Kristen Anderson lay on railroad tracks hoping to end her life. Instead, she heard a song that changed everything. On
a bone-cold night in January 2000, Kristen Anderson made an impulsive
decision: She walked to the railroad tracks not far from her Chicago
home, lay facedown on the ground and let 33 freight cars roar over her
body at 55 miles per hour.
The engineer frantically blew the whistle and brought the train to a halt--on top of Kristen's body. The botched suicide attempt left the 17-year-old in piercing pain. As she lay there in her own blood, trying to decipher whether she was dreaming, Kristen managed to pull herself from under the train and crawl to some nearby rocks.
She looked around, patted the ground and suddenly realized her legs were gone. Kristen's left leg was severed above the knee, and her right leg was cut off just below the knee. Both limbs had been thrown 10 feet away from her frail frame.
But right there, in the darkest hour of her life, the teen had an encounter with God. He had foiled her plans and instead of taking her to heaven as she hoped, He invited her to a "heavenly concert for one," and Kristen heard the lyrics to the hymn "Amazing Grace."
"A song filled my heart. There was no clear voice, yet the words were sharp and clear, playing 10 times louder than the music," Kristen, now 27, tells readers in her new book, Life, in Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope After a Fatal Choice.
Before that moment, Kristen didn't realize she could turn to God with the pain she was feeling. "I didn't know at the time in my life that I could go to God for comfort, strength, wisdom and understanding," she told Charisma. "I stuffed it all down inside."
She was just a sophomore in high school when her world began to feel overwhelming. In 1998, her close friend's older brother was killed in a motorcycle accident. That same year, another friend on her high school's football team was killed in a car accident. Then her grandmother died unexpectedly in 1999. The same year, Kristen was stalked by two boys, then raped by a third young man she considered a trusted friend.
"It was too much," Kristen says. "When my grandmother passed away, my family didn't talk about it. It just got really quiet in our house, and I didn't know what to do with my feelings and how to handle them. And then I was raped."
To look at Kristen today, it's inconceivable that she would have tried to kill herself. She wears a bright smile and seems secure in her relationship with Christ. But in 1999 she faced yet another loss that would plant the seeds of her suicidal thoughts.
Click here to read moreSource: Charisma Magazine
Valerie G. Lowe is an associate editor for Charisma. "Amazing Grace" is one of her favorite hymns.
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