My accident

I realize that most of you have heard about the details of my accident that happened on Aug. 17th, but I thought I'd put it on here anyway as a way to remember the miracle that God worked that day. It all started on the evening of Aug. 17th--the day before I was supposed to go back to school. I had parked on our very slanted driveway and was unloading the boys from our Lincoln Navigator. Colton was out and as Cooper was climbing out, he accidentally knocked the car out of gear. It started to roll VERY quickly down the hill with him in the driver's seat. I took off after the car and tried to get my arm in to press on the emergency brake. In the process, the car his a rock flower bed in our neighbor's yard and my foot got smashed between it and the car (I think; it all happened SO fast). Anyway, it's a good thing that happened though because that caused the car to change directions and go into our other neighbor's yard instead of off the cliff that we live on. I had been hanging on and dragged along until then at which point, I was thrown off. The car sped into our other neighbor's yard and crashed into his storage shed, finally stopping the car. Cooper was screaming hysterically for me, but I couldn't go get him because there was a huge gaping hole in my foot. When I looked at it, my first thought was, I'm going to lose my foot. I found out later that a tendon had been cut, my bone chipped, nerves were cut, and a chunk of muscle had been lost. Anyway, I started crawling up the hill to where my cell phone had landed. I tried to call Jim but my phone died before he could answer (he was at the gym at his school). I screamed for help for what seemed like an eternity, but it was probably only 5 min. Finally, the Matneys heard me and rushed to the rescue. They called Jim, called 911, and took care of the boys. Amazingly, Cooper didn't have a SCRATCH on him --which was a miracle in itself! After being taken to Cox South, they did surgery on my foot and I've been in an "air cast" and a wheelchair ever since. They took the stitches out last week, and said that I have about another 3 weeks until I can start physical therapy to learn to walk again. It's been a long, difficult journey, but I'm getting better every day, and I'm SO thankful that the boys and I are alive. In church today, my brother-in-law (who is also the pastor) talked about how sometimes God allows suffering to teach us to depend more on Him and to glorify Him for His miraculous grace. That is SO true. Even though it hasn't been easy, there has been SO much good come from this. We've seen God provide for us in SO many ways--financially, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. We have seen how many TRUE friends we have and what a WONDERFUL family we have--friends and family that have gone above and beyond to help us out. I used to be the type of person who tried to do EVERYTHING just because I knew that I would do it right. I've been forced to slow down, enjoy my boys more, and learn to depend on God and others for almost everything! It hasn't been an easy lesson to learn, but I'm thankful. I'm so much more thankful for life and I've learned that I often take my family for granted--and I'll never do that again!