I laid in that bed not moving, eating or wanting to exist for what felt like 2 weeks. It was one of the darkest and loneliest times in my life, even though no one left my side. I constantly had people pushing me to keep going, I just didn’t want to. My world was completely shaken. I walked into that hospital so optimistic and then I woke up in a different world. It was something I didn’t understand. I didn’t get how this happened. It was such a weird feeling. What kind of life can I have being paralyzed from my ribs down. Things I used to do were so far gone. If I knew I would never walk again I would have done so many more things. I would have ran a marathon, made my legs burn just so I knew they worked. Each day that went by was just another day that I didn’t want to be apart of. The nurses would come in and give me bed baths, they would change me. It felt like the world was still moving but I was frozen. I just wanted to wake up from this nightmare, from this cold and confusing place. The bubbly, smiley, funny person was nonexistent. I was nothing but mean to everyone who came into that room. I remember that one day the nurse came in and asked if I wanted to get up and take a real shower. She said that she would hold me in the shower and that it would feel good to get up and move around. I automatically shut her down, there was no way I was going to get up and get in a shower. I cannot move and that just did not sound fun to me at all. But my mom had enough of my attitude and decided for me that today was the day I would take a real shower. Oh how I hated her. I mean I despised her in that very moment. Three other nurses came into my room and prepped the shower and themselves. They reached their hands out for me to grab so they could sit me up. I haven’t sat up in weeks, and let me tell you; it was the strangest feeling. I felt like I was standing through the bed. I couldn’t feel from my waist down. So I was trying to get a feel of where my limbs were, where the bed was, trying to find balance somewhere. I knew that this was not going to “feel good” like the nurse exclaimed it would. They shifted me to the shower and sat me on the bench. I have never felt so exposed in my life. Not because I was naked, but because I literally couldn’t do anything for myself. I couldn’t lift my arms up, I couldn’t just sit on the bench without falling over, I couldn’t even hold my head up by myself. I felt helpless. I just sat there, water running over my face crying. My mom was in the shower helping the nurses and all I could think was how much I hated mom for making me do this. I just repeated to her “ I hate you, I hate you, I hate you”. She just repeated back “ I love you, I love you, I love you”. Finally the shower was over. I was in so much pain and was just ready to be in the bed and by myself again. The days passed and I had friends and family visit. Bringing me pictures to put up around my room, to put motivational signs. I received a wooden block bible verse that read “Be still and know that I am God..” psalms 46:10. At the time I got it I was just like oh that's nice, I didn’t think too much about it. You see I was raised in church for the most part so I knew about God. But that's the thing, I just KNEW Him, I didn’t have a relationship with Him. But ever since my surgery I didn’t do much talking with him. I was mad at him. I didn’t understand why or how He would let something like this happen to me. I was a good person, I didn’t do anything bad. I was only 13 years old, I mean what could a young girl like me do to make someone so mad that they would loose their legs. I was just confused and it shifted my view on God for a while. The doctors finally released me from the ICU and I was transferred into a regular room on the rehabilitation floor. ((This was before they had the fancy hospital for kids, so I shared my floor and rooms with elderly folk. I was literally the only teen in rehab so that didn’t make things easier.)) The doctors recommended that I go to rehab to keep my muscles flexible and to keep my body good in case my feeling does come back. They didn’t want me to loose anymore function than I already had. Rehab just didn’t sound appealing to me. I had zero motivation to do anything that made me feel less of an able bodied person than I already was. I did not want to find out what else I couldn’t do, or what I would need help with. I would just rather lay in this bed and waste away. I remember laying there one day looking around at all the things on my walls, and I caught myself staring at the block of wood with the scripture on it. I would read it and then glance around my room again, but I kept finding my eyes fixed back on that wooden block. So I laid there and just read it over and over. “Be still and know that I am God, Be still and know that I am God, Be still and know that I am God.” And then it hit me, God made me still so that I would know who He was. There are times where God speaks in riddle, and there are times where He speaks clear as day and this was one of them. He made me literally so still so I would come to Him, lean on him, need Him. He was telling me that I wasn’t alone in this fight. That He is God and is bigger than any problem I may be facing. In that moment I knew that laying there feeling sorry for myself had to stop. What good was it doing for me? There were people who were way worse off than me. Big deal I couldn’t use my legs, but I had two perfectly good arms that work and I need to suck it up and learn to live with what I have. I decided I was going to have a positive attitude, that I was going to try my hardest to get my body back to what it was, back to walking, and if that didn’t happen then that was okay. I owe it to myself to try as hard as I can. God saved my life that day and I haven’t looked back since then.