I was very fortunate to grow up in home that nurtured spiritually as well as physically. I remember having my name in the church bulletin for memorizing scripture and winning Bible drills. From an early age I knew which Bible characters did what and quite a bit about their significance. I was taught right from wrong, I wanted to “walk in the light”. I understood at an early age that I wanted to work for Jesus, as my 8 year old self put it.

Getting to know myself through middle and high school proved very difficult. There were many things about myself and about God that I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how love and hate could exist together. I couldn’t question the authority, so it was as it was and that was it. At that time, it was obvious that there was one thing keeping me from truly letting Christ reign in my life.

Fearful of my own demons, I didn’t share it with anyone but God. I pleaded with Him to take away the one thing keeping me from being His child. Many days, I felt so far from God because of this one thing I couldn’t control and God wouldn’t take it away. The final conclusion I came to was that God must hate me, there is one thing keeping me distant, I’ve asked Him to control it but He won’t. I left.

I wanted to reject everything I had ever known about God, Jesus and Christianity. I found myself in shouting matches with other Christians over the eternal fate of my soul. I didn’t care anymore. Youth groups had rejected me because of this one thing, if I changed I was ok, but I wasn’t “cool” as long as that one thing was there.

Fast forward about 4-5 years after graduating high school: I’ve settled down with a wonderful person and I’ve accepted that I’ll never belong in God’s family because He never took that one thing away. One thing that disconnected me from Him, but connected me to so many other people that had also felt as if they’re tie to God and the church had been cut by one thing.

I remember one night while drinking I found myself defending the faith that I thought I had lost. “Where did this come from?”. I decided that I would challenge the authority I wasn’t allowed to years earlier in school. After heart felt soul-searching, and weeping, I began what I though would be a long journey to see if this one thing really meant God didn’t love or accept me. The feelings everyone I knew changed about me because of this one thing. When it came to light, this one thing made my best friends turn on me, my parents became mournful, I was devastated. To allow myself back into this situation to be hurt and have no one to help me was scary.

I remembered the verse that has always given me comfort, “I know the plans I have for you.” It was a promise that even this one thing wouldn’t negate.

I have found that this one thing God blessed me with was not a curse as I had been taught for so long. This one thing, that God gave me has allowed me to look at the world differently. The struggle I thought I was on alone has been marked by God showing Himself to me and keeping His hand on me. It’s His unconditional love that transformed my life. With one thing that people find repulsive in me, He taught me how to see Him in everything, it’s usually what the world considered most repulsive that He taught me to love and see the most beauty in. The commitment an 8-year old made in the front pew of Baptist church, has not been fulfilled, it’s an ongoing commitment that my life will serve as an example of one thing: That the love of God is more powerful than anything imaginable.

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That’s what the sign said, the banner that was created for my room at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital. Actually it was a quote, something I said over and over again, to everyone who wanted to tell me that this was a detour on my path or that I needed to see it as “plan B”. So my friends made this banner and I kept it posted on my wall where I could see it. I really didn’t need the reminder, I truly believed and still believe that God didn’t say “OOPS”. That being said, then what did I believe, what did I know about how this happened to me.

It was a sad and frightening Saturday, the 12th of April 2003. It all started as a blister on the bottom of my left foot. It became infected. I went to the doctor, and six days later I found myself in the surgical suite at Northside Hospital. The doctor said that they would try to save my leg, but even more they would try to save my life. I was an hour from death. Death caused by gaseous gangrene. Non-diagnosed Type II Diabetes. I awoke hours later to be told that I was now a below the knee amputee. I wept in grief and despair.

Some people must have thought that this was somehow part of God’s overall design for my life. Some thought that He had sent this misery. That He wanted this for my life. That didn’t fit my picture of God. God as the Potter, maybe. Sort of the “I brought you into this world and I can take you out” sort of thinking. No, I couldn’t see it that way.

God as the Shepherd. I wouldn’t treat a sheep of mine that way or even my pet, and certainly I was more than a pet to God.

God as my friend? Who would ever cut off a friend’s leg? On purpose? No, that idea didn’t work either. Neither did God as my Father. He said to call Him “Abba” meaning Daddy or Papa. He is not an abusive parent. Certainly not as my Bridegroom or Husband. So if He didn’t ordain this tragedy than perhaps He’s not very powerful. He could have stopped this, but He didn’t.

OR maybe the devil did it?

No, this much I knew, God didn’t ordain for me to go through this fear and agony. He didn’t send this as a punishment or a warning. No, I did this to myself. Frankly, you can’t be a 300 pound person and not have some consequences from it. The fear, that WAS the devil. The agony, that was the way God made our bodies. I knew this much…

GOD KNEW!

God did not stand with the surgeon, in the operating room and say “heavens to Me, Lucie is having her leg cut off and I didn’t know!” He was not surprised by this. He did not say “OOPS”.
The nurses said, “you’ll just have to see this as a detour or Plan B”. It was neither. God knew, so He had adapted His plan for my life to include this. His plan was a sinless world where no one got sick or had pain, but we blew that one way back in the garden. No, this plan, His plan, included this, because He knew.

In the hospital He told me to read Jeremiah 29:11…”I know the plans I have for you, says God, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans for a good future and for hope.” Lying there in bed, I said to Him “so THIS is my good future and this is my hope?” The answer was and remains…”YES!”

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