanted me to do and had not even thought about being intubated. I spent two days in the unit on the ventilator and three days later we were on our way home. I was wearing a two-poster brace to support my neck (I thanked God it wasn't attached to my skull.)

After two months, x-rays showed that the bones were fused and I was given a soft cervical collar to wear for two weeks. In late August, we went back to Cleveland for a postoperative visit with Dr. Bohlman. He released me and sent me back to outpatient therapy. I went once a week and made steady progress. My pain decreased. My endurance increased. My blood pressure stabilized. The more I sat up the stronger my neck muscles got.

Subsequently, I was able to balance well enough to sit in my wheelchair without a chest restraint. In April 1993, I was admitted to Cane Creek Rehabilitation Center in Martin, TN. The therapies strengthened me quickly. I gained more control of my shoulders and biceps. I was discharged after nine weeks with a new outlook on my ability to live life to its fullest. Then another problem arose. Depression.

 Without a structured day I was lost. I slept all the time. I hated company because I was embarrassed to be an "invalid." I wasn’t reading books and I certainly didn’t want to watch TV. Any noise that interrupted my sleep made me angry. I was mean to everyone who came into our home. Finally Earl got me to start writing my story on a laptop computer.

As time went on I began to live again. Writing lead to reading which lead to an active mind. I began a telephone ministry with women in our Church; encouraging and praying for others. In March 2000, I returned to Shepherd in Atlanta for reevaluation. The doctor's and other staff were amazed at my condition. They said, "You could write the manual."

Today, my arms are functional but my hands are paralyzed. I wear a splint on my right wrist that enables me to use a push-button speaker telephone, work on a computer, turn pages to read, and feed myself. I have help in the morning to get up and in the evening to go to bed. I'm able to stay by myself for hours at a time during the day. Earl has continued in the pastorate and I'm an active pastor's wife.

Our daughter is a beautiful young woman. I'm an adult Sunday school teacher, a women’s Bible study leader and a small group leader as well as a Certified Lay Speaker and Basic Lay Speaking Instructor within our denomination. I chair our local Church Evangelism Committee and our Conference Disability team.

I am often told that I am an inspiration. I always tell people, "My disability is just more obvious." As I am bold in my faith I follow up with how good GOD is!

I want every person I meet to see Jesus and know the joy HE brings. We pray and give thanks to God everyday for my healing. God's hand has been in my life throughout this journey. I know because I hold on to it and walk with Him every day.