Trash-bag Princesses

My Dad unrolls more tin foil, scrunching it up into a “flower” and artfully tying it on the black trash bag that was adorning me. He steps back and looks at his handiwork with pride. “You’re a princess!” he declares. My four-year-old sister grins at me. We are certain we look incredible in our trash bag dresses decked out with tin foil for decoration. We pose for pictures by the fireplace, eager to start "trick or treating" and get candy.

An hour later, tummy full of candy, I walk into my parents’ room, heave myself up on the bed, and sit by my Dad, brow furrowed as my five-year-old self thinks about how to ask him my many questions.

“Daddy?” I start.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“What was that man talking about at the school program today? About the gospel and Jesus or something?” The school I attended for kindergarten was a Christian school.

My Dad turns to me on the bed, giving me his full undivided attention. “That man was sharing about what Jesus did for us when he died on a cross.”

“What?” I look at him, confusion on my face.

“’Gospel,’” he began, “means ‘good news’. Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, died for our sins, the wrong things that we do, dying a horrible death on a cross. God raised him from the dead three days later, so if anyone puts their faith in Jesus Christ, they will be saved and can have a relationship with God.”

“I want to have a relationship with God,” I say.

My Dad looks at me and smiles. “Well,” he says, “You can. You just need to pray and ask God for forgiveness for your sin. Tell Him that you believe that Jesus is Lord, died for you, and was raised from the dead. Ask Him to help you live for Him and begin a relationship with Him.”

“Can you help me pray?” I ask.

“Of course. Let’s pray together.” My Dad leads me, and I pray, committing my life to God and putting my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior, at the time not knowing the gravity of the life-alternating decision I had just made. To my neighbors that night I was dressed in a trash bag, but now to God I was dressed in the righteousness of Christ.

I became a daughter of God.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

"...because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, 'Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For 'everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'" Romans 10:9-13

Mighty to Save

Black spots cloud my vision as I strive to make sense of my surroundings. An acute pain in my back keeps me from being able to think rationally. The last memory I have is laughing with my team members in the van as it slowed around a hairpin turn on our way down the mountain. Our summer mission team, had been in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the past three weeks doing volunteer work in orphanages, soup kitchens, slums, and churches. Now suddenly the van carrying half our team had been driven off a precipitous mountain cliff.

I hear my fellow team members screaming. One of my teammates cries out, “God, why did this have to happen to us?” Shock envelops me. I think to myself, God, this cannot be happening. I am hanging upside down out of one of the van windows with my legs and lower back still in the interior of the van. Two thoughts work their way into my mind amidst the excruciating pain that consumes me. I am about to black out. I need to get out of this van. I push against the van with my arms, pulling my legs out. I fall ten feet through the air and begin to roll down the steep incline, the pain in my back piercing through my entire body. I grab on to some shrubbery on the mountainside and brace myself against the incline, squeezing the plants in a vain effort to force the pain away. A couple minutes pass full of wild thoughts and flashes of sharp pain. Six dark forms begin to approach me. I groan, not wanting them to touch me. They each grab a part of me and begin to carry me up the mountain. More forms come into view, and the Ethiopian villagers pass me around – in my mind not carefully enough - until I reach a makeshift ambulance on the closest road: a small truck with benches in the back to sit on.

***

“Is everyone okay?” I gasp, lying on a stretcher in the hospital, eyes intent on one of the adults on our team that had not been in the accident.

“Everyone is alive,” she reassures me.

I lean back on the stretcher as relief washes over my body. I then think to myself, I need my Bible. I ask a team member to grab my Bible. I know which passage I want to read:

Psalm 91

“Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent. 14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 15 He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation."

In the midst of the pain, I am comforted by God’s amazing protection over our team. He is our refuge and our guard.

***

Two nurses approach me as I lay on the hospital bed, trying to focus on anything but the pain. They wheel me into a room to have a CAT scan. After getting the CAT scan results, I lay flat on the hospital bed, trying to get over the shock that my back is fractured in addition to the lacerations on my back. I had just learned the details of the accident. Our driver had swerved after almost colliding with an oncoming bus. Our van had gone off a mountain cliff and ended up over a hundred feet down the mountain; sixty of those feet we were in the air. Two trees had halted our descent, rooted at the head of an additional sixty foot incline. Only five of the fourteen of us in the van would need to spend the night – probably multiple nights – at the hospital. With a broken back, I am one of the five.

A few hours later I speak to my mom: “Everything is fine,” I assure her. “I’m fine,” I insist, trying to calm her anxiety as she wonders what kind of accident could result in a broken back. I leave out the details of the story. I’ll tell her when I get safely home.

***

It’s Sunday. The five of us hospital mates gather with some other teammates in a hospital room for prayer and worship.

“What song do you want to sing?” one of my teammates asks.

It is so easy for me to choose. “’Mighty to Save.’” We sing together: “Savior, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save. Forever, Author of Salvation. He rose and conquered the grave. Jesus conquered the grave.” I pray, what a perfect song for this moment. I know more than ever before that yes, Father, you can move the mountains.

***

I am back home in the United States, recovering and hoping I can walk without pain by the first day of my senior year of high school. I ponder Mark 8:34: “[Jesus said], ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man given in return for his soul?”

If this is true, I reason, what is stopping me from following Jesus in every area of my life? From spending more time focusing on him and less on my performance in athletics and academics, my appearance, guys, and my social status? Especially considering I could die young – that I almost did! God must have saved my life for a purpose: and that purpose, I determine, is not about living for myself but for serving others.

Father, help me to surrender all! Help me be like Jesus.

*See below for picture of the accident.

Picture of the Accident