Contact Amy Contact Jennifer The raw emotion of heartbreak and the quest for healing takes center stage as Jennifer Eikenhorst joins me on 'Wednesdays with the Watson.' Jennifer's story is a tapestry of pain and faith, woven together on an ordinary day that escalated into a life-altering tragedy. As she recounts the accident that took the life of David, a beloved veteran, and father, we are reminded of the overwhelming weight of grief and the responsibility one carries after such an event. Through tears and courage, she shares how this experience became the fulcrum of her faith, testing its strength and resilience.
Struggle and spirituality collide in our intimate conversation about the role of faith through life's most trying moments. As we navigate the tumultuous emotions that come with feeling forsaken, from anger to surrender, we acknowledge that faith is not immune to questions and doubts. Yet, it is also in these moments that we find the potential for profound growth as we learn to differentiate between our humanity and our purpose.
This episode is more than just a recounting of sorrow; it's a journey toward understanding and compassion. Jennifer's creation of 'Accidental Hope' and the process behind her memoir is a testament to the redemptive power of sharing one's story. To all listeners bearing the heavy mantle of tragedy, know this is a space of support and love. As we close, I extend an invitation to embrace the greater narrative of your life, with faith as the guide, offering solace and transformation in the wake of life's storms
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
Contact Amy Contact Jennifer The raw emotion of heartbreak and the quest for healing takes center stage as Jennifer Eikenhorst joins me on 'Wednesdays with the Watson.' Jennifer's story is a tapestry of pain and faith, woven together on an ordinary day that escalated into a life-altering tragedy. As she recounts the accident that took the life of David, a beloved veteran, and father, we are reminded of the overwhelming weight of grief and the responsibility one carries after such an event. Through tears and courage, she shares how this experience became the fulcrum of her faith, testing its strength and resilience.
Struggle and spirituality collide in our intimate conversation about the role of faith through life's most trying moments. As we navigate the tumultuous emotions that come with feeling forsaken, from anger to surrender, we acknowledge that faith is not immune to questions and doubts. Yet, it is also in these moments that we find the potential for profound growth as we learn to differentiate between our humanity and our purpose.
This episode is more than just a recounting of sorrow; it's a journey toward understanding and compassion. Jennifer's creation of 'Accidental Hope' and the process behind her memoir is a testament to the redemptive power of sharing one's story. To all listeners bearing the heavy mantle of tragedy, know this is a space of support and love. As we close, I extend an invitation to embrace the greater narrative of your life, with faith as the guide, offering solace and transformation in the wake of life's storms
You ARE:
SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
I've told him I've killed someone and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to live as this person with that label.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, today I have in our second set of episodes on our by faith series, that is, highlighting Hebrews chapter 11, as well as James 1-1 through 6. I have a very special guest who I've wanted on the podcast for a long time and was waiting for a time when her story would match the mission and the episodic themes of what we're doing and such. Today I welcome Jennifer Eichenhurst to the Wednesdays with the Watson podcast. Jennifer, welcome to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and I love how the timing always lines up to what God wants to do.
Speaker 2:It's interesting in such a small world, and so, before we get into your story, I will tell you that a friend of mine, I think, has reached out to you and you probably would consider a friend now who has a similar story to yours. I know what a blessing that you have been to her and we're going to talk about your book and all of the things at the end that I know that was helpful to her and could be helpful to other people. Guys, we are here in this series and in this season and I don't mean an actual episodic season of the podcast, I mean the timing, the season of life for the podcast we are on a mission. We're on a mission to find out why some people keep the faith when they go through unimaginable loss and trauma, why some people walk away, why do some people find their faith for the first time when these things happen, and so we are going to be bringing you stories of real life people, as we have always on this podcast, but this series in particular.
Speaker 2:If the Bible or still being written today what our names be, and the Hebrews 11 Hall of Fame would it say by faith Amy, by faith Jennifer, two of the most popular names on the planet, by the way, but would it say that? And so, jennifer, we want to get into your story today and help the listeners know your story, and maybe your journey will be something that they can also find their way through too. And so, before we start with the thing that I want to talk to you about today, that the tragedy that occurred in your life, I'm asking everybody the same question, because I think that is an important question what does faith mean to you?
Speaker 1:I can't imagine life without it for one, and I have a unique story that I wasn't raised in the faith that my faith was truly, uniquely organic as a curious child where it wasn't mentioned in the home and I wasn't prayed over and, you know, taught the Bible. We didn't own a Bible, things like that. But I, literally, every breath that I take, I can't imagine not having the Lord. I don't think I would have survived, to be honest with you, out of the family niche that God blessed me with my mom, my dad, my sister, and yet I am the Christian in that household, right as a young baby believer, and I do not think that I would have survived the life that I've now lived for 43 years without that faith. And so my faith is difficult and I do want to start every interview to acknowledge that my story particularly could be triggering and it's hard and I'm asking for grace and mercy when I share and I always want to caution anyone that my words should. I don't ever want to cause more harm.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:This is my life, this is my story.
