January 20, 2011 ended up cold and snowing; pretty much like it was this morning, as I sat and wrote this. That morning was cold but beautiful. The sun was out and I had to be in Nashville first thing to teach a class.
I drove to my newly self-appointed parking spot on the side of Albion Street. I gathered the items I had brought for the mothers, diapers, wipes etc., and made my way back up the street to the facility where the mothers were waiting.
That morning I had also brought my digital camera because we needed a picture of me teaching for a brochure. As the class was ending and I had asked one of the mothers to take a picture while I was finishing up. 
I said my good byes and told them I would see them next week.
As I walked to my van I was talking to my daughter who was in college 90 minutes from Nashville. At 11:29am we said our good byes and by 11:32am, I was calling 9-1-1, because I had just been attacked.
Today is the 5th anniversary of that attack, and it still is a very real part of who I am. As I sat down to do my quiet time this morning I realized that God has quite a sense of humor. I started my quiet time by praying and my prayer this morning went something like this “God, thanks to PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act), I can’t get into jails and prisons like I used to under the victims awareness program, so why again did I have to go through the attack?”
To give the backstory to that prayer: 18 months after the attack, I was asked to speak to a group of men in an Ohio Prison. I went under the “Victims Awareness” program. After I had finished my talk a gentleman approached me and said, “I was praying this morning for a sign from God that He was real and in you walked.” (He actually knew of the 180 Program that we founded because he had been incarcerated in TN first).
At that moment I understood that God had to allow me to become a victim of a gang attack in order to be allowed to speak in that prison at that time. But today it’s a different story. With PREA you have to be trained by each individual jail, prison, by that county or state, there are no federal trainings. Just to give you an idea by the end of January I will have sat in 4 different PREA trainings just so I can continue to teach here locally.
So this morning 5 years later, I was having a pity party. Why did this happen? I opened up Philippians where I have been studying for the past month and I see this verse:
I want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me actually served to
advance the gospel.
Today I am alive and I don’t take that lightly. Two women died at the hands of their domestic abusers within 30 days of my attack. They had the same injuries I had. I do suffer from PTSD and some days are better than others. Five years later, the right side of my face is always asleep and tingles or twitches. It is very irritating when I try to kiss my husband, but at least I am alive to kiss my husband.
Life is measured in before’s and after’s. I have a daily choice to let the PTSD that I now have control me or I control it. This year I am looking for a new why?
I may not be allowed into the prisons and jails like I used to be, but God… He gave me this platform. He allowed me to walk away with just a tingling face and PTSD, so today’s quiet time showed me that this happened to advance Gods Kingdom and now my job is to keep my eyes open for the new where, to answer the why?
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