PICTURE THIS...

My eyes slowly open as I regain consciousness. I’m laying on the floor. Why are there so many people around me? I try my hardest to recall what happened…

“Can we stay up for the last night?” I asked my winter retreat counselor. The guys in my cabin pled with me as well. Understanding our deep desire to enjoy our last night together, he graciously allowed it.

Our tenth grade cabin was always stuffy and for some reason we always have people coming in and out. I liked to think that we were the most popular ones and everyone wanted to hang out with us. However, it had one draw back to these gatherings. Us being guys released a lot of… gas. The stuffy room did not help to get rid of the smell either and we were too cold to open the doors. Luckily we all had the popular AXE deodorant spray. I didn’t think any of us actually needed to put on deodorant since none of us smell that bad, but I was glad we had it. We sprayed about 2 full bottles of it in our cabin.

“What should we do when we stay up all night?” one of the guys asked. Another guy had a brilliant idea and said “we can play Settlers of Catan all night!” We all cheered and none of us could wait for the night to come.

Finally, it was time to stay up all night. I was so excited to hang out and play with them. We also invited some of the other guys from other cabins to stay up with us. I wasn’t too close with the other guys but I figured this was a good opportunity to build a friendship with them.

It was so much fun talking about strategies and cracking jokes. Someone said something extremely funny, too bad I forgot what the joke was but I laughed hysterically. I keep laughing. Then I started shaking. I couldn’t stop laughing, not because it was funny but because I couldn’t control my body anymore. I kept shaking my head. Everything started to blur out right in front of my eyes. The last thing I remembered was falling on my side. Unconscious.

Now I remember. I slowly sit up now. I see the board pieces scattered. I think I was about to win too. There’s an ambulance outside waiting for me. I must have been out for a while for the ambulance to drive all the way up here in the mountains. “Can you stand up?” someone asks. I nod and I stand slowly. They guide me to the ambulance and I’m laying down on one of those stretchers.

At this point, I have no idea what’s going on. The doctor and nurses are giving me so many tests and scans that I want to tell them I’m perfectly fine. “Wait a second,” I think to myself, “I’m in the hospital right now. How much is this going to cost? My parents are going to be so mad when they see the bill.”

I guess I’m fine since I’m heading back to the retreat and rejoining my friends. I’m sure the counselors contacted my parents, can’t wait to hear from them…

As soon as I see my parents, they ask me a whole bunch of questions and then they take me to do some more testings and scans. The doctor finally comes out and basically says these things: I had a seizure. It was probably caused by all the chemicals we had in the cabin from the AXE deodorant sprays. It might have had something to do with staying up late. I have to take a pill a day until I turn 18, which is about 3 years. If I have another seizure before the age of 18, then I will not be able to drive or even be on own without someone supervising me.

Obviously my parents start to freak out and tell me that I can’t go to any retreats on my own and I have to sleep before 10PM.

So many questions popping into my head but the most important one is, why did God do this? Struggling with what kind of good can possibly come out of this, my Sunday school teacher tells me something I will never forget and I continue to live by today: God has a reason and a plan for everything, we might never find out what that reason is but we can trust Him that it is ultimately good.

Recently, I finally found out what the reason was. After almost 10 years, God revealed to me His Glorious plan that night. Of course prior to this I had my own explanation of why God did this. One of the reason was that God did not want me to depend on retreats to get closer to Him so He forces me to seek Him without the dependence of a retreat.

Before I reveal to you what God’s plan was I like to share a little background before the accident. I was quite the emo, depressive kid back then. I saw no point in living and pretty much hated everything. I wasn’t really suicidal nor did I cause harm onto myself but I thought about it constantly and wore all black all the time.

So recently in my studies in one of my Psychology classes, I came across something called Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). Basically, ECT is an electroshock treatment in the brain to cause seizure. Who is this treatment for? The severely depressed.

So basically, God gave me a treatment for my depression that I never realized until almost 10 years later. Looking back at it now, it was around the same time that I began being more positive and became the joyful person I am today.

God truly does have a plan for everything. I am so blessed for Him to reveal to me what He was planning all this time. Trust in Him brothers and sisters, in the good and especially the bad times. You may never find out His reasons but you can definitely trust that He wants nothing but good for us because He first loved us when we were still sinners.