Speaker 2:And your story is ongoing. A lot of people that come on to the podcast are talking to me about things that happened in their past. There's been a line of demarcation and most people's lives but yours and Lindsay Tozer, who I just mentioned, and so, guys, today we are going to be talking about Jennifer. Help me remember, there's an acronym.
Speaker 1:Cady, causing accidental death or injury.
Speaker 2:Right. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. Is that trigger warning? We're going to be talking about the cause of accidental death and injury, and that's part of Jennifer's story. And so, with that being said, jennifer, I just want you, as the Holy Spirit leads you, to tell us let's start with that day.
Speaker 1:You know it was an ordinary day and I think that's important to remember. There's nothing. It was actually a beautiful day in Texas I see blue sky, cool breeze, fall day. I mean it was a gorgeous day. And I remember being grateful that day Waking up, you know, my husband was winning in football and so there was, you know, that excitement. He's a coach, so it was like kind of a big deal. We felt like we had a really good thing going. My daughter had recovered from brain surgery and our last scan had showed that when they removed the cyst there were no cells left. So she was on recovery and there was so much to be grateful for.
Speaker 1:I had a new job that I had just started that year and I remember not feeling tired for the first time as a teacher in a long time. So I had taken on a new job where I was working from home and teaching, so getting to do what I love, but also had these dreams on my heart like well, if I'm working from home, maybe I can keep the house a little cleaner. You know, maybe I can write that book that I've always wanted to write, maybe I can finish that master's degree that I've always wanted to finish, and I will have just that, that other exterior weight that I'm at home and some things could take off my plate, like making sure my hair is done and you know all the stuff, the rush that can happen right in motherhood. And when I took that that that morning it was a Tuesday. I remember being in that place just full of gratitude, and what I did not know is that by the end of the day, around 8pm, my day would change very quickly and in the very literal sense, because the plans the entire day got changed 10 minutes before the accident happened.
Speaker 1:And what that means is that on October 4th 2016, I pulled out of an intersection with my children in the car, with my children in the car, from a stop sign where I had yielded, and a man approaching on a hill from my left was driving a motorcycle. His name was David, he was a father and a veteran and he served our country and he was devoted to his kids, and he collided with my car. Because I didn't see him, I pulled out and he didn't have time to respond, and I can give you a lot of reasons why I have theories. That happened that my plans changed 10 minutes before the accident and apparently his plans changed Because he had turned around and no one knows why he had turned around. He had left where he was and he had turned around and gone back up the hill and no one knows why.
Speaker 1:But whatever happened led to a single moment and David passed away as a result of me pulling into the intersection, and I'll always take responsibility that it was still me driving. It was still me responsible to make sure that there was nothing that would harm anyone when I pulled out. So I take full responsibility for the pain that my actions caused. But I never intended for anyone to ever get hurt, to put my children in jeopardy and David in jeopardy and, of course, caused pain to three children who lost their dad that day. And but this is something that I live with. So my faith did not start there, but my faith changed forever there.
Speaker 2:First of all, I only knew part of this story and so if you're watching on YouTube, you see tears in both of our eyes. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:I am from somebody who doesn't have and we talked about this a little bit before the interview A lot of people that I have on on my podcast are telling me stories that are over, and you and Lindsay are two that are telling me this life, this reality that you live every day, and I understand that in the sense that having complex post-traumatic stress disorder with a boatload of trauma, even on this very day dealing with PTSD symptoms but so I thank you for coming on here and telling the story, clearly still feeling the pain, what we want to know, like I, jennifer, have a time when I remember like so I'll give you an example of maybe a moment that I'd love you to share with our listeners.
Speaker 2:When I first left my abuser and was living in my apartment by myself, I remember standing near a closet and there were t-shirts in that closet from places that we had gone and it was too much. The grief just overwhelmed me like a tsunami and I remember standing there, clinging to the wall and said to God out loud in this apartment I had moved from a house on the beach in St Augustine to a 750 square foot apartment and I stood there and I screamed at the top of my lungs and there was a Bible kind of in my purview and I picked up my Bible and I threw it across the room.
Speaker 2:I was like I don't even believe that you exist anymore because you won't stop hurting me. You won't stop others from hurting me, and I didn't stay there very long. So did you have a moment like that? Or talk to us about the moment where, if you have a memory like that, where your faith changed because of this incident?
Speaker 1:I mean I had several. I mean to pray without ceasing. I've witnessed at that point in life both of my daughters had had brain surgery. For you, you sign on the line that says you understand that this can result in death, paralyzation and changing in life and you are going on the hope that you're making the decision for a better hope to come like a better quality of life. Right, so you're. You're acting on faith.
