When I was 19....

When I was 19, I was in a horrible car accident.  I easily could have died, but I didn't.  I suffered severe lacerations on my body and especially on my face, as well as, a dislocated shoulder and head trauma.  Miraculously God allowed me and the other passengers from all of the other 10 cars involved to survive.  The few years preceding the accident had been very difficult for me.  I was in a dark place and desperately trying to hold on.  I knew God, and I longed for Him; but my relationship wasn't solid at that time.  I didn't trust Him.  I was self consumed and self absorbed in my pain.   I was losing hope and felt like a burden to most everyone.  Although I knew my family loved me, I didn't feel it.  But....I didn't feel anything.  For the first several nights after I was released from the hospital after the accident, someone was suppose to check my vitals and my pupils to make sure I wasn't having serious repercussions from the head injury.  One night I was asleep on the sofa and my sweet daddy came in to check on me.  He had done this several times per night for several nights, but this time I didn't fall directly back to sleep after he checked on me.  I waited for him to walk back to his bedroom and sleep until he would come back in a few hours to check again, but he didn't leave. I lay there still and quiet and listened as he sat on the end of the sofa and sobbed softly.  In that moment, for the first time in a long time....I felt loved.  I knew that he wasn't crying out of sorrow or sadness or pain, but he was crying out of gratitude and love and hope.  I knew that he was crying out of relief, because I was alive.  God changed many things for me that night.  I don't think I ever told my daddy about listening to him cry on my behalf or how God used him that night to show me how much I was loved, but I know he knows now.  I love how God works in the darkness, because sometimes the darkness is the hardest place to be.