My childhood was very happy. I was loved, protected, nurtured. I grew up attending church, but it was a Sunday thing, not a personal and intimate relationship with a loving and holy God.
When I was 13, I started swimming competitively. Thirteen is a very late age to begin competing, but I was a natural, and at 16, I was competing internationally. My goal was to make the Olympic team.
I received a swimming scholarship from UCLA. In my senior year, 1981, two friends and I were at the beach. I went in the water to bodysurf. Taking a wave with my arms outstretched, I tucked my chin against my chest and—wham!—my head hit something unyielding.
Wow! That hurt! I thought I’d pulled a muscle in my neck and that I’d better swim to shore. I told
my legs, Okay, push off. Nothing moved, no response. Huh! Okay, try again, I told myself. Nothing. I tried to use my arms. Still nothing.
I was now aware of a buzzing sensation in my neck. I realized that I was running out of air, so I tried to lift my head out of the water, but could not. Opening my eyes, I saw that I was adrift in the waves, facedown, with my arms and legs dangling beneath me. I could not get my head out of the water. I was terrified.
A wave flipped me over, and I could breathe. But then another flipped me back over, and I was facedown again. Suddenly two hands grabbed me and turned me over, and I was pulled onto the beach. I had severed my spinal cord. I was paralyzed for life.
Many, many people visited me, including strangers who had read about my accident in the newspaper. The number of people who were Christians amazed me. They shared the Gospel with me and told me that God offered us a new life in Christ and hope for the future. They talked about God’s unconditional love and His grace. One afternoon while lying in my hospital bed, I asked Christ into my heart. I needed Him so badly because I was without hope. And now I had hope (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
But once I left the hospital to become acquainted with the real world from a wheelchair, I adopted some very unhealthy, as well as sinful, coping mechanisms. Although I truly wanted to build a relationship with God and to serve Him, my fledgling faith was floundering.
I wanted desperately to escape from this new reality. So, I began drinking to numb the pain and torment in my heart and mind. I sought distraction and entertainment. I looked up my horoscope regularly. I even consulted a psychic. And all the while I prayed and implored God to help me. And He was patient with me.
During all of my searching, God was gracious and merciful. We do serve a faithful God who will never turn us away when we seek Him, even when we do dumb things to cope. God, in his kindness, brought a Christian man into my life. This man had been through his share of trials as well; at 18, while swimming with friends at a pond, he dove out of a tree into the water, breaking his back. His severed spinal cord had left him a paraplegic.
Photo: Joan Allen
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