Speaker 1:I never questioned God through those two moments, ever, never ever wavered, never questioned, even when my daughter at one point was setting off alarms and woken in the middle of the night for her blood pressure dropping so low that they had to rush in because of she was in ICU and and her her anesthesia had was too much on her little body and her blood pressure was just dropping. So sirens are going off and I just vomit because I just don't know what's happening. And you're overwhelmed. Never questioned God. I went, I went to the restroom and I threw up and I sat there on a cold children's hospital bathroom and said Lord, I trust you. But when they told me that David died, because I was so sure that God was going to heal him. I was so sure because he gave me 48 hours to pray without ceasing. So the accident happened on the fourth and he passed away on the sixth.
Speaker 1:But I was so certain, without a doubt, there was no room for doubt and I used every Christian phrase you can all the cliches all the platitudes, I would not allow myself to rest on anything that complete supernatural healing for this man, and I was sure to bet my life on it because I had seen God heal. And when he didn't, I fold it over. I folded over in grief unimaginable and anger. To be honest, that if I believed that God put me on this earth for purpose and a hope, then the fact that I killed a man and orphaned three children never lines up.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That equation never makes sense logically in the natural. So then it feels like Job, where I question my very existence. Why did you even let me be born if I was going to do this, which is the absolute worst thing that I can imagine as a empathetic, loving teacher who lets children to orphan them and there's nothing I can do to disappoint my family and cause shame and possibly go to prison now too, because he had the right of way and that very much could have happened, and I'm very grateful that I didn't.
Speaker 2:You want to tell us a little bit about that journey.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's like a whole entirety. You know you can. You can say you have great big faith, but it's like signing on the line, putting your faith where it counts. Right to say I trust you, lord, whether that's with my freedom or not, because innocent people go to prison all the time and I did all the things I knew to do and sometimes that's not good enough for the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and and I would have to accept and surrender. So that was like a whole. There are just layers of faith, like the faith that I would survive my own suicidal ideation and depression, layers of faith that my marriage would survive.
Speaker 2:Did it.
Speaker 1:It did, it did. Yeah, it was 15 years when it happened and we just celebrated 22.
Speaker 2:I got chills. Congratulations, that's. That's a feat in itself to have gone through something like that, and and your marriage would survive.
Speaker 1:What a gift and miracle that is.
Speaker 2:Only Jesus.
Speaker 1:Only Jesus. But but all of it is like the fact that I'm without anxiety meds and able to function. I was came out of that depression that never attempted something that I had such a strong pull on that I crawled out of the pit. All of these things are miracles to me.
Speaker 2:They are. You need to hear from somebody else. My counselor says something, and he literally says it every single time we meet. It's his favorite thing to say and it's about healing and he talks about how and this is this is the phrase that he uses for me. You shouldn't be able to do that, jennifer. You shouldn't be able to be on this podcast, you shouldn't be able to have written a book, you shouldn't have stayed married. Your children should be messed up. There should be a number of things, because this is unimaginable. I do want to say something, and I say this on so many podcast episodes and and I and I just want you to hear me, just in case in this moment, because some things have happened in the last couple of days even that has brought this back to you and the top of your mind but shame says that we are the mistake, not that we made a mistake. Don't ever let that wash over you.
Speaker 1:Can you write that down?
Speaker 2:Yeah, shame, that's right and I'll remind you, shame says shame wants us to think that we are a mistake, not that we made a mistake. And I love what you said, that there's layers, right, in some cases, I remember, I know you probably like me. One of the layers of faith is just you open your eyes, you're like, okay, I'm still here, much amongst your grin, and so I'm going to have faith to put the first foot on the floor and then I'm going to put the other foot on the floor and I might brush my teeth, but probably not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's get real. What's the point? What's the point when you're this bad yeah?
Speaker 2:That most basic layer of faith is to get up, not hang out in dark rooms, and to take one step at a time. Do you have? So you got angry, which is something common I'm hearing in these stories, and interesting, because I never did get angry at God. He and I are a little bit talking about some things right now as it as it pertains to trust and provision and things like that, but I never got angry at him for some reason. I don't know. I don't know if it's my makeup or what it was, or if the trauma had happened so much that I just felt I defaulted to. I'm the problem, it's not God, it's me.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I was mad. I was mad at myself, I hated myself and I was mad that he would make me to a fault, that I couldn't see beyond that tree or hear that motorcycle coming up the hill, because he's my creator and he, he ordains my steps and he knew that that was going to happen. It wasn't a surprise to him and that made me so mad. So, even though I was calling on to him and crying out to him which is good, and I was directing those questions, those really hard questions, they were still going to the right source.
Speaker 2:Right, he knows. You don't need to say him he knows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to him, I was crying out to him.
