One day as I was lying in bed, I saw a picture of a wall. I knew immediately that the wall represented my faith. The wall was being torn down. I wondered to myself if the wall was going to be completely torn down. But as soon as I asked that question, I knew that it had to be completely torn down. I felt a strong assurance, even a joyful assurance, that the wall would be built back up correctly. It would be sturdier, thicker, and much more able to withstand the storms of life. That was all I knew, however. I made mental assent and could not go any farther in my thinking. I prayed this one prayer: “Lord, I am incapable of making it through this. Do what you will." That was the last thing I prayed for several weeks. The first thing that God used to begin to tear down this wall was a skiing trip.
I felt that I had been neglecting my kids just a tad with the traumatic events of the last couple of months and wanted to do something fun. I wanted to visit a friend. He was a young man (I'll call him Ted) who had lived with us for nearly a year while doing an internship. We all grew very fond of him and the kids were excited to see him again. Since Ted's dad owned a ski shop in Angel fire New Mexico and there was a ski resort nearby, it seemed like the perfect set up. We loaded up and headed to Angel Fire, New Mexico for a little skiing and fellowship. We had a good visit. Funny enough, or maybe not so funny, Ted's family were firm Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagen devotees. These men were/are the Word of Faith “fathers“. Honestly, I didn’t even think about that at the time I headed down there, and I am not even sure I knew. Anyway, we got our skis rent free, thanks to Ted's dad, and hit the mountain. Joshua headed out by himself since I was fairly confident in his abilities and I stayed with young Alexis to teach her how to ski. After our first little run down the practice slope a resort ranger skied up to me and asked me if I was Deanna Zent. She informed me then that my son had been in an accident. I wondered what stunt he had pulled. It turned out that he hadn’t been pulling any stunt rather his ski had hit a hole and while he was falling and twisting his ski had failed to release causing a spiral fracture of both the bones in the lower part of his leg. The nearest hospital was thirty miles away but it was a ninety minute trip over a winding mountain road. Ted's aunt was very kind and drove Joshua and I to the hospital while I left Alexis with Ted's mother. For Joshua this was ninety minutes of agony. I felt so bad for him. At the hospital we discovered that Joshua would not need surgery or any pins. I offered up a huge, “thank you God” for that. We had been careful enough while moving him and everything was in the right place for healing. The one drawback was that they could not fully cast him up due to the potential of dangerous swelling. He would have to make the trip home with a half caste. This meant that I would have to take the trip home slow and steady being careful to keep his leg as still as possible. Since it was too late for us to start the trip home that night we spent the night at Ted's house and hit the road home early the next day. I stayed up all night with Joshua in order to watch the swelling in his leg. If the swelling got too bad I had to take him back to the hospital. Thankfully, it did not swell too much. But essentially I had not slept. Before heading out the door, Ted's mother, knowing everything we had been through over the last several months stated to me very gently and lovingly “You don’t have to let these bad things happen to you, you know. The authority is there for you. Tell the enemy that you’re not going to take it anymore.”
The comment took me so off guard. All I could muster was a very sarcastic comment, “I am in good company. I guess Paul (in the Bible) did not know how to use his God given authority either.” I knew the moment it came out of my mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. She looked back at me with a very sullen look. I am sure that I had probably hurt her feelings. She had been very patient and kind through the whole ordeal and extremely hospitable. Though wrong, her comment was meant to help me. I knew I had to repent and for no good reason except to please my flesh I refused to do so in that moment. This set the tone for my trip home. Wonderful as Jesus is, though, all things are used for our good.
I had a small car so Joshua had to take up the whole back seat and was positioned in such a way that there was no way he could put a seat belt on and Alexis had to sit in the front seat in her car seat. Two big no-no‘s for me. I was in bad frame of mind. Exhausted, my poor attitude and the fact that my kids were placed poorly in the car sent me down the road in a fowl and angry mood. About a half hour down the road, completely unexpectedly, my period started. The pregnancy loss had messed up my cycle. Of course, I had something set aside for emergencies but my pants and the car seat were fatalities. I pulled over and stopped. I looked ahead for traffic and looked behind for traffic. Nothing was coming but it was the longest, straightest road with literally nothing but flat land for miles. There was, literally, nothing to hide behind to change my clothes. Joshua was a little out of it but not enough so to wonder about what was happening. I told him that I had to change my clothes and please leave it at that with no more questions. I changed, thankfully, with no traffic around and laid a towel on the seat. Ok….off again. The next few hours were calm. I worked very hard to stay awake. I had drunk some coffee before leaving the house but it was wearing off quick. As we neared Pueblo, Colorado, Alexis started screaming. I asked her what was wrong. She yelled, “I am gonna throw up!”. And she did at that. She projectiled onto the dashboard and all over herself and the car seat. I took a deep breath while my mood darkened a little bit farther. I pulled off the interstate in Pueblo and found a gas station. I unbuckled Alexis, grabbed some dirty clothes from the suitcase and then unbuckled the car seat. I locked delirious Joshua into the car. I headed to the bathroom with my two stink bombs in arm. In the bathroom I endured the questioning looks of others while I scrubbed the car seat and my daughter clean with thin paper towel and hand soap. After a few minutes of this, I surrendered to the fact that my car was going to stink for the rest of the way home.
