By Ellorie Kenyon –

When I was in seventh grade, five years ago, my mom suffered a life-altering injury. My family and I had decided to go ice skating one night, and suddenly, while we were skating around the rink my mother fell down, and a loud “CRACK!” could be heard resonating throughout the rink. My mom was immediately rushed to the hospital for x-rays, and the x-rays showed that her entire left leg had been shattered—all of the ligaments and tendons had been stripped off of the bone and her fibula and tibia were broken in five different places. She had an emergency surgery, and was supposed to be healed in twelve weeks. However, the first surgery did not go well, and she’s had seven additional surgeries since that time. This sounds like a horrible situation for my family—and it is, but there are some really good things that have come out of it. All throughout that first year my family was wrapped up in my church’s generous love, and the love of our neighbors, with meals and gifts being brought to our house about three times a week or more, and we heard from so many people that they were praying for our family. It was really cool for me to see just how much our church came together to help support our family, and I really saw them as the hands of Jesus working in our lives to help bring my family closer to Him.