Speaker 2:I love that you are being as honest as you are in terms of I was angry. I call it. You know I despise Christian cliches and platitudes. I call it you got a problem. I got a Bible verse Although everybody that knows me knows that I stand on the absolute authority of scripture but I don't like to throw it at people as a Bible bandaid.
Speaker 1:Like we hate it but we love it Right and we live by it.
Speaker 2:Right and it pops in my brain and I'm okay with it because I know that behind that cliche or behind that Bible verse is truth and and and and I. But but still I despise it in times of darkness and so so I'm just kind of envisioning your life. You have children. You had already had some some trauma that I didn't know about with your two daughters and I hope that they're okay before all of this happened. So you trusted them, you signed on the line.
Speaker 2:I love that analogy. I just close my eyes and think will I sign on the line of faith? You know, I will walk by faith even when I cannot see. By faith, amy, by faith, jennifer, will we sign on the line? And so you sign on the line for your children, like they could die from this surgery, and you sign on the line and you had the faith in God and you trust him. But then our enemy wants to indict you and make you think that you are the mistake not that you made a mistake and then you go, then you spiral. Can you think of the time when you're like okay, god, it's yours.
Speaker 1:It took months. I was I mean, I had my probably my second nervous, like clinical nervous breakdown A couple of days later. It was either the day I found word that he passed away or the next day and I went to see a counselor for the first time and I'll tell you, I don't remember most of the session.
Speaker 2:Not uncommon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I literally melted to the floor. I remember reenacting. I went from the couch to the floor. I don't even remember how I got on the ground and I looked at my counselor, dr Knox, looking to his eyes, hoping that he could just give me the answers, and we both knew that we couldn't, that it's unknown territory going forward, and that part was like a total meltdown. The surrender came months later. It was actually the day before the grand jury and I knew you know when you have that tugging on the heart, where the Lord knows your heart, but he wants you to confess it and it was kind of like I knew I can, felt it. I felt his presence, I felt him, what he was urging me to say and do, and I felt it and I was keeping it just on that cuff because it's like either at this point I'm so fragile it's either completely disconnected or a blubbering mess. There was no in between. So it was like I was like I hear you, I know what you want, but I can't, I can't, I can't right now.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it I love it right now.
Speaker 1:I love my day, but it was the day before the grand jury and I had this moment of this. Is it Like tomorrow? I find out my fate right, and even though I didn't ever speak this out loud, I could not imagine my life going to prison. In my mind I had thought that is the worst thing that you know. I saw my uncle go to prison for a drug issue that he could never kick. But he loves Jesus and he gets clean when he goes and he serves for whatever petty, whatever he has to do there in Florida correction facility, by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I missed your comments.
Speaker 1:And so I knew just how much this would hurt my family, and I my, my, my parents, my children definitely felt like it would destroy my marriage, like if there was any hope, it certainly wasn't going to be found in prison, and I have no control over that.
Speaker 1:I know that to be false even now, like because I've met people who are like me, who've had to go to prison and God does the miraculous even from there. So I said it without knowing it, believing it right. But now I've been, I've been given these beautiful examples of God's faithfulness, even though they were sent to prison, you know. But I still couldn't imagine, and it was the day before the grand jury and I was like Lord, I did all the things that I thought I was supposed to do and yet the community may still want revenge. You know, that's very real. The flesh is very real. Somebody wants someone to pay.
Speaker 2:They want an ounce of flesh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in my mind I do too, Because I didn't know if maybe I fulfill a sentence, maybe that would make this feel a little lighter. The punishment Maybe that would be the answer, because at that point you still every breath was a chore and the weight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the weight and the shame was so heavy.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting in my car and it's the day before and I know he wants me to surrender and he wants me to talk to him. And I have this moment in my car, I'm about to go into the house and I'm sitting in solitude, in the quiet of the car and I just say I know what you want me to say. I'm talking to God and I was like, and I don't want to say it, but you know I mean it, but I don't want to say it and I just finally said fine, you want me to tell you that I love you, no matter what. I love you today and I'm going to love you tomorrow, no matter what, even if I don't understand what that means, if, even if I don't understand what charges mean that the world sees me as a killer, that I'm going to love you and then I surrender and I'm going to serve you here, I'm going to serve you there, and that's what you want me to say. And I was just mad. Yeah, there was some yelling there may have been a curse word?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I definitely know I hit the steering wheel, you know, and not any bad curse words, just the D word maybe. But I just was like okay, and it was weird. It was that day that I really feel like I was like no longer a mess. I walked in, presented myself to my family like I would have almost the day going into surgery with the girls, almost like a soldier. You know, like okay, we are trusting the Lord. You know, the day before your child has brain surgery, you've prepared all these things, you have medicines with brain surgery.
