"...and to You it is fitting to give thanks."

I shouldn’t be alive, I should be dead. By all physical means, I shouldn’t be sitting here in Israel writing this. But I am. B’H! By HaShem’s grace, mercy, and love for me am I telling you this story, and to Him be the glory for it all.

Two and a half years ago I went through a pretty rough season. The enemy tried to kill me multiple times, and even after that I had a few additional injuries to deal with. I wish I had written in my journal at that point about what happened, but I didn’t. But I know what happened and when, so I guess I’ll write it down now. Better late than never.


<><><><><>

April 27, 2010 - Mauled at work
I had a little incident at work. At the time, I was working on a dairy milking around 60-70 head of cattle. I loved this job, and would love to go back again.

I was bringing the cows in on a Thursday evening. It was still pretty muddy out, and there were more and more calves every day. I love having new little ones running around, they’re so much fun! One of the calves was walking down the alley in front of me, when he tripped and went nose first into the mud. He was still pretty young and getting the hang of his balance, so I bent down and picked him up, cleaned off his nose, and was letting him walk on when one of the cows (not his mother, mind you) mauled me. She hit me across my knees when I lost my balance and went down. She continued to grind me into the ground with her head, starting at my knees and working up. I was trying to get out from underneath her, but nothing was working. When she got to my waist, she stopped as quickly as she had started, and walked away. Later that week, my boss informed me that that cow had some kind of neurological thing going on that they were treating. Found out then that the cow that had mauled me was the one they were treating...

May 6, 2010 - Wreck with Roxy
I took Roxy out for a ride at about noon. Bareback as usual, and this time it was warm enough to ride barefoot. We walked down the road a ways, and ran through 3 joining hay fields. Roxy loves to run, and she’ll run through these fields and race the cars that are driving on the road. I love it when she does this too, she runs so fast that sometimes it feels like we’re flying. We ran in through the back entrance of the park, and played around on the trails for a little while. It was just like any other ride on any other day, beautiful and peaceful. I decided this time to take Roxy and go say hi really fast to a friend who lives about a mile down the road from the park. She loves it when we come by, and it’s nice to see her once in a while.

As we walked out of the park’s front entrance, I noticed a walker down at the corner of the road to the left of us, and noticed the beautiful pink flowers on the trees at the entrance of the park. We stopped and stood under the tree for a moment to take in the beauty HaShem had created, and then moved on down the road to the right.

We were almost there. I noticed a semi truck heading our way in front of us, and driving pretty fast. “Ok, we’ll be fine. I’m sure he sees us, and Roxy is fine with big vehicles.” Then I looked behind us, and there was another semi truck, also heading our way fast. “Huh, busy day today I guess. We need to get off the road and let them pass.” Neither of the trucks were slowing down. I don’t think either of the drivers saw us. On the left side of the road was a barbed wire fence right up to the road, and on the left was a deep rock ditch. I couldn’t pull Roxy off to the side of the road and wait for the trucks to pass, there was nowhere to go. So we ran down the road until there was a driveway or a yard that we could pull into. I saw the yard, and was thinking that we could just pull off the road, run through the corner of the yard, and into the woods. My friend’s house was just on the other side of the woods, which was actually just a small wooded patch that we play hide and seek in with the little kids.

