Sometimes the darkest moments reveal the brightest lights, and in this episode, Haseena Shaheed-Jackson and Lisa Boone illuminate a journey of miraculous recovery and unwavering hope. Lisa is a Certified Hospice and Palliative Registered Nurse, advocate, spiritual director, writer and speaker who brings the light of hope into dark places. She shares the journey of her daughter, Jesse, who faced a traumatic brain injury from a ski accident. From the initial prognosis to the miraculous recovery, Lisa’s story is a testament to hope and faith. Discover how brain injury recovery can unfold in ways that defy the odds and be inspired by the power of resilience and the human spirit. Don’t miss this heartfelt and powerful episode.
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Miraculous Recovery: Hope Is The Light In Darkness With Lisa Boone
I’m excited for this episode. I get to talk to someone who has such a powerful story that I know is going to inspire and motivate you to believe in the impossible. To believe when you think that you’re at the end of a road. As that saying goes, all you have to do is make that turn and you can keep going. Lisa has a story that I want to share with you about her daughter. One day, Jessie, that’s her daughter’s name, life was wonderful. It was great, and then it took a turn. I want us to start at that moment when life was great, and then the turn came. Lisa, we won’t go into your bio now where we address more, but please share that powerful story about what happened on that fateful day.
The Devastating Ski Accident
Jessie is our fifteen-year-old only daughter, and she went on a ski trip with our church youth group. It was the last day. She was on the slopes and I got that phone call that she had an accident. She had hit the top of her head on a tree trunk and the ski goggles had broken her skull and gone into her brain. I got the call from my son that they were life-flighting her off of the mountain to a trauma center and that she was unresponsive, vomiting, and posturing. It didn’t look good.
I talked with the emergency room physician. My husband and I were 700 miles away, and he said, “We’re going to have to go in and take her ski goggles out of her brain. She has a depressed skull fracture. The sockets of her eyes are fractured and she’s unresponsive with a massive brain injury. We made the trip to Grand Junction, Colorado.
They removed both sides of her skull. They took part of the front lobe of her brain off, and she was mute, spastic, quadriplegic, and not expected to live. We were so devastated. I’m a nurse and I knew what a massive brain injury meant. I’ve taken care of people with massive brain injuries. My husband and I went to the only place we knew we could go. It was to the chapel in the hospital while she was in surgery.
I begged God to take her if she couldn’t have the quality of life. She was a gymnast. She was so chatty. She was a little social butterfly. She was a leader in her church. She loved people. She was so good. To see her so devastated and what I like to refer that to is severed at the root. Her whole little tree of life had been taken from her.
In the hospital, my brother, I had not talked to him for years, and he happened to be on the same ski slope that Jess was on. We didn’t know he was there and he didn’t know Jessie was there. He heard that there was a skier critically injured, and he went down to check and found out that it was his niece, Jessie Boone. He got into the car and he traveled to Grand Junction until Bill and I could get there. That was one of the first miracles that began that held devastation was him being on that same mountain on the same day, the same time, and then being able to go and be with her.
Let’s stop for one second there because you have said so much. One, you received that phone call and they gave you the prognosis. What went through your mind? I know you said you went to the chapel, but what went through your mind at that point? What were you thinking?
The first phone call trying to get to 700 miles away begging God to let her live. Would I ever see her again? I can remember not even being able to see two feet in front of me just trying to find my way to the plane and to get to the hospital. It was just such a crushing and devastating blow to our spirits that we weren’t able to function at all. I don’t even remember flying and getting to the hospital that night. It took us about eight hours to get to the hospital.
Did you feel like that was the longest eight hours you had ever? Did the time go past slow or creeping?
It was brutal not knowing if you would ever see your child alive again. She’d be alive when we got there and everything was in slow motion. Nothing moved fast enough. You just want to be at their bedside and there was nothing that was moving fast.
Let me ask you this because a lot of times when we have to deal with that kind of trauma, our behavior can become very selfish, commanding, and hostile. How did you deal with that? You had to interact with a lot of different people on your journey. How did you encounter all those different emotions?
Haseena, I got that just exactly what you said. I remember being on the plane and I was on the phone with the emergency room physician and I was saying, “Tell me.” He was trying to talk to me and get permission to take her to surgery. The stewardess was saying, “You need to get off your phone. The plane is taking off. Get off your phone.”
I remember looking up and yelling at her saying, “You don’t understand. This is my only lifeline to my daughter.” She’s like, “Get off the phone.” I can remember raging at her and my husband’s like, “Calm down.” I did rage at her because I was so desperate to talk and receive news about Jessie and she was demanding me to get off the phone, which at the same time was necessary for me to get off the phone so I could get to my daughter. That’s a real thing that happens, Haseena.