Speaker 1:In our situation, I had to. We had to report to the hospital at like 4am with a three year old and you're heading into that unknown like a champ. And when I had that little mini meltdown and surrender to the Lord, I got out of that car. I remember looking at my garage and I headed into that door where my family was on the other side. I kind of felt a little bit like that, like okay, I know what I'm going to wear tomorrow. The prayer chain has been notified, they're going to pray and stand with us and I'm going to surrender, no matter what. The kids all have somewhere to go in case Chris has to bail me out of jail, we have a lawyer in place as a plan. We have all the paperwork ready. You know and I'm looking at my husband and it was like I was ready to just- I don't know it felt like yeah, and it wasn't a war against the family Right and it wasn't a war against God, it was.
Speaker 2:It was your, it was your reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a battle against, I feel like the enemy of my soul.
Speaker 2:Sure 1000%.
Speaker 1:Right, because if I thought that that would be the end of me, then I was ready to prepare to fight for me that next day and I was given grace and mercy I don't deserve and I realized, no matter what it wouldn't have been the end of me and my works became like that, that verse that says that you have no works, there is nothing that you can do as filthy rags.
Speaker 2:I think that scripture says yeah, it's filthy rags.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is literally nothing that I can do to make this better or make it go away. But God, but God can and his work and the miracle that he came and lived the sinless life and that he died this, his birth and his death, in the miraculous way that that he did the work, he did the work. There's nothing that I can do at all.
Speaker 2:It is quite remarkable as people walk through their own dark night of the soul, which is what you've explained to us. It's so fascinating to me because I don't know, I just literally don't know how people do it without him. Like I've had the same, like that time I told you I'm standing by a closet and I see my Bible and I literally throw it across the room. I still have it and it's still kind of crungled and crinked because I do it hard. I guess I was mad. I said earlier I wasn't angry, I guess I was mad, just looked different. But what I know is that during those times of my standoff with God, when I wouldn't talk to him it sounds like you had one of those too there was no peace, there was nothing but terminal, nothing but pain, nothing but conflict, nothing but guilt, nothing but shame, nothing but bad stuff.
Speaker 1:I was gonna hurt, no matter what For me.
Speaker 1:I was like hurt that he allowed me to hurt and I was gonna hurt with or without him, and I'd rather hurt with him. You know, I literally was gonna hurt, no matter what. Everything was confusing and the only thing that I knew to be true was him. I could still be angry with him, but I knew he loved me enough. I had some belief systems in me enough that I knew that he could take all my crying out, my lashing out, my frustration.
Speaker 1:Why would you let this happen? My questioning. He was bigger than that. If his grace was sufficient for my pettiness of this or that sin, it was still. He's not done with me, just because I'm like, how in the world would you let this happen? And someone reminded me that was really a lifeline an elder and someone that I respect. Her name is Sandy and her husband, by the way, has an amazing testimony of prison ministry, which is so ironic. But she picks my chin up at this point and looks me in my eyes and I know that I've been telling the Lord all these secret thoughts that no one knows, not even the therapist, because I was too afraid to tell him, too ashamed to tell him.
Speaker 2:You're talking about suicidal ideations in this room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just wanting to sleep past the pain. Because you can't sleep, you have nightmares and hallucinations and you long for sleep, but you're afraid of sleep. And am I going to wake up from sleep? So like, sleep is torturous for people like me.
Speaker 2:All trauma survivors.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Worst time. It's the worst time of the day, yeah.
Speaker 1:The day is every part of the day.
Speaker 2:The day is night. The day is night for real, though. I'll ask you a question and my listeners my listeners now know how much I love this song. But Corey Asbury just came out with a song not just, I guess it's been a few months now called Kind, and he opens I'm going to try to do the lyrics by memory. Sometimes babies die, sometimes relapse turns to relapse and we're left just asking why. Sometimes I still wonder if he's real. And if he is, how does he choose who? He does and doesn't heal? And on that dark day, when I saw my savior on that cross and the darkest day of history, I realized that's what kindness costs. Jennifer was kind to you in your healing. Is he kind to you?
Speaker 1:The first thing. That was actually a line of hope I had given up on. I was just hurting, so I was praying all the time, I was fasting, sort of, because I just didn't eat right, not the good kind of fasting, just barely surviving. And I find it was about six weeks and I realized, you know what, I'm just going to go to the doctor and they'll just give me drugs. I want something for my mood and maybe to help me sleep. Just give me a pill. I don't care if it's 10 pills, you just I need something for so I can breathe and something so I can wake up and something so I can sleep and something so I can't feel. And I'm just going to go to my doctor because I had talked to him before about postpartum depression and I remember us having a good conversation about it if I needed help with one of my after one of my children, and so I was like Dr Brad's going to help me. You know he's going to help me, he's going to get me all the things that I need so I can function.