I remember gently turning her off the road, and all that happened afterword. It all went so fast. She slipped on the asphalt, and we went down. We hit the edge of the road, I remember hearing her hooves slide out from under her and feeling us fall. I yelled “NO!”, though I don’t know if it ever came out my mouth or not. We hit the asphalt and slid a bit, which cut up Roxy’s knees and nose, and my right hand. The initial impact of us hitting the ground slammed my right knee into the ground, which also carried up and adjusted the right side of my pelvis. My horse rolled over me, compressing my now twisted 130-140 pound body under her 1300-1400 pound body, crushing my chest and cracking most of my ribs. By lower back too was twisted and then compressed. Thankfully, she only rolled over me the once, and I came off of her before we both continued rolling. At this point, I blacked out. It’s probably a good thing too. I ended up with a grass stain on my shirt that went over the top of my shoulder close to my neck, and I don’t want to know how that happened. We both continued to roll, and at some point I actually flipped so that my head was facing north, and my horse’s head was facing south, the direction that we were headed. This accident should’ve killed me instantly, or shortly thereafter from all that happened. When I woke up, I was laying about an arm’s length away from a large oak tree. My first thought was a combination between the question of “Am I alive?” and “Roxy”. I rolled over quickly and saw my horse laying there on the ground, on her back, and not moving. I thought she had died. I ran over to her, grabbed her legs and pulled them toward them, and she stood up without missing a beat. She was dazed and confused, and bleeding. Checked for broken bones and more blood, she was fine. Her nose was very tender, so I left it until later. I clamped one of her knees between both of my hands, and her other knee between my shoulder and my cheek. Her knees were so bloody that her blood ran down my cheek. Neither of the semi truck drivers even seemed to notice that we were there, let alone stopping to see if we were ok. I didn’t see either of them after I woke up. The walker that we had seen when we came out of the park saw what happened, said “Hi” as she passed, and told me that it looked like we took a bad spill, but that was all. A few vehicles drove passed as well while I was trying to get us put back together again before heading home. At this point we were close to 4 miles from home, and walking was the only way to get back. I didn’t want to call my Mom from my friend’s house, because of the way Roxy and I looked at that point, I didn’t want to leave that bad picture in the girls’ minds of a girl and her horse all bloody and hurt. So we walked back to the park, and I cleaned the blood off of the both of us, and we continued to walk home.

Thankfully I was bareback. If I had put the saddle on her, the horn would’ve impaled my stomach and there would’ve been a lot of internal damage. I knew that I hurt, but I also knew my horse hurt and I wanted to make sure that she was ok before I worried about how bad of shape I was in.



<><><><><>

The fact that I’m alive today is a miracle. A testimony of HaShem’s grace, mercy, and love. But even though I lived through all these things, there was still a lot of pain and injury in my body. But, only until this trip to Israel.

We have been here in the Mountains of Israel for about 2 months now. About 7 weeks ago, my lungs opened back up. From the accident with my horse and my chest being crushed under Roxy’s weight, my lungs had been compressed and hadn’t opened back up fully. It was hard to run or do much physically, and I couldn’t take a deep breath very well, if at all. The mountains last year were hard on me, because breathing was hard. But this year, HaShem opened my lungs close to the beginning of our trip here!

About 4 weeks later, I was doing my prayers in the vineyards in Shiloh. I stepped backward and something happened to my hip. My pelvis actually separated in the back, and the right side tipped back into place. It has been fine since. It was almost as if HaShem took my body and adjusted it so that it is back to where He created it to be!

A few days later my right shoulder, which has been tight and not wanting to work for me, loosened up. I can now rotate my shoulder without pain! My shoulder being tight before wasn't from an injury that I remember, but it had been tight and unable to rotate for quite a while. It is healed!

I have been so blessed to have been healed while we’ve been here! HaShem is good, and His kindnesses never fail!

“We gratefully thank You, for it is You Who are HaShem, our God and the God of our forefathers for all eternity; our Rock, the Rock of our lives, Shield of our salvation are You from generation to generation. We shall thank You and relate Your praise - for our lives, which are committed to Your power and for our souls that are entrusted to You; for Your miracles that are with us every day; an for Your wonders and favors in every season - evening, morning, and afternoon. The Beneficent One, for Your compassions were never exhausted, and the Compassionate One, for your kindnesses never ended - for we have always put our hope in You. For all these, may Your Name be blessed, exalted, and extolled, our King, continually forever and ever. Everything alive will gratefully acknowledge You, Selah! and praise and bless Your great Name sincerely, forever, for it is good. O God of our salvation and help, Selah! the beneficent God. Blessed are You, HaShem, Your Name is “The Beneficent One” and to You it is fitting to give thanks.”