Surviving Devastation and Turning it Into Spring

Image taken from http://therealsouthkorea.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/spring-in-busan-korea/

While I was still working as a Technical Writer for a small tech company down in Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the community chat it was brought to our attention that the sister-in-law of one of the founding members of the company was going to be on the Oprah Winfrey show.

I decided to check it out and followed the link. What I found touched my heart and broke it. What I found was a woman who had suffered a horrible small plane crash, with her husband. The pilot, a close friend, was killed. Her husband had to bang and rip their way out of the burning aircraft. He got out. She could not. He ran to the window and you can imagine the panic, the desperation and the fear. There was no other way, except the way that he had gone, which apparently was engulfed in flames. Somehow, she turned herself in the direction she need to go and she made it out. She rolled around on the ground putting out the flames. Burns covered over 80% of her body. She was put into a medically induced coma for multiple months so her body could heal. When she woke up, her children did not recognize her, her baby who had only been a few months old at the time of the accident, would not come to her. *She* didn't recognize her.

Her ordeal is not over. However she has walked a good portion of the beginning path in this new life. She has had up days and down days, sad days and glad days, mad days and joyful days, desperation and exaltation.

When I found the link to her blog, I spent a couple of hours, pouring over it--backwards--from most recent to the furthest back. I read her story by days and by moments. At times she made me smile and my heart leapt with her bravery, and her sense of humor. At times, her story and her frustration and heartache brought me to tears.

This woman is a woman of courage. A woman of fortitude. A woman of faith.

She is a woman whose life was catastrophically altered from the happy, beautiful path it had been on--changed into something new, and something different, but hopefully, and what is looking to be, a new, happy and beautiful path, just of a different kind.

Her story also speaks of the power of family; of commitment; of love; of marriage through sickness and through health; it speaks of the power of community and of loving and serving your fellow man. It speaks of seeing the things that are truly important, the things that are inside of a person--not the shallowness of clothes, of cars, of shopping, of physical appearance--not the shallowness of keeping up with the neighbors, or having the latest and greatest of whatever trend is floating about on the moment. There is beauty in the human soul--in the divine spirit that is in all of us, if we will only open our eyes to it, and people, all of these people that walk around us and inhabit this planet with us, are more than just a brain inside a physical vessel of flesh that talks and breathes and eats and does.

She does not know me. I do not know her. But she is a person that can touch you just the same, if you let her. I admire her for her perseverance, for putting her feet on the floor every morning, for her tears and for her love; I admire her for her faith and for her hope; I admire her for not losing her trust in God and in a bigger picture. I admire *Her*.

Her name is Stephanie Nielsen. If you are looking for somewhere that hope is, if you are looking for somewhere where love is, if you are looking for something uplifting or something that will help you to put life into perspective, her story, her perspective, may help you to find those things.

http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/

Here's to you Stephanie--may your recovery continue successfully--may your heart always grow--may your faith wax strong--and may you continue to touch the hearts of strangers and loved ones alike.