When I was 4 years old, my mother was stricken with meningitis. I can recall the night an ambulance careened around the corner and took her away to a hospital.
My father returned in the morning, looking extremely weary. I heard him on the phone telling someone that her fever was 107, and I wondered what that meant. Fear seemed to have wrapped around him as though it were choking him.
I expected everything to return to the way things were before her illness, but when Mom arrived home from the hospital, things were not the same. Meningitis had left her suffering with terrible migraine headaches, seizures and memory loss.
The headaches tormented my mom, and she began relying on pain medication. Many times, I would find her slumped over, leaving me to wonder if she was still alive.
I hated my mom’s drug addiction, but later, I found myself headed in the same direction with alcohol. When I got drunk, I thought it was magic.
One day, I was approached by a quiet young woman and invited to a prayer meeting. I had tried to read and understand my Bible before, but the words were empty.
The night of the prayer group arrived, and as a college student spoke about asking Jesus to come into your life, my desire to know the Lord became overwhelming. I looked in my Bible, and I was amazed!
Although I did not entirely understand this brand-new way of living, I knew the despair and confusion that had reigned in my life were gone, and a new road was before me.
I thank God for His blessings. His grace remains real in my heart today.
