I picked this article as it INSPIRED me, and hopefully it will you too!  This article comes from the  book  “THANK YOU POWER”- AUTHOR:  DEBORAH  NORVILLE

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EMMA ROTHBURST DOES NOT LOOK  AT THE DISASTER that hit her life as a Blessing but she does know she has  been blessed.  Her story in her home town  near Kansas City  and it haunted television viewers who saw the news reports about  it.

It was a fall Friday night  during Emma’s junior year in high school.  She and friend Ashley Wanger  were on their way home.  Ashley was driving.  Suddenly, from out of  nowhere a police car in hot pursuit  came barreling down the street.   Traveling eighty to ninety miles an hour, the cops blew through a red  light.  The squad car’s dash-cam video later showed that the stoplight had  been red for at least fifteen seconds   before the officers reached  the intersection.  Ashley had the right of way.  But that didn’t  matter . The final video images are Emma’s face, eyes wide  open ,her hands instinctively rising to her face in horror.

Mercifully,   Emma doesn’t remember  any of this.  She remembers  her mother dropping  her off at Ashley’s home and then waking up in  intensive care just before being wheeled into surgery.  Friends who saw  what happened in between would say it’s a good thing she doesn’t remember.   They were sure both girls would be brought  out of the wreckage in body bags.  Emma nearly was.

Miraculously , Ashley  suffered only cuts and bruises, but Emma’s injuries  were another  story.  The sixteen-year old suffered a shattered  pelvis, fractures  to the tibia, fibula, and ankles, a punctured uterus and fallopian tubes and  damage to her ovaries, her bladder and kidney.  She also had a bruised  liver and heart, a perforated diaphragm  and a collapsed right lung.   Emma was in hospital for more than a month.  Once she was able to  return, she attended classes in a wheelchair.  For a while doctors weren’t  sure if Emma would ever walk again.  They’s still not certain if she’ll be  able to have children.

The accident rearranged Emma  and her family’s world as much as it rearranged her body.   A  former junior-high cheerleader who ran three miles a day, Emma now spends every  single day dealing with pain.  Yes, incredibly, for some  one with the  hip injuries she sustained, she can walk.  You don’t have  to talk  with Emma for long to know she is one very determined young lady.

” No one ever  told   me I wouldn’t be able to walk, but that’s  what everyone  seemed  so upset about.  If you have a crushed pelvis  “she explained” You  never hear of anyone recovering all the way from that.  So, I just decided  that I was going to walk.

Emma walks with a limp.   She can’t run or jog, she can’t even stand for a long time  Now a college  freshman,  she is thrilled just to be able to sit through all her  classes.  In the beginning, that simply wasn’t possible.  Her right  side is atrophied   from the impact of the crash, which, coupled with  an oddly mending pelvis, means that she’s  a bit lopsided on her  bottom.  But Emma’s  figured out a practical way to deal with  this “I just put my cell phone in my right butt pocket and even myself  out.  Nobody notices”

Her matter-of-retelling of  her accident and long road back to health might lead on to believe that she’s  naturally optimistic.  Don’t be fooled.

“Funny think about “positive  people like that,”  she says “They are not really like that.  When I  was stuck in bed, I knew I would have pain the next day.  I was always  excited to have visitors come to see me.  But then they would leave and I  would have a little bit  of resentment. You  know like, you can sit  down and then stand up and walk away, And I can’t. ” Then as if forcibly  pushing those negative thoughts out of the room, Emma continues  matter-of-factly. But  I attribute  that to the numerous painkillers  I was on . They  kind of shift your mood around”.

It’s clear that Emma’s  determined mind-set has been a key  asset in her recovery  She gives a  lot of credit to he visitors who came to see her, many of whom she didn’t even  know.

“Lying in bed all day and  being in pain, there’s nothing really you can do.  They came to just to  visit me  That kind of stuff really kept me going.  Even random  people.  I had no idea who they were.  But they came.  In normal  life that , that wouldn’t be a big deal-people coming to visit.  But, oh no  !  It was really a big deal”.

Emma is grateful for one  constant during those dark first days: her mom.  Mrs. Rothbrust sayed with  her daughter round the clock, nursing her, consoling her, counseling   her.  Emmy’s Dad had to work, but he brought breakfast every morning  and checked in on Emma each day.  Emma  has tried to let those who  came to see her what their gift of time meant  to her.

“Some of those people I have  gone back to and said ” Wow, thank you so much for visiting me.  I was so  bored that day! “

And , I have tried to add all  those people that prayed for me to my prayers.  It’s only fair”, she  explains.  They put all that  time and energy and intense  faith into me.  They deserve to get it back.”

GRATITUDE RETURNED BY  GRATITUDE. PRAYER REPAID BY MORE PRAYERS.  Asked if there was any silver  lining  to her horrible tragedy, Emma is quick to answer, “I’m alive. I  really should be dead, and I am not, and there is something I have to do, I  guess.

What that is, the girl who  tried to live right, do no wrong, get good grades, and make her parents  proud, can’t.  A good person before, Emma says she thinks she is now better  at helping others.  “I think when you suffer a whole lot, you are more in  tune with other people and their feelings.  I think that this is part  of God’s purpose, but only not sure , I am only eighteen.”  ONLY EIGHTEEN,  BUT WISE WAY BEYOND THAT.

“PRE ACCIDENT, I   WAS A NICE PERSON, FOR SURE”.  EMMA TRIES TO ARTICULATE A CERTAIN  KNOWING THAT SHE POSSESSSES.  “Now I can just see people tell they are upset or in pain.  I know that a smile can make you feel  better  about anything-even if it’s just for that minute.  You have  that one minute: I feel better. Somebody smiled at me!”  She also affirms  that reaching out to others when you are hurting yourself  can have awesome  results.  “When you are in a bad mood and you see someone else in a bad  mood you try to cheer them up, and it ends up cheering you up too”. She  explains You didn’t even think about that happening.  But you shouldn’t  help others because you think things will get better for you in the end.   Selfish acts don’t come back to repay you.  Only selfless acts  do.”

Emma is strikingly free of  emotional baggage from her accident.  She credits her faith for  that.  And she has no rancor towards the police officers responsible for  her injuries. “They didn’t plan on hurting anybody.  But the way they did their job could be considered  questionable”

Meanwhile,  Emma a  linguistics major, says she has a message for anyone who is suffering : “Don’t  focus on yourself. Focus on tomorrow and know that no matter what, it will be  OK!.  Deep living in the moment, and be grateful for the little   things.  For people being there, for the sandwich in front of  you.  The little things…the little things are best.  Focus on the  little things and the days will pass until you feel better.  The   THANK YOUS that were once a silly-sweet ritual when she was a girl have been a  life preserver  as the young woman has dealt with challenges that would  unravel many  of us.  Emma’s faith and her practice of Thank You Power were firmly in place  before her automobile accident !

He is a man of sense who  does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he  has.—–Epictetus

THANK YOU POWER -envision  the life you’d like!