Speaker 1:And of course God did not do that. I have this sort of meltdown and I have all these questions for him and I forget all the questions and I just unload on this doctor who has literally watched me labor. So he's been intimate, right. He like knows he's pretty vulnerable in those predicaments but he knows me and he knows you know my heart and see me as a mother and he can recognize that I'm a shell of that person. But he knows I'm hurting and he looks at me and he says, jennifer, you are grieving, and it had never dawned on me that that's what I was experienced was deep, crushing grief, you know you could label it label it that had to give you some hope a little bit.
Speaker 1:Did. And you know what's remarkable? This is the thing I went in there for pills and literally thinking I am broken, unable to be used by God. That was the mindset going in, still talking to God. But I was like God, you're gonna, I have this appointment, I'm gonna keep it, I'm gonna get in there and he's gonna fix me up and I'm whatever it takes to just medicate me to get through right, because I just didn't know how to function. And I'm talking to him and after I finished talking and after the calm had had cut, had cut restored from me just saying what had happened over the last six weeks, he looks at me and he says you're grieving. And then he says I'm about to tell you something I've never shared with really anyone but my wife and the nurse, his nurse who's literally probably worked there at least 15 years. She kind of looks at him and I kind of look at him and we're like what's he about to say?
Speaker 2:I'm literally on the edge of my seat right now.
Speaker 1:And he looks at me and he says for as long as I've had my driver's license, I've had a reoccurring nightmare off and on my entire life. He looks me in the eye and he says I have been hunted by a nightmare that I'm driving and a child runs in front of my car and I'm unable to save them. He said so much. So it's one of the reasons I went to med school, because I wanted to be prepared. If that ever happened, I would know what to do. He said if, every once in a while has this horrific nightmare that has plagued him, Wow.
Speaker 2:So you didn't feel as alone in that moment.
Speaker 1:No. And I looked into his eyes and something wanted to fight and I said can I pray with you, Because I never want you to experience this? And I prayed with my doctor. I grabbed his hand, I grabbed my nurse's hand and we prayed that the hands that are his were meant to heal and not to harm, and that God would continue to have a hedge of protection over his life and that anything that the enemy had planned would be bound and broken and to never come to be. In Jesus' name, Wow.
Speaker 2:What did he say?
Speaker 1:He had tears in his eyes. Now I haven't followed up with him because we ended up moving, but you know.
Speaker 2:And I had to be awkward.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, I mean God shows up. I mean I'm already as vulnerable as can be. I've already just shared with him that I'm going crazy. You know, I've told him I've killed someone and I don't know what to do, I don't know how to live as this person with that label. And then I get to have this moment with him and I said you know, I'm going to believe that God gave you that, as I'm going to say that this is now a vision versus a nightmare, and that God put that on your heart because he did want you to know how to help someone. And he has made you more cautious. And he said you know, you're right. I've always, when I get into a parking lot or street, I am hyper aware every time now, where, as a young kid, I was carefree who knows if I had been, you know, not that way, you know, but because of this fear, he lived his life a different way, very cautious all the time, and he had never shared anybody, except for his wife.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy, and you were there for such a time as that. And what I love about that story is that faith is a little bit like gravity it cannot be held down. And if you have had a truce transformation, or you that accepted Jesus Christ as your savior and what does that mean to the listener out there, what does that mean? That means that you admit that you are a sinner and that he is preeminent. He is the God of the universe. He is the one that can walk us through things like Jennifer has gone through and like I have gone through.
Speaker 2:And it's a reason why Corey Osbury can say and on that darkest day in history, when I saw my savior die, I thought to myself that's what kindness costs. Because the reality is, guys, we can say all we want. How can a loving God fill in the blank? Well, here's what I will say how can a loving God send us to heaven? It is December of 2023 and we get to go to heaven because he sent a baby born to die to this earth for us. That cannot be squelched in a doctor's office in the most random circumstances, because your fate showed up and prayed with a doctor. That is so amazing.
Speaker 1:And I went in saying I'm broken, I can never be used by God. What more is my life? Because, if you think about it, if I think I'm no longer a good mom because I've brought this shame, or I don't deserve my children because David doesn't have his own children, if I say I'm no longer a good wife because I literally can't do anything without imagining the scene like constantly running through my head so how am I going to be a good wife? And the hardest thing was to think that my life could never be used by God again.
Speaker 1:My testimony of being this mom, who, this believer, who came from a non-believing home that testimony doesn't mean anything anymore because now I have this accident over my head. Or the testimony that I saw God work in the lives of my kids and the miraculous healing that he did for my girls, but that testimony doesn't mean anything anymore because now I have this accident over my head and then I'm thinking I can no longer be used by God as a vessel, and so then it feels really defeating that. What use am I? And in that moment God squished that lie because I was able to pray for this man in an authentic, genuine way and I felt the warmth of the Holy Spirit in my hands.
