Everything Is Possible

I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]

We had two mules growing up, Sady and Sam. I rode horses and mules, despite having no legs to put into the stirrups. I just figured out a way to plant my butt in the saddle and balance my weight, sure and steady. One time I was riding Sam and something spooked him, so he turned sharply to the right and directly into a clothesline. I ducked down, and then he jolted and started running toward the road and off our property. I fell off to the side and was hanging on to the horn of the saddle with only one hand. He kept galloping away at full speed down the street, but I refused to let go. I remember glancing back at my parents and brothers chasing after us in a panic.

“Stop screaming!” I shouted at them. “Calm down!” I was cool as a cucumber.

They eventually got Sam to slow down and hop back on the grass. When he finally came to a stop, I was still hanging on, stubborn as a mule myself. I gave my family a scare, but I was just fine—not even a scratch. Sam and I kind of liked our little escape act!

I never ran out of steam as a child. Seriously, I was like the Energizer Bunny. Anyone given the task of getting me to slow down had a huge problem. Slow wasn’t one of my speeds, and frankly, I didn’t come with any brakes. My elementary school hired a lovely lady named Penny Carman to serve as my personal aide in kindergarten. I didn’t need anyone’s help, and I quickly informed Penny of this fact. No, I didn’t need assistance getting on and off the school bus. No, I wasn’t disabled. No, I didn’t need to make a scene everywhere I went. I could get around on my own perfectly fine, thank you. I might have given her a little bit of ’tude for a five-year-old, but Penny understood. She knew I desperately wanted to look and feel like a “regular” kid. The wheelchair wouldn’t cut it.

So she made a few calls and got a sturdy little red wagon donated specifically for my use. I thought I looked pretty cool rolling in, and even better, all the kids wanted a ride.

Recess was one of my favorite times of the school day because I craved being outside, playing in the rocks, swinging really high (too high) on the swings, and dangling from the monkey bars. I was always the last one standing on the merry-go-round, while all the other kids stumbled off, dizzy. By God’s good graces, I rarely wound up with more than a bump, bruise, or scratch. I would try anything once (but usually twice or three times). I seized any opportunity to get dirty and dusty. My poor mom would dress me in pretty girly outfits, and I’d come home caked in dirt like I’d been in a mud-wrestling match, not in a classroom. She also tied my hair into pigtails—no surprise I barely ever made it home with them intact. Hair was a big thing for my mom. As a child, she wore her hair short and hated it. No daughter of hers was going to have short hair! I had such long, thick hair that the ponytails or pigtails had to sit on the very top of my head so my hair wouldn’t get in my way. At one point, I remember my hair was longer than my whole body! If I would leave it down, it would drag on the ground and get leaves in it. I hated when my mom brushed it, and she had to chase me around to get me to stay still long enough to work out the tangles. I would cry, and she used to call our old cat, Mickey, over “to get the rats in my hair.” I would laugh, and suddenly the brushing felt a little more tolerable. But not much.

I brought my lunch to school in a lunch box in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head. Yep, Mickey’s head opened up to reveal PB&J sandwiches, Capri Sun juice pouches, and Fruit by the Foot snacks. My other favorite lunch included a bologna, cheese, and mayo sandwich. I can still taste it today if I close my eyes. For a little snip of a thing, I always seemed to be starving. I loved eating cereal late at night—Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cap’n Crunch, Apple Jacks. I poured ridiculous globs of Hershey’s Syrup into milk and drank Nesquik chocolate milk by the gallon. I guess I burned all that sugar pretty quick and easy. Ah, youth!

I remember having the biggest crush on JTT—Jonathan Taylor Thomas from the TV sitcom Home Improvement. I listened to NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, but my very first CD was the Spice Girls—I was totally Posh Spice! I loved watching Nickelodeon, Hey Arnold!, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, and Saturday-morning Looney Tunes cartoons. I was optimistic that Wile E. Coyote would catch the Road Runner at least one time. I was nuts about the Power Rangers and, of course, wanted to be the pink one.

I was always a whirlwind: hard to pin down and hard to convince that anything was unsafe. I was all about pushing myself to test my limits and defying what people expected of me (not to mention gravity!). The only time I “settled down” was for carpet time, the time when Mrs. Butcher gathered our class around her on a tiny rug to talk about something.

I loved, loved, loved Mrs. Butcher! She was small, about four foot nothing, with a warm, nurturing voice and a beautiful smile. I was captivated by her. I think I also loved just being physically close to everyone in that circle and checking their faces out and seeing their reactions (maybe this is where my love of people watching started). You can learn a lot about someone just from watching their eyes. I loved trying to figure out what made my classmates tick. I loved the idea that I could read their minds and secretly wished for that superpower.

I remember we had this little brightly colored playhouse in the corner of our classroom, and we could climb in, on, and through it. I was always playing and hiding in it, even when I wasn’t supposed to. I also remember painting at the easel and all the colors and the water cups we’d use to rinse out the brushes. I loved mixing the thick, gooey paint to create new colors. It blew my mind when I learned that yellow and blue made green. Who knew?