After reaching the car, I realized that it was lunch time. I looked at Joshua . He was to osedated to eat and Alexis obviously wasn’t hungry. I was definitely not in the mood for food so we headed on. I had been keeping in contact with Darren on the way home. He was very sympathetic and a bit worried. Back onto the interstate. About half way through Colorado Springs, I gave my folks a call to let them know what had happened. I had to work very hard to hide my exhaustion, frustration and anxiety from them. Trying to have a bright and cheerful tone to my voice I let them know that I was not able to stop and say hi. They completely understood.
For some reason the traffic between Colorado Springs and Denver was very thick and moving well above the speed limit in both lanes. I was literally bumper to bumper traffic and I had no choice but to go the 80-85 mph with the flow of traffic. Actually, it struck me rather odd that this was happening. I have traveled that road numerous times and had never seen that combination of traffic and speed before. My anxiety level skyrocketed and my knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Just before I got to Castle Rock, I happened to look to my left and saw a woman parallel to me in her vehicle. The look in her eyes and face startled me. I had no idea what I had done to illicit such a dark look but more than that I was just plain shocked by the malevolence of her glance. These thoughts of mine took all of a split second when I heard a huge popping noise. It scared me so bad that I swerved but not enough to disturb the flow of traffic. A large rock had been thrown into my windshield by the car with the "evil stare" lady in it, creating a baseball size spiral crack. That was it for me. I had reached my point. I experienced the first panic attack of my life while driving 85 mph on the interstate in bumper to bumper traffic. There was no way I could pull off onto the shoulder of the road. I could not slow down at all. I began hyperventilating and my vision was quickly fading. The only thing I could think to do was hang on to the steering wheel and yell , ”JESUS” several times. Due to His quick answer I was suddenly able to regulate my breathing. I took the first exit I saw. At first, I didn't realize that I landed in the parking lot of a church. I sat in the car and cried and shook and prayed. When I did recognize what was around me I thought about going in to the church and asking for prayer. Perhaps someone had seen me (and heard me) and had already started to pray cause I didn't long feel the need to leave my car. Alexis had been screaming since the rock had hit the windshield. I had blocked out her screams somehow. They more sounded like screams in the distance. Finally, after twenty minutes in the parked car, I was able to turn my attention to her. Though, I was still shaking, I was in shape to calm Alexis and call my husband. He offered to come get me but I knew that I had to get Joshua home as soon as possible and waiting two more hours wasn’t a good idea. It suddenly dawned on me that I had not had anything to drink in many hours. I looked in the back seat to find that Joshua’s breathing was steady and peaceful. We had not stopped to use the bathroom or eat either. I slowly drove to a nearby gas station, woke my son enough to get a few answers from him, used the bathroom and paid for an ice tea and two soda pops. Neither of them wanted food. When I got back to the car I asked Joshua if he was ok with everything that had just happened. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. Too astonished to say anything, I turned in my seat and offered up a silent prayer. “Lord, I am completely feeling out of control, you’re going to have to get us home”. I started the car with no confidence in either my ability to drive or in anyone else’s ability around me. I simply needed to get home and there was no other way. I looked at the clock and realized by the time we got to Denver it was going to be rush hour.
As I drove in Denver my imagination became acutely aware of how many things could go wrong. I focused on breathing and staying in my lane. My muscles were exhausted because of the strength I was expending and had expended on gripping the steering wheel. Never in my life had I felt so out of control. After everything so far, there was absolutely no pretense of control left in me. Rush hour turned out to be a blessing. Though it took us longer to get home the speed of traffic was rather slow and I was just fine with slow. On the road home from Denver I could hear the Lord whispering to me over and over, “you are not in control, I am”. And for the first time in my life I began to believe Him.
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