Chapter 18

The Best Is Yet to Come

My life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

ACTS 20:24

The best plans I have for my life are going to be far exceeded with Your help! Father, I truly believe that! So my hope and prayer is that You will help me to imagine a little more each day and believe that You make all things possible!

Jen’s journal, three weeks before the crash

This is not a journey I would ever have wished for. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t understand it. For a long time all I could do was endure it. Just surviving from one day to the next, sometimes from one hour to the next, took every ounce of energy I had.

Without faith in God’s goodness, it would have been a hopeless effort. I could never have survived or accepted what happened to my family. God’s love lifted me up when nothing else could. It would have been so easy to give up, to climb into a dark place of bitterness and anger and disappointment and stay there.

Satan’s number one weapon is to get us to doubt God’s love. If God really loved Jennifer, how could He let her suffer the way she has? How could He let me and the rest of my family go through the trial by fire we have endured? What’s He doing? Doesn’t He care? Is He not paying attention?

Here’s where faith makes all the difference. I have faith that God’s plan is better than mine. He loves the Barrick family so much that He sent His perfect Son to pay for our sins with His life. A God who has done this could never wish us harm. Whatever happens to us, even if it seems hard and painful by our standards, is part of His flawless plan for the world. From our limited, self-centered, human perspective, the tribulations we face seem devastating and all-consuming. Faith tells us that from the Lord’s perspective, those trials are the refiner’s fire that show us how helpless we are on our own. They turn our eyes away from the desires and distractions of the world and force us to focus on the power of God in us. It’s only when God is all we have that we know for sure God is all we need.

I had to let go of my plans for our family and trust God’s plans. I had to have faith that everything that happened was subject to God’s power, even when I didn’t understand. Faith was there for the taking, but I had to reach out and grab hold of it; I had to choose victory over defeat. Satan had tried to destroy my family by making us doubt the goodness of God, but I was not going to let him!

Through faith, you can know that your pain has a purpose and that God never wastes a tear. That’s easy to say, but there were times when I thought it was impossible to believe in my heart. I was exhausted from acting like everything was fine when it wasn’t. I was so numb, so emotionally fried, that I began putting up walls to protect myself. But I didn’t want to continue down that dark path. I wanted to live again! I wanted to feel again!

One day when no one was looking, I crawled up into our big chair in the den. I pictured myself crawling up into God’s lap as He wrapped His arms around me and held me tight. Although I didn’t have the words to express the emotional pain that I felt, God understood it completely. I sat there and wept while God held me in His arms. Then I remembered something Jen had told me: “Mom, ask God for what you need. Ask Him to whisper hope in your ear.” So I did. I asked God to tell me He loved me and that He would take care of me. I asked Him to help me let go and trust Him because I knew I couldn’t go on in my own strength. I was completely broken and desperate.

That is exactly how God longs for us to be—broken and desperate for Him. He isn’t overwhelmed by our hard questions or our problems. He wants to come to our rescue. God gave me a Scripture passage that day that I had read before, but somehow it jumped off the page as if God were speaking directly to my heart. I have clung to Isaiah 41:9-10 and shared my paraphrase of the passage to audiences many times since: “I have called you. I have chosen you. Fear not! I am with you. I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you.”

Jennifer senses God and the spiritual world in vivid, intimate ways. This is one of the ways I know the Lord has guided her steps through these last five years of tragedy and struggle. From an earthly perspective Jen has lost so much; yet from God’s perspective she and He are closer than ever. She has become His mouthpiece to untold thousands of people who are desperate for Christ in their lives and who hear Him through her when they haven’t heard Him any other way. Without the changes in Jen caused by the accident, she could never have done what she’s doing for the Lord. She tells me my brain gets in the way, and she’s right. The new Jen is “simple minded.” Her brain is not clogged with all the things that are fighting for attention and swirling around inside my brain. She has become hardwired to God. She lives and breathes in Him and for Him to the exclusion of anything else.

One morning Jen and I were on the screened porch drinking coffee and enjoying the beauty of God’s creation. All around us birds were chirping and flowers were blooming. I asked Jen what her perspective on life is now.

She thought for a minute and said, “I know God is holding me in His hands. I am His. I have moved beyond asking why the Lord allowed this to happen to asking, ‘Lord, why did you choose me for this incredible honor? Why did you choose me?’ I can’t believe what God is doing through me and how He is using me. I am so honored and excited to be His vessel. I am so thankful for where He has me, and I wouldn’t change any of it (except I would like to know how long I’m going to have these headaches!).

“I don’t feel normal, and I’m okay with that. I never wanted to be normal. And I don’t want to be remembered as ‘the girl with the brain injury.’ I want to be remembered as the girl who loved Jesus with all her heart.”