I was outgoing and chatty. Blake, a cool kid with a long rattail trailing down his back, was one of my first friends. We met in line at kindergarten registration and stayed friends through high school and long after. There was also Ashley. I remember one time she went to Mexico with her family on a vacation and came back tan with her hair in tiny little braids with beads on the ends. How amazing, I thought, to travel somewhere else in the world and come back changed by it. It’s funny how you realize things when you’re writing a book and reflecting on your life. Even as a kid, I had wanderlust. Staying in one place—or one small town—was not in the cards.

I think most kids liked that I was fun-loving, adventurous, and always down for anything. I was also a talker. Basically, I never shut up. Every report card I ever got said the same thing: “Jen is so great, well-organized, uses her time wisely, works well with others . . . but she talks way too much in class!” I remember only one kid in kindergarten who didn’t instantly take to me. One day, out of nowhere, a girl in the yard at recess pushed me out of my wheelchair. I landed hard on some rocks and just stayed there, staring up at her. Frankly, I was really confused and wondered, Where did this come from? What did I do to make her so angry? The answer was nothing. I had done nothing. She had experienced a rough upbringing and had a lot going on at home—I got in her way. It wasn’t about me at all; it was about her. That taught me this valuable lesson: violence is seldom about the person it’s aimed at. She was in pain and needed to lash out. I was an easy target. She should have thought twice about that beforehand though, because all my friends rushed to my aid and jumped on her like white on rice!

My body wasn’t the only thing always in motion when I was a child; my mind raced as well. Once I mastered reading, I found a little place in our apple tree out back to squeeze my booty into. I’d climb up high, tuck myself between a few sturdy branches, and plow through book after book. Finishing one only fueled my desire to start another. It was my first “me time,” where I learned how important it was to find moments and places to connect with myself and my thoughts. Later it would become my time to pray and connect with God as well.

I discovered The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and became hooked—I couldn’t read those books fast enough and was drawn to the mystical creatures and breathtaking adventures. It was the idea of a foreign world that called to me, including magical, marvelous creatures that could fly and breathe underwater. And animals that could talk! Why, I wondered, does it have to be fantasy? Why can’t believing something is true actually make it that way? I thought so hard about these imaginary scenarios, it made my head hurt! I tried to picture what I would look like with a mermaid tail or fairy wings. What if I drank a magical elixir like Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and it made me shrink or grow really tall? If I had Aladdin’s magic carpet, who would I invite to take a ride with me (and would my brothers fight if I chose one over the other)? Did fairy dust exist like in the movie Hook—and how could I get some from Tinker Bell?

I was a little girl who got lost in these make-believe worlds because they showed me a realm where anything and everything was possible. They definitely planted seeds of curiosity. If horses could fly in Narnia, why couldn’t I?

Fifth grade was a big year for me. My teacher was Mrs. Sweat. She had wild, curly brown hair with streaks of blonde and red, and she always had really long fingernails, so I loved the sound of her tapping on the keyboard: tick-tick-tick-tick. She carried her coffee cup with her everywhere, and it was stained with red lipstick. She buried her reading glasses in her epic hair most of the time, and she dressed uniquely. She had spelling bees in the classroom and always gave out awesome gifts as rewards for the winner (this was a good thing for me, because I was great at spelling). I have no idea why, but she let us sit on our classroom tables. Sitting on a table was something my mom never let any of us do at home—it simply wasn’t polite. But Mrs. Sweat had no issue with it.

I met my best friend, Krine, that year. She was in Mr. Waldrop’s class, the class I thought had all the “troublemakers” in it. But it didn’t seem to bother me. Krine was a bit of a wild child, and I was a Goody Two-shoes, yet we clicked. She also was adopted, so we bonded over that, though her grandparents raised her. The girl was a pistol (still is!). When she got older, she loved to party and always had the hottest boyfriends. I, however, was a quirky, funny, slightly uptight teen who lectured people not to smoke, drink, or sleep around. Like I said, the good girl. As Krine and I got older and became extremely close in high school, her confidence gave me confidence. She taught me how to bust out of my shell and not be self-conscious about anything. We were total opposites, and God gifted us with each other. We would talk and talk for hours, a lot of the time about my spiritual beliefs. Krine was never big on faith and was very vocal about it (as she was about everything), but I was equally vocal about how I felt about God. That’s the thing I love about our friendship, even to this day. We can be 100 percent raw, real, and truthful about how we feel about something, even if we don’t agree, and no one’s feelings get hurt. But God worked on her heart through our friendship, and she eventually became a believer.

“I don’t know where I’d be without you,” she likes to tell me. But I honestly don’t know where I’d be without her. She taught me so much, loved me so deeply, stood up and fought for me. God brings people into our lives to help us learn, not just about the world, but about ourselves. Looking back, I see that Krine gave me my first opportunities to speak about my love for God. She helped me find my voice. When I think back on it, we seemed the most unlikely duo—but God knew better.