I’m glad that you were sharing it and you were very vulnerable, but what I liked is that your husband was that peace and joy for you that kept you grounded because we have to have one person who remains centered while we go on that rollercoaster. Let’s move forward because you said that the first of miracles happened because we have a lot of miracles that we want to share in this talk. You said you and your brother had not communicated in a while, but he happened to be on that same mountain at the same time that your daughter had that tragic accident. Explain that.
Miraculous Coincidence: Brother’s Presence
There was an estrangement in our family between my brother and my parents. We just had not communicated. He was there on the mountain with his family skiing on spring break. We didn’t have any idea and there he was. God has this rescue mission for his people. Not only was it about rescuing Jessie and me. It was also about rescuing our relationship. He was already using something bad that happened to bring good to our relationship, which began that reconciliation of our family through that tragedy of our daughter.
Also, his being able to drop everything and go to the hospital and be with her until I could get there was the biggest comfort. I didn’t know that was happening at the time. I learned that later after I got to the hospital but it was incredible that he was there. He lives in Oklahoma with me. It made no sense why he was in Colorado with Jessie on the same mountain at Glenwood Springs. That didn’t make sense.
It’s not for us to make sense. It goes back to we always want to think that we are in control. We are not in control of anything. It goes back to he has a plan for you to give you hope in the future and nothing that we can foresee. It goes to many things that I think scripture-wise where he says, “I know you.” We have to get to know who that new is because we don’t know it but He does. He had your brother there. You guys saw him at the hospital. I’m sure as you progressed, you were able to amend that relationship but now you see Jessie. What happens there?
The only way I could recognize her was her little hand-bitten nail nails. She bit her nails. She was so devastated from the head injury that she was unrecognizable. I remember going to her bedside and seeing her little hand-bitten nails. I’m like, “There you are my little girl.” It was devastating to see her that way, but then the nurse came in at some point and brought me this Ziploc bag and it was this black matted mess. I said, “What is this?” She goes, “I thought you might want this.” I was like, “What is it?” She goes, “It’s her hair.” I’m like, Oh my God.”
She had long blonde beautiful hair and they had shaved it all off and it was matted with mud and blood. It was this dark, chaotic, and awful-looking stuff in the bag. It caused something inside of me to shift and I rose up. I was like, “I refuse to accept this death and darkness handed to me in a Ziploc bag.” There was something inside of me that rose up and said, “I will fight to not receive this.” I remember throwing it in the trash refusing what the world wanted to give me.
I refused that visual icon of what had happened to my daughter. I went, “No,” and threw that away. I was at her bedside for days and days with no shower, no sleep, and no food trying to find a place where I could pray. I was trying to find a way in which I could exist within this realm of horrific devastation. I was disoriented. I was confused but I began to remember there was this song that she always sang and it’s Savior. “You can move this mountain. My God is mighty to save.”
She would sing that with our youth group all the time. She taught that song to me. That was the first prayer that began to rise up in me was this, “Savior, you can move this mountain. My God is mighty to save.” I would remind Him, “You are mighty to save. You can save her if you want to.” That was the beginning of these vibrations of prayer that would rise up in me.
However, when I learned the story about the tree that she hit from my brother who was there and went back to the tree. He saw that her youth group had carved her name in the tree, Jessie B., and the date of her accident 3/16/09 with this big cross in the aspen tree. He goes, “Did you know they carved her name and 3/16 on this tree? He then began to speak these words and I began to receive this vision of 3/16, John 3:16. Jesus died on a tree. Jessie died on a tree as we knew her.
That became this faith stake that I was able to shove in the ground and say, “God, if you saved Jesus on the tree, you can save Jessie if you want to.” It was this powerful moment of this 3/16 shifting into a greater message. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that who so believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” That was another one of those huge stones that I was able to hold onto.
Holding Onto Faith
Lisa, you have two miracles that happened. One was your brother that we talked about so far. The second was this revelation from John 3:16 about believing. Those were two miracles so far that I wanted to highlight in our discussion here as we progress. I want us to now move to you saw her at the hospital and they tried to give you this hair, which was signifying death. That’s the way I take it too.
I love the fact that you said, “I’m not going to accept that because you are trying to feed me something, but I’m going to listen to Him and let Him tell me what because He has a final say.” He gave you that final say with the song that you heard, Savior, I can. Let’s move forward a little bit here. You left the tree. You went back to the hospital. What happens after that?
When they were in surgery taking off her skull because of the intracranial pressure, we had a very wise experienced neurosurgeon, and he said, “We should not do anything. We just need to monitor her,” but then this brand new young hotshot type of a neurosurgeon took over that weekend. He came in and he was like, “We have to take her skull off. We have to preserve any kind of brain function that was left.”
He did this dramatic taking off both sides of her skull to save her life. Bill and I are in the chapel and I’m begging God. I was like, “God, just take her home with you. If she can’t be who you created her to be, and she cannot have some quality of life, let her have quality of life with you.” My husband heard this voice tell him, “I will restore her,” on that chapel floor. I didn’t hear that, but he did. He rose up and said, “He told me he was going to restore her.” I said, “Then let’s get to work.”