Speaker 2:And the enemy of your soul. Lost that, yeah, lost that bit, yeah. And I know that there are probably times still I mean, we're on this podcast in 2023, this happened several years ago and it still evokes such pain and I appreciate you and I will be praying for you today because I know after this interview it's going to be hard. If Jennifer can somehow find a way through to saying to God I know what you want me to say. I want you to say I love you and then I trust you. I want to say that out well to God right now for myself, because guess who is just shriveling when we say that I love you and I trust you, none of this makes sense. None of it makes sense. Your story doesn't make sense. My story doesn't make sense, you know. What else doesn't make sense is our healing.
Speaker 1:Right To those who can't imagine it. God gives us faith and hope for what we need.
Speaker 2:Yes, even in my fractured faith and I do, on this moment in 2023, have a fractured faith myself, because I believe that God can send me to heaven but I have a hard time trusting him with earthly things. So you, jennifer, prayed with your doctor, wondered if he would ever use you again, if God had ever used you, if your life mattered, if your pain mattered. And suddenly I see on Facebook one day that you've published a book and I'm like, okay, now this is awesome. And that book is called left turn life reimagined. And you have it paired with a journal. Take two to three minutes and tell the listener about the genesis of that book, the hope of that book, and we will tell them where they can find it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I never. I always wanted to write a book, but I really thought it would always be a love story, a fictional love novel, you know, like all the greats, or even a series, like Anna Green Gables.
Speaker 1:I teach math but I love to read and I love to write, writing poems. So it's always a dream to write in my heart from a little girl. Never would I have thought that my book would be this subject a memoir about the most painful day of my life, but I could not shake it. The podcast Accidental Hope actually came first and you know, it was just. I felt like part of my healing would be to share and help others, like some kind of giving back forward where I would try to share what has helped me, and by someone listening and reaching out. Then they would encourage me to again answer that that God can still use broken people, even like me, as shameful and guilt. And I realized there were no resources.
Speaker 1:Literally zero, A black hole of an abyss of this topic, even though every 18 minutes in the US there is an accidental killing.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And there is nothing. There is a handful of books, one clinical study that I've been able to find and most of the people. If you ever see a celebrity that has an accident that kills someone, what happens to them? They disappear.
Speaker 2:What's the one right now in that movie set? I'm Alibald one.
Speaker 1:Well, that's how I ended up on Red Table Talk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to find that episode. So you're on Red Table Talk with Will Smith, jada Pinkett Smith and her mom and daughter, so I'll find that episode and link it. So God is using you, he is using you with that book. My life verse, jennifer, is Philippians 112, where Paul says and of course Paul is my favorite, probably my favorite Bible character we know what Paul has been through. He's been in prison, he has been beaten, he beat Christians. Very interesting life. But Paul says in Philippians 112, I want you to know that the things that have happened to me have really happened to further the gospel.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what you're doing Jennifer. Yes. And my second Corinthians yes, where he says we are ambassadors of Christ. Right, we are to be ambassadors of Christ.
Speaker 2:And you are an ambassador of what it means to be in perpetual grieving.
Speaker 1:Yes, long story.
Speaker 2:You are an ambassador of what it means to have to surrender that guilt and that shame to the one who died for you. Even if you meant to hit that young man, which you didn't, it is under the blood of Jesus Right, and so you wrote the book. Tell us about the little companion journal with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the book was. It started as a journal and letters to David. So one of my healing steps was because you get no closure in this.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I could write letters to God and journal my prayers. I could write, which would inevitably sometimes just leak into crying to David too, and apologizing, right. And then it would leak into and blur into praying for his kids, right, because I just journaled when I couldn't sleep and that's how the book started. And then, when I realized there was no one that talks about this, my therapist said here's your torch. Then, jennifer, here's your torch. If you're so you know, upset that there's no books that I can read as your counselor and you can read as as just a voice of encouragement. Here's the torch, it's right in front of you.
Speaker 1:And I took that torch and I said to the last breath in me, I will tell of your goodness and your faithfulness and what you did and what you brought me through and that, even though I am guilty and ashamed, you love me and you want life for me and it's not just because of me. You want that for everyone. And I could tell of the miracles. And so I wrote the book and never intended to write the book and never intended to go on a national television. I literally just said yes, lord, wherever you send me, I will go. And I I have to tell people that David was a good and innocent man because he was a devoted father. And then I have to share about the most painful, shameful day of my life, where I'm the villain of the story and it never feels good, but when? When? Lindsay responds.
Speaker 2:I love that girl. Yeah, lindsay's episode is in season two.
Speaker 1:Okay. I knew that she was a caddy before she even told her story. I can't remember what it was. It was either like a post that you wrote to advertise that, that episode, but as soon as I saw it or I felt it, I just knew I was going to know her story. Because we connect these caddies across the world different religions, men and women, different ages we can finish each other's thoughts because we have this condition of moral injury, which is a very unresearched. It's separate than PTSD.
