JEANNETTE PETKAU
A new life

As we struggle through each day, and life seems confusing and unsure, we may wonder whether there’s any hope that we can hold on to. Many of us have hidden fears of what lies ahead. Some of you may be asking yourself: Is there a God, and if there is, does he really care about the struggles and fears that I’m going through? Does he care about my relationships with people and the choices that I make? Can I really trust him?

I grew up knowing about God and Jesus, but as a teenager I thought, “There has got to be more to life than all this traditional Christianity stuff.” I wanted to be accepted by people around me, especially by my peers, and it seemed to me that they were having a lot more fun than I was.

Well, it’s easily done. We can get caught in our own trap and get on the wrong path – which I did. I got involved in a wild lifestyle filled with alcohol and drugs that I was later very ashamed of. As time went on, I lived bound by fear. I truly wanted to be loved and accepted, but now I didn’t know if I ever could be. I thought: How could God or anyone else ever be able to love me?

God spoke to me in a very specific way at the age of 16, to help me make a choice that could change my life forever. God knew that my heart and mind were closed to him, so he allowed me to be in a car accident.

I was going on a camping trip to the Whiteshell area in Manitoba with four friends. I was in the front passenger seat of the car. On our way to the camp, we stopped to get a few cold beers from the trunk. As we were about to drive off again, the back wheels of the car began to spin on the gravel shoulder. The driver thought the best thing to do was to accelerate. When the tires finally hit the pavement, we began to slide quickly out into the middle of the highway. I could see the white lines whipping by real fast, I could envision what was going to happen, and I began to scream. Then everything went blank.

I later learned that the car had flipped and rolled into the ditch. I regained consciousness for a short while in the car and then again while I was lying in the ditch with a black blanket over my head. The first thought that came to my mind was “Am I dead?” In desperation, I thought, “Oh God, no! I can’t end my life this way!” As these thoughts ran through my mind, my hand came up to pull the black blanket down, and I realized I was still alive.

The rescuers noticed my movement, came over and asked if I could move my feet and legs – but there was no response. They took my friends and me in the rescue van to the nearest hospital, in Pinawa, Man. My friends were all released with broken bones that were put into casts, but I was admitted. The next day, the doctor told me I was very lucky. He said one of my vertebrae was crushed quite badly and that if it had been crushed another quarter of an inch, I would have been paralyzed from my neck down. I was shocked, yet I realized that there must have been Someone protecting me.

I stayed in this little country hospital for a few days before I was transferred by ambulance to the hospital in Steinbach, Man., where I lived. Here I was put into traction for about two weeks.

Lying there in the hospital bed, I had a lot of time to think about my life. I knew God was working to get my attention and that he had spared my life from death. I had no idea if I was ever going to walk again, and as I thought about these things, I made a deal with God. I said, “God, if you will let me walk out of this hospital room, I’ll give my life to you.”

Three weeks later, after learning how to walk again, I walked out of that hospital room with the help of crutches. A week later, the crutches were thrown into a corner, and I was pretty much back to normal. I thought, “Wow! Is this ever cool! I can walk again!”

But you know what? After all that had happened, I forgot all about the deal that I had made with God. I went back to the way I was living before. I must have caused God such pain and, yet he did not forget about me. He still had a plan and purpose for my life.

At age 19, I was still living a wild lifestyle away from home, and the struggles just seemed to get harder. I had no joy, peace or hope. I seriously began to search for truth and more meaning to my life.

One day, I was having a very bad day. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. On top of that, I had a dog that would not stop yapping, and I needed to get up early the next morning to go to work. I telephoned my mother to tell her I needed someone to come pick up the dog because he just would not stop barking.

My mother knew my frustration with life. She had asked a lot of people to pray for me. In fact, the night before, my parents’ house had been filled with people praying. As we were on the phone, my mother simply asked me, “Jeannette, would you like to give your life to Jesus?”

Those were words I longed to hear, and when she said them, I broke down and cried. Through the sobs and tears, I said, “Yes! That’s what I want for my life.” I realized it was Jesus Christ that I needed. I gave my life to him and asked him to forgive me for my past. It was as though a heavy stone had been lifted off my body, and a warm sense of peace and joy came over me. I was finally free! The Bible says in 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.”

I am growing in my relationship with Jesus each day, although there are still times I deal with fear and struggles. One example would be that, years after I gave my life to Jesus, I still needed to deal with the fear of sharing secrets from my past. Specifically, I was afraid that if I would tell those things to my husband, he would leave me, and then what would I do? I knew that God had forgiven me, but I still could not completely forgive myself. When I could finally do that, I learned that God and, with God’s help, my husband continued to love, accept and forgive me.

Life is filled with so many different situations that we go through. I find myself constantly struggling to be all that God wants me to be. Yet God says in the Bible (Hebrews 13:5) that he will never leave us when we give our lives to Him.

Because of Jesus Christ in my life, I have learned to love more deeply, to understand others and to trust God. God sent his son Jesus into this world to die for our sins, so we can be free from our old life and have a new life.

If you have deep hurts, you’re struggling, you have fear or your relationships with people are not what they could be, you need to know that Jesus loves you. He accepts you right where you are, and wants to have a personal relationship with you. Jesus is our only source of hope, and we can trust Him.