Fifth grade was also my year to soar—literally. It was the first time I went on a plane. I was asked to be on The Maury Povich Show (before it got a bit more salacious). It was my very first time outside our little community speaking about myself and my life. I had been on local TV, and a film crew had been shooting a documentary about me for four years. But for Maury, I had to go to New York City, and the producers flew us first class and sent a white stretch limo to pick us up from the airport and take us to the studio. I felt like a celebrity! I remember being backstage, wondering why they were making such a fuss over me. I was twelve and didn’t have a clue. I hadn’t yet figured out that God had made me this way so I could inspire others.

My mom went out onto the stage and talked with Maury, and then I came out. Maury asked a lot of questions, mostly about how I got to be so good at sports and tumbling. I chatted with him like he was sitting in my living room—I felt perfectly natural in front of a live audience and thousands of TV viewers. People ask me all the time how I learned to be such a good public speaker. I have always been able to do it with ease, and a lot of times, especially when I’m talking about faith and trying to lift people up, I feel like God is speaking through me. It truly is a gift I was born with. While my classmates stumbled and stuttered over oral presentations or stared down at their feet, I could wax poetic on most topics and look folks straight in the eye. Maury shook my hand; he was impressed. I was pretty poised for a little girl from a small town.

Then that was that. I went back home, back to being me. I made other TV appearances—one on the talk show Arabella in Munich, Germany, when I was thirteen, and I also gave interviews with newspapers and magazines all over the world. I was nervous to go to Germany at first because I’d never been outside of the United States and wasn’t sure how foreigners would react to me. I remember people staring more than I was used to. It really bothered my dad, but not me so much. I was too excited about being somewhere new. But I do remember once we were in a German mall and a woman became so distracted staring at me that she almost fell down an escalator!

When I got back to school, some of my classmates were a bit standoffish, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had always had so many friends, but now I felt like an outcast. After lots of frustration and hurt and talking to my mom, I realized they were jealous of the things happening in my life. One appearance led to another, and I was becoming something of a local celebrity. For a while my peers held it against me. I get it: I was doing things they’d never dreamed of. I was getting all sorts of attention and privileges. I understood why they were reacting the way they were, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“If you can help one person and change one person’s life, then it’s worth it,” she insisted.

I let that sink in for a while. Why? I wanted to know. Why should I do this? Why does it have to be my job, my responsibility? It wasn’t until years later that I was finally ready to accept that responsibility and realize that I did have something important to say. I don’t ever travel around holding microphones, being on stages, or performing in front of audiences because I think I’m “so awesome.” I don’t do it for the glory or the fame or the money. I don’t tell people, “Here are ten steps to happiness. Just follow what I do, and you’ll be happy forever!” That would be saying I have it all figured out—and I don’t. I believe this is what I was born to do. The reason my roller coaster of a life has had so many interesting twists and turns and ups and downs is so I can share those experiences with others. The reason I’ve been given a platform is to share my heart, my stories, my passions, and my love in order to have a (hopefully) positive impact on others.

You too have talents, gifts, and abilities (I like to think of them as your personal superpowers) you were born with that are unique to you. They are equally as important—and abundant—as mine or anybody else’s. The beauty of how God made us is that we don’t have to be jealous of someone else’s superpowers, because they weren’t meant for us. This is one thing I would tell you to keep in your back pocket at all times: know that you are significant, you do matter, and what you have to offer is powerful. How powerful? Just like I do, you have a platform and an audience. Just think about the people you interact with every day: your co-workers, your family, your significant other, your kids. They’re watching you, noting what you do and don’t do. We all have an opportunity every day to have a positive impact on the lives of others in both big and small ways.

My mom has always kept a journal—stacks of them with every page filled. Every night while I was growing up, she’d sit in her chair in the living room and write away. Then one day she handed me a blank one of my own. “One day you’ll thank me,” she said.

Okay, Mom. Here’s what you’ve been waiting for all these years: you were right. That journal became a place for me to write about my feelings and work out my frustrations. I wrote when I was ticked off at something and/or someone, when I had a crush on someone, when I was confused or afraid or simply lost. She knew the words would come easily, and I would never ask, “Why me?” I feel like God is the real author of this book. He’s giving me the insight and the experience and the words to explain how and why He has shaped my life.

Writing a book was a choice I had to make, to allow God to take me to and through this place. God shows us the opportunities and puts them in our path, but we have to be strong enough to grab them and then hold on for all our worth. My family says I’ve always been stubborn as a mule, and I can’t help but think maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.

God Has a Plan for You

Giving up control is not easy, especially for a control freak like me. But I’ve learned that the more I surrender and let God take care of things, the better off I am. I get out of my own way, I get out of His way, and then I let Him do His work. Because I have allowed Him in, I have more peace now than I have ever had in my entire life. I have given more and more areas of my life to Him, trusting that His plan and His way are the way for me. My dreams are laughable when compared with God’s plans for my life! His gifts, ideas, and blessings are so much bigger and better than anything I could possibly imagine! All because I let Him drive and stopped trying to grab the wheel every five seconds. It was humbling to realize that I might actually not know what is best, even for myself. I am and always will be a work in progress: always teachable, always growing, and always trusting that God will never steer me wrong.