God, Help Me!

The smell … I remember the smell. It was the smell of hot radiator fluid, that kind of chemical, steamy, hot metal smell. I couldn’t move. I was trapped, upside down, and I immediately felt the intense heat of the July day. As I became more aware of my surroundings, the pain began to force itself into my body. My heart began to race as I realized that I was in excruciating pain. I was able to free my right arm just enough to touch my lower abdomen where I felt the concentration of pain. I felt something stretched taut across me; it was my lap belt holding me tightly against the seat. I felt something running down my left cheek. I touched my face and brought my hand in front of my eyes. I felt and saw a sticky, thick, red liquid that dripped from my cheek. Then I could taste the blood. I lay there frightened, wondering what had just happened.

I heard nothing, except for the steam escaping from an engine. There were no cries for help—just a terrifying void, a silence. I began to come to the awareness that I was trapped and badly injured. Then it all began coming back to me. I had been with my family returning home from our vacation. My family! What about my husband and two children? Why couldn’t I hear them? Why weren’t they screaming out for help? I cried out for my husband, Larry, but there was no answer. I thought about my precious firstborn, who was ten years old, and called out for my blue-eyed, blond-haired son, Cliff. I still heard no answer. I thought about my darling eight-year-old daughter, who had been lying in the backseat asleep just moments before, exhausted from our weeklong campout. Her long, curly brown hair was wet, as was the new pink swimsuit she still wore. She had begged to swim one more time in the lake before we started the long drive home. I called out Adrianne’s name, but for the third time, there was only silence—an eerie, deafening silence. There was that smell again! I knew that what I smelled, and the silence I heard, were my senses telling me death was all around me.

What had happened? Was I already dead or slowly dying? Maybe this was all a dreadful nightmare … but no, I knew better. I knew in my heart, at that very instant, my husband of thirteen years and my two precious children were gone. For some unknown reason, I was still alive. I lay bleeding, hurting, and trapped in a pile of crumpled, heavy, hot metal. I couldn’t move, and I was becoming weaker every second. Without another thought, I cried out to the only one who could help me. I shouted aloud, “God, help me!” The open wounds on my face began to sting as tears, mixed with the blood, began to run down my face. Then the blackness came.

I wasn’t dead! I heard another person. I wanted to say, “Wait, I’m still alive, help me!” I tried calling out to him, but I was so weak I couldn’t make him hear me—or maybe he didn’t want to hear me. Again, there was silence. Sometime later, I learned from witnesses that this man had caused the wreck. He left my family and me in the wreckage and drove away in his truck to discard his beer cans in a ditch along the road, giving himself time to sober up before the police arrived. How could anyone be so coldhearted to run away from the sight that was before his eyes? What kind of person was this? He was cursing the same God I had called out to in a desperate prayer for help just moments before.

It wasn’t long until I heard the blessed sound of paramedics. I heard the sound of metal being cut and pulled away. As they removed it, the movement caused me to cry out from the agonizing pain. The paramedics kept speaking to me until they had me free from the debris. But why was I still hurting when they had me out of our vehicle? My head pounded as they placed my neck in a brace. I fought back the tears of pain when they lifted the cool, hard stretcher and began to roll me away from the wreck.

Once I was inside the ambulance, the medics immediately began treatment. They placed an oxygen mask over the bleeding wounds on my face. I felt the prick of a needle as an EMT inserted an IV. As my eyes darted about trying to recognize what was happening, I heard a female voice tell the driver, “Go, go, go!” The big, heavy doors slammed closed.

I continued floating in and out, only awakened at times by hands shaking me, telling me to stay with them. Why wouldn’t she let me sleep? I felt so much better there. I wasn’t even certain I wanted to stay with them. Was there another place better for me, possibly the place where my husband and children had been taken—a place with no pain or crying, a place of peace?

I was somewhat aware of my surroundings, but feeling as if I were in a dreamlike state. I cried and begged the nurses to give me something for the pain, but they told me they couldn’t until they knew the extent of my injuries. A man in a white jacket held a clipboard and pen in front of me and told me he was a doctor and he needed to do surgery. He was requiring me to sign a release before he could do anything. I told him I wanted to wait to sign until my aunt was with me. She was a registered nurse, and I felt she would know if I really needed the surgery. I had never had an operation. Maybe I really didn’t need one. How could I know for sure? I was confused, scared, and hurting. I didn’t know what was happening. I wanted someone I knew and trusted with me before I could make such a decision.

Nurses attended to me constantly, and then I realized they were beginning to shuffle around even more quickly than before. The nurses suddenly became frantic and started shouting, “We’re losing her!” The doctor was in front of me again, but this time he told me he couldn’t wait for anyone to arrive, he needed to do surgery immediately, or I would die. Again, he placed the pen in my hand, pointed to a line on the paper, and pleaded with me to sign. I signed, trusting a man whom I had never before seen.

I lay helpless, depending on strangers to save my life. I closed my eyes and began to pray silently that God would rescue me from the darkness I felt creeping into me. More than mere humans needed to save me. I needed saving not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. I needed the one who could perform these miracles—my God.

I knew I had to pray for help. But what should I ask? In the Bible, the apostle Paul explains to us that we do not have to get down on our knees and repeat a formal prayer for God to hear us; we simply need to ask the Holy Spirit for help. Paul says if we are not sure what we need to ask for in our time of weakness, the Holy Spirit will pray for us, speaking to God with a groaning not expressed in a language that we can even hear or understand. I wasn’t even sure I wanted medical help; maybe it would be best if I joined my family. At that very moment, I knew I was definitely at the lowest, weakest point of my life.

I believe with all my heart and soul, while I laid in the mangled metal of our vehicle on a lonely stretch of road somewhere in southeastern Oklahoma, the very moment I cried out asking God to help me, the Holy Spirit recognized my need and instantly summoned God’s help. From that point on, unbeknownst to me, God would guide the rest of my life. It would take many years to understand the events that transpired that day and the future God had in store for me.

It is said we should pray without ceasing, and that is what I began doing. I prayed every moment of every day; my life became a constant prayer. I did not know what to ask for; I simply asked God to treat me as the empty vessel that I was and fill me with the Holy Spirit’s power and inspiration.