Speaker 1:It's separate than complex PTSD. Moral injury is that of the soul and feeling that you are no longer worthy to live. And you know, I'm grateful that I have this community that I would have never known about because we are outcasts of the world. But I wrote the book totally nervous. It's very raw, it's very real, it is my story as I know it, and it can hurt other people because I am sharing from a perspective that is not normally talked about. And in no way, when I share my story, do I want to shadow or overshadow the lives of children who lost their dad or make light of this very tragic situation. It was just an underrepresented story.
Speaker 2:It was an underrepresented community for sure, and my listeners know how important the representation is Well, and the value of community.
Speaker 2:We have three C's on this podcast church, counseling and community and, of course, highlighting the story of the story who is Jesus? And so what is so encouraging to me on this day in December about this conversation is, as we mentioned before, a lot of people have demarcation lines and they don't have to live with their trauma like you and Lindsay and other people who are a part of the caddy, again cause of accidental death, and I'll also put some information about that in the show notes, as well as Jennifer's podcast, accidental Hope. I put a link in there. You're on YouTube. She is holding that up now.
Speaker 1:So this is the journal called Journey to Hope, Again an interactive journal. I don't know if you can see that very well, but because people kept asking what did you do, what were the steps you took? And God did not give me a release to do this self-help book. So what I did was make a journal and I give permission that you can go in any order that you want to in this journal and you can write your own prompts or use the prompts or not use the prompts. So there's empty pages and prompts, but it's like a little navigation Grief, guilt, shame and eventually hope. So it's like a map.
Speaker 1:So you take the map because you're on this journey to healing and you can do it in any and you can do it over and over again, depending on what trauma, because traumas continue to happen and it's got some prayers, it's got some ideas, like one of the activities that I don't even remember why I did this, that it was one of the nights I couldn't sleep and I wrote down all the things that I believed about God on one side of the page, and on the other side of the page I wrote down all the things that I knew of the enemy, you know that.
Speaker 1:God is good, god forgives, god is love, you know, god is joy, god has a purpose. So I wrote down these truths in a very childlike, just returning to that, very simplified beliefs, and on the other side was just everything that I knew of the enemy. Well, he's a thief and a liar and an accuser and he distorts and he's the author of confusion. So I wrote down everything that I knew of the enemy and then I would take each thought and be like, which thought does it line up with this belief? Is this belief of God or is this belief that I'm believing about myself, of the enemy? Because I couldn't hear. There was just so much joy. So, like, I just decided to create this little journal of, like little things that I did that you know people can do or not do, and some prayers if they don't know how to pray, you know this little thing about like put the things that we're ashamed of, just literally write it and nail it to the cross.
Speaker 2:If you're not on YouTube and you listen to it in audio. This episode is worth looking at because you can see this book. Well, we are going to give away at least a copy of both the book and the journal. If you are interested in receiving a copy of this book, I'll just randomly choose somebody. Just DM me through my Instagram. One of the first links that you will see in the show notes is follow on Instagram. Just hit that button. Or, if you're already following me on Instagram, send me a message. I would love to send both of those books that Jennifer has written to you For as we close the podcast. This is the by faith series. In Hebrews, chapter 11, we know by faith, abraham, isaac, jacob and all the peoples. If we were to write that about you today, fill in the blank for me. By faith, jennifer.
Speaker 1:Trust God with my story.
Speaker 2:Don't know that it gets any better than that. So Thank you for being here today. I adore you. I want you to go take care of yourself after you get off of this interview. God is so faithful and ever-present help and trouble, and we don't always have to understand, but your faith is like gravity. It would not be held down, and One day, when you stand before Jesus, he isn't gonna say, hey, remember that left turn. He's gonna say, hey, remember that day in the car when you said I trust you, I love you. Well done, good and faithful Guys, we'll be back in two weeks with another story.
Speaker 2:You know I don't leave a microphone without saying this, and this has been an emotional one, but I declare it over you, jennifer, and I declare it over my listeners because it's true and your enemy doesn't want you to know it. But regardless of what you've done, regardless of what you've been through, regardless what's been done to you, you're seen, you are known, you're heard, you are loved and you are valued. And for this, by faith, series, by faith, jennifer, trust him with her story. Will you do the same? We would love to introduce you to the star of the story again. Contact me through Instagram. I'll provide Jennifer's information. You're under the sound of our voices. We would love To introduce you to Jesus. If you don't know how to do so, just contact us. Thanks for being here for us today, jennifer. Guys, we'll be back in two weeks.
Speaker 3:I want to be more like you, so let my life be one more time. And when my hope is fading and when will be still assail me, I will remember how you you never fail me. You have pulled me out from the depths. You have Saved me from certain death. You have shown yourself faithful to me Over and over Jesus. So let my life glorify you. Teach me to walk beside you. I want to be more like you, so let my life be one, more by you, more by you, more by you.