I am fifteen years old now. When I was four years old, my Mom and I were in a very bad car accident. My skull was cracked and part of my brain exposed. I was not supposed to live, but I did. The doctors told my parents that I would not be like other girls.
But my Mom loved me and worked with me. At first, I could nothing on the left side of my body. With years of therapy, I can now use my left hand and walk with just a small limp.
I am in special education classes in high school now, and enjoy going to school.
After my mother died of cancer last year, I came to live with my older brother Jason. He is my best friend and we have fun together. He is married to Wendi now, but when they were just dating, Wendi's parents became Christians and we began going to church with them. I like my Sunday School class and the music we sing in church. Pastor Bob is very nice to me, too.
We had been going to church for a couple weeks and I was sitting in my seat while people were up front praying. I knew that Jesus wanted me to pray then, too. So I closed my eyes and asked Him to save my soul and live in my heart. From that time on, I knew I was a Christian. I love the Lord Jesus and pray to Him every day. I tell Him everything. And He always helps me - with my school work, with my headaches, with my thoughts and feelings. He is always there for me.
And now Jason and I are very happy because our Dad is a Christian now, too. He was saved last month, and now he has come to live near us. One day, we will all live in Heaven together. But right now, we say thank you to Jesus for letting us be a family on earth. And Jesus gave me a real sister in Wendi when she and Jason got married.
Thank you Jesus for my brother Jason, for Wendi, for Dad, for everyone I love.
And thank you Pastor Steve for asking me to write my testimony like everyone else and believe I could do it. And thank for Jason for helping me put my thoughts together.
I am happy to be a Christian, and I thank Him for letting me live so many years ago when everyone said I would not live through the night after the car accident. If I had died then, I would have still went to Heaven because I was a little girl. But now I am old enough to do whatever Jesus wants of me. And I will do it because I'm HIS!
Up-Date to Amy's Testimony
June 2001
When Pastor Steve asked me to write my original testimony, I did the best I could do with it. I explained the problems I had growing up after my Mom and I were involved in an automobile accident that had left me, as it was called, "mentally handicapped" with a form of retardation.
But my story wasn't completed. The Lord had something wonderful in store for me!
It didn't start out too wonderful. I was in a class at school and had the worst headache I've ever had. I went home and went straight to bed. The next day, I felt even worse. My headache had gotten so bad, and my fever had gone dangerously high. My brother called the doctor, who sent me to the hospital immediately.
I was diagnosed with meningitis, and my family was told that the fever had gone so high and there was swelling in the skull which could cause additional problems in the brain area.
For the next twenty-four hours, I was in and out of consciousness, but I can sort of remember waking a few times and hearing my Dad and my brother praying beside my bed. I heard the tears in my Dad's voice as he called out to the Lord, "Please don't take my baby".
The Bible tells us that when we pray and seek the Lord with all our heart, that He will give us the desires of our heart. Since the day that he was saved, Dad had been praying that I might be healed from my injuries from the car accident years before.
For anyone who does not believe in the power of prayer or who does not believe that miracles still happen in today's world, what happened to me will build faith, hope and belief in ANYONE!
Within three days, the fever was down to normal, the swelling in the brain (which had clearly been seen on x-rays) was nowhere to be found on a second set of x-rays that were now taken, and I could understand things that would normally need to be explained to me in childlike terms. The Lord had not only touched me and healed the meningitis, He had restored me from head to toe -- completely healing me from all that had been done to me in the wreck ... including my mental capabilities.
When I returned to school, I was retested shortly afterwards, and my class schedule adjusted to conform to my new capacities.
Today, I am no longer in special education classes at my school. I am in regular classes. And I just passed my sophomore year with all A's and B's!
Thanks to a compassionate, loving Savior, and a father and brother who never stopped praying for me, I can now look forward to a bright future the same as any other sixteen year old. What once seemed hopeless, now brims over with hope. What once seemed a sad existence is now filled with joy. What once seemed impossible now has endless possibilities. What Christians have always been promised, but too often fail to believe, has come to pass ... "With God, ALL things are possible".
