Sometimes we think we know what God wants for our life, but then events take a turn that is unexpected. At first it does not look like this is what God wanted, but over time we begin to see that God has a better idea, despite the circumstances.
It is the end of August 1971 and I have only three weeks to go until I'm discharged from the U. S. Army Nurse Corp. People are often confused that I’m considered a “Vietnam era veteran,” because I never saw action there. Instead I had it really rough stationed at Tripler Army Medical Center (TAMC) in Honolulu, Hawaii – during the Vietnam war.
Initially I lived in the BOQ — that's what they call the Bachelor Officer's Quarters. After a few months living in the BOQ, I rented an 11th floor apartment in Waikiki. My off-time was not spent on post or the Officer's Club. Instead I spent every free minute volunteering at my new church in Waikiki. In addition to singing at beach services, I helped set up and run Hale O’Kokua (House of Help in Hawaiian), a hotline and rap center at Fort DeRussy, a military R&R (rest and recuperation) center on the beach in Waikiki.
There I met a tall young man, an Air Force narcotics agent, who also volunteered at Hale O’Kokua. We dated and then he was discharged and went home to Maine a month before I was discharged and went home to New Jersey. The month between our individual leaving would include an accident that would change my life forever.
It's easy to think "what if..." knowing how devastating that simple accident has been to my life. If I had never lifted that box; if I was not disabled by chronic pain; if Bruce loved me just the way I am, including chronic pain and the personality changes it causes; if we married as we planned, and had the nine kids we wanted to complete our own baseball team. If things were not changed as they are now, I would be living in Bangor, Maine, a wife of one of Bangor's finest, and maybe even a widow. If chronic pain did not take control of my life, I would have continued to do nursing, probably working at Eastern Maine Medical Center. I might have gone back to college and gotten my bachelors and masters degrees in nursing using up my GI Bill, and maybe I would be teaching nursing.
Instead, chronic pain took control of my life, and Bruce did not like the new me. I did go back to college; knowing that I would not be able to continue nursing, I got a bachelors degree in biology. I took a civil service test and was recruited by the Army, my service-connected disabled veteran status put me at the top of the recruitment list. I ended up moving from Old Town, Maine (just up the hill from where they made Old Town canoes and across the river from the Penobscot Indian tribe), to Huntsville, Alabama, where Wernher von Braun landed, giving us our missile program after WWII.
Starting in September 1979, I worked for 11 years for the Army, civil service, in procurement. Initially as a contract specialist, buying spare parts for Pershing missiles.
While working in Huntsville, in 1983, I helped to start a parachurch ministry, called HERO (which stands for Handicapped Engaged in Reflecting the Omnipotent), a Christ-centered spiritual support group of people who live with disabilities and chronic illness. Once we incorporated and received IRS non-profit status, we began to authorize other groups starting with one in Cullman, AL. I became National President and wrote a monthly newsletter.
In June 1985, a promotion moved me back north of the Mason-Dixon Line, to Pennsylvania, working headquarter level as a procurement analyst. I worked in Chambersburg but lived 35 miles north in Carlisle, in order to be near my church. While there I tried to start another HERO group, but I was not there long enough to cultivate leaders for it to continue.
In February 1987 I was assaulted by a coworker. It was set up by my boss to get rid of me, probably because I refused to lie for him. In December 1987, I took a downgrade and went to work at Tobyhanna Army Depot in the Poconos. While working here I gained Pentagon recognition for a database that sorted contract clauses for input into a database that was part of the automation of solicitations and contracts. (The many results of the assault are subjects for another story.)
Since 1986, I loved going to an annual Bible conference at a church in center city Philadelphia. There I met another young, well— not so young, man in April 1990. We corresponded between April and the end of June, attended a retreat at Sandy Cove in Maryland, where we talked and talked and talked for a week, getting to know each other. At the end of the week, knowing all of my history, he proposed and I accepted. We were married in December 1990 at his church since mine was meeting in a grange hall in the Poconos; I was 42 years old and Tom was 37. Yeah, I know kind of quick. But after looking for so long, once we found what we wanted we knew we were right for each other.
In 1992, we purchased a house just 30 minutes outside of center city Philadelphia. My husband's church is now my new church. My disabilities became worse and I had to quit working outside the home at the end of 1992. In 1995 I started a disability ministry, this time within my new church. I'm now an advocate for people who live with disability and chronic illness, and their caregivers within my church and, since 2002, I now write about the church and the disabled in a newsletter called Jars of Clay.
Our denomination has been behind the curve compared with other denominations on ministering to people with special needs, and in June 2007, I’ll be part of a startup team to see what we can do.
All of these things would never have happened if I did not become disabled in 1971. Obviously, God had a far better idea.
~lad (Words: 1054)
(c) 2007, Lois A. Denier
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