by Jessica Kennedy 

Two emergency medical technicians roll my stretcher into an ambulance. My heart races with anticipation. After a month in intensive care, the nightmare is ending. Today I will enter a rehabilitation hospital. It’s just a matter of time and I will be walking, talking, and breathing again on my own—or so I believe.

The doctors said I would never do any of those things, but I know they are wrong. When the ambulance stops, the EMTs pull my stretcher from the ambulance. Cigarettes dangle from the mouths of a group of men sitting in front of the building. Urine bags hang from their wheelchairs and bear witness to their infirmity. I shake the image from my mind. I’m not like them; I’m going to get better. My mother’s and sister’s eyes meet over my head in sorrowful camaraderie. It’s going to be okay, I try to tell them with my eyes. I know in a few days I’ll be able to speak, and then I can reassure them. 

My hopes first begin to die as I enter the ventilator room. Three patients will share the room with me. One is comatose, one is a quadriplegic, and one is a paraplegic. All breathe only with a ventilator. Inside I cringe. I begin to fear this is my future. Weeks pass, and with speech therapy I learn to mouth words, but I fight to stay to myself. I feel useless, worthless. I have nothing to say. My nurse, Joan, adjusts my pillow, brushes my hair, and smiles. Why is she smiling? This room is inhabited by a bunch of cripples, and she’s smiling! Can’t she see us? 

Day after day, Joan cares for me, talks, and hums. I know that song, but I can’t think of the words. I find it playing in my head continually. It is driving me to distraction. After two weeks of the humming I must ask about it. I mouth, “What is that song?”  

“It’s Amazing Grace,” says Joan. “Would you like me to sing it to you?” 

“If you really want to.” 

So she sings:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

As the first notes float out into the room, our friendship begins. Whenever she tends to me, her dulcet voice soothes my mangled spirit. After a time Joan tells me about her husband, three children, and island home. She is preparing for her US citizenship test, and she practices by reciting facts about US history. I correct her when she is wrong, and encourage her. 

“How do you know all these things?” she asks. 

“History was my major in college,” I explain. “Before I caught spinal meningitis and had a brainstem stroke I wanted to be a teacher, but the stroke ended any possibility of that.”  

“Why?” she wants to know. 

Isn’t it obvious? I explain to Joan that I pray all the time and I ask God to heal me, but He isn’t listening. 

“I want to read you a verse from the Bible,” Joan says. It is 2 Corinthians 12:9: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me” (NIV). 

And so, over time, I learned from Joan and the apostle Paul that my disabilities are blessings. I am a much stronger witness for Him because I’m a legally blind, ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. The doctors believed I would never move, breathe, or speak. But I can speak; I can move my right arm and hand; I can breathe unassisted for an hour at a time. According to the medical books, I shouldn’t be able to accomplish these tasks.   

Today I do not think of myself as disabled. I speak at continuing-education classes for respiratory therapists. I write for magazines. I am writing a memoir of my rehabilitation and my growing faith. Goals for the coming year include marketing the completed manuscript, retaining a literary agent, adding to my writing credits, and growing in the Lord. I am also branching out into another type of writing. Children’s short stories interest me. In the next few weeks I am going to take two classes on writing for children. I regularly take classes to build my writing muscles.  

I no longer dwell on what I have lost. I praise God for the abilities I have, and I use them. The avenues available to me have shrunk in some ways and broadened in others. I thought I would teach history in a classroom. Instead I teach patient advocacy, I write, and I have a deeper relationship with Christ. Being a Christian does not mean my life will always be filled with laughter and sunshine, but His grace is sufficient. I am eager to find out where He will lead me next. 

Jessica Kennedy lives in McKinney, Texas. She has a BA in European History. She pursues many kinds of writing, but especially enjoys writing inspirational Christ-centered essays based on her personal experience.