There was a time when Jen thought she wanted to be a missionary. By God’s grace she has become a powerful and effective one, though in a completely different way from what she imagined. In her journal the summer before the accident she wrote to God, “Daddy, I know with Your help the two of us can change the lost and dying world together.” God has answered that prayer beyond her wildest expectations. Over the past five years Jen and I have spoken to tens of thousands of people and probably reached millions more through radio, television, and the Internet.

Her ministry has grown in other, unexpected ways. When Jen was eleven years old, Andy came home from business trips with gifts of jewelry for her. Jen loved jewelry and decided she could design her own. Within a year, she was making hundreds of bracelets that her father would sell for her at women’s conferences across the country. She started her own little business, and creating jewelry was one of her favorite things to do.

After the accident, it seemed impossible that she would ever make jewelry again. Not only was her memory impaired, her vision was bad and she didn’t have the necessary dexterity in her hands anymore. As a mom, my heart was broken because there were so many things that Jen couldn’t do and the thought that she could no longer make jewelry was devastating. I remember praying, “Lord, please don’t take away her ability to make jewelry too. It gives her so much joy! Please let her be able to use her hands again!”

One day about a year after the accident Jen said, “God is speaking to my heart, and I think I am going to make jewelry again. I might even put a Bible verse on it.” Miraculously, Jen is doing it. Even though it is hard and takes her a lot longer than before she was injured, this project has given her a new confidence. She loves creating original designs, including beautiful hand-beaded earrings, bracelets, and necklaces made of colored crystals and gemstones. Jen claims the verse Matthew 19:26, “But with God all things are possible” (NIV). Every item comes with a card that features the verse, pictures, and Jen’s story.14

Her dream for the future is to have a speaking and writing ministry. Jen also has a special desire to write children’s books and prayer books. “I don’t want to limit what God wants to do in and through me,” she says. “I am willing to go wherever He wants me to go and do whatever He wants me to do. I believe God wants me to have a ministry to the world.” In fact, our family recently founded a nonprofit ministry called Hope Out Loud to encourage those who are hurting and broken with the hope found in Jesus Christ.

Jen continues to heal. Today her stomach pain is completely gone and, five years after the accident, she has much more energy. Her memory is gradually improving, and she is more independent in taking care of her personal needs. Only God knows how long her progress will continue or how far it will go. Every morning I thank Him for another day of her life and for every new sign of recovery.

I know that everyone reading this book has a story. Even if you haven’t experienced anything life-threatening or physically violent, you’ve likely been through hard times—pain, brokenness, and shattered dreams that have shaken your faith and caused you to doubt God’s love and His plans for your life. It could be sickness or death, financial or career crisis, betrayal or divorce, or something else that stops you in your tracks and makes you ask, “Why, God? If You really love me and You’re really in charge, how can You let this happen?”

Perhaps your life hasn’t turned out like you planned or hoped. You may be on a completely different path than you expected to be. You can choose to spend every day longing for the way things used to be or “should” have been, or you can celebrate the person you are now.

Whatever caused your scars and whoever’s fault it was, you have a choice: you can be bitter, or you can be better. I can’t share your burden or take away your pain. What I can do is tell you with absolute certainty that God loves you unconditionally and does everything for your ultimate good, even when it doesn’t seem that way at the time. With God there is always hope, no matter what. With God you can always forgive and be forgiven, no matter what—not in your own strength, but in His. With God you can learn, as I have, that however heavy your burden, God always stands ready to help you bear it. My prayer for you is that you will know these things in your heart and hold fast to them. They will see you through.

Faith brings assurance that you are becoming exactly the person God wants you to be. God never wastes a pain or a tear—He promises to use everything if we let Him. God wants us to give all our scars and broken pieces to Him so He can put us back together again and make us into something beautiful. Even if the physical scars remain, God can heal all of us in our souls. If you listen to Him, He will assure you that through your sometimes painful, tearful journey of growth and change, He is preparing you for heaven.

Jennifer says that she wouldn’t change what happened to her even if she could. That sounds like a crazy statement at first. Until you realize that it’s not the old scholar/athlete Jen talking, it’s the new Jen, who has accomplished more for the Kingdom of God in a few short years than many “normal” people do in a lifetime. She wakes up every morning ready to serve Him with her whole heart. It’s all she needs and all she wants.

This wasn’t the miracle that I prayed for, but God has shown me over and over that He has something far greater for Jen. “God whispers ‘hope’ in my ear,” she says with a smile, “and tells me the best is yet to come.

“And that someday, I will understand.”