Miracles a lot of times require us to work alongside God, have faith, work hard, and take those steps. I began to find this place of peace in the midst of this devastation. I found this peace by staying in the moment. If I looked back at all we had lost, I fell into this incredible grief. If I looked forward to all of the unknown, I couldn’t function but I could hear God say, “I am here with you in this moment. You stay right here with me and take the next right step. Don’t look back. Don’t look forward. Just stay in the moment.” It was through that way of walking with Him that I was able to take each step moment by moment by moment. There was this peace that I could find and that was his presence in the moment. That was another miracle.
That’s very powerful, Lisa, because that goes back to yes, we have a vision for the future and we always want to look in the past because that’s the way our mind is set and geared we always want to look back and set it forward. However, also we have to learn how to be in the moment and continue to take those small steps and trust in the process because God already gave you what the future was going to be anyway.
He told your husband, “I will restore her,” but that requires you to be in the moment and to keep going forward to get to where God said that you were going to be. I love that. I know that had to be hard and grueling because those moments, I’m sure, were some times when you made some progress and then you went back. When that progress that you gained, you lost.
Let’s fast forward a little bit because you have been there now. She had the surgeries and I love the fact that this surgeon and you trusted in him because you trust in God. He did that different surgery that helped to preserve her quality of life. As he was recovering, what happened there? Explain some of what you have encountered.
We were in Grand Junction, Colorado, which they call the high plain wilderness of Colorado for 40 days and 40 nights through the day. She was stabilized enough to where we could transfer her with medical transport back to Oklahoma City, to INTEGRIS to the PICU. She still had no skull. She was still a mute spastic quadriplegic but we needed to come home.
The miracles that happened in the 40 days and the 40 nights in the wilderness echo Jesus’ time in the wilderness, the darkness, and all of the things that he encountered. In that wilderness, there were all these communities of angels from these churches that adopted us as their family and they cared for us because we didn’t know anybody up there. This whole community of people at Grand Junction began to feed us and provide for us. They gave us a car and all these incredible provisions that were handed to us. That is how we survived those 40 days and 40 nights in the desert with Jessie in that critical condition that she was in.
We then came home and then we began this rehab process. We didn’t get anywhere. She ended up having grand mal seizures. They wanted to do not resuscitate her. She nearly died so many times. We kept on one hand saying, “God, you said you were going to restore her and we’re going to continue to walk that path with you until you say you’re not.”
We trusted in that restoration. We would tell the doctors, “We’re not DNR on her. We’re going to continue on this path. We’re following something else that our hearts have been told.” We understood the medical staff and we understood all of the critical things that she was suffering but there was something inside of us that kept taking the next right step. Another way that I found to survive in all of that darkness was to find the good in all of the awful.
Another way to survive all of the darkness is to find the good in all of the awful every single day. Share on X
Every single day, I would find the tiny little good. Somebody was nice. Somebody gave us a meal. Her blood pressure didn’t plummet. She didn’t have this this day. She didn’t have to have blood. That was good. Any tiny little good thing I would say, “That’s where you are, God. You’re in the good.” I’ve learned this way of life to live in the moment, to take the next right step, and to find the good.
If you can do those three things knowing that God is there in the moment guiding you, with God, all things are possible. I used to quote that scripture all the time. That took it to a whole new extreme with God. All things are possible. Even if your daughter’s devastated to the worst imaginable thing you couldn’t imagine. With God, all things are possible no matter what this life can throw at you.
One thing that comes to mind with that, Lisa, is one of the scriptures that I meditate on. It says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is admirable, whatever is lovely, think about those things.” That’s what you did.
Yes. That’s where you find God.
That’s what helped you. You walked the talk that God asked us to do, and I thank you. I commend you for that. She still doesn’t have the skull around her brain. Move forward from there? You said many times that it was sketchy and you didn’t think that she was going to make it, however, you trusted in the process.
When they told you to do the DNR, Do Not Resuscitate, you chose to follow what God said to your husband when he was on his knees. “I will restore her.” You chose to believe in that and it’s about choices. When did the turn the corner start turning where she could get her skull back? Did she get her skull back? Let me ask because I don’t know and I want to let the audience know how this progressed.
The Turning Point
Yes, she has her skull back on, and it was in chunks. They took probably twenty chunks of her skull in a freezer in Grand Junction, Colorado. Approximately 9 or 10 months later after we got through all the hospitalization and all the seizures, they finally said, “There’s nothing else we can do. We’re going to send her to a long-term care facility.” My husband and I said, “No. We’re going to take her home.”
We took her home. We had learned what to do in the hospital for her. We know about rehabilitation now. We were bound and determined to take her home because we feel like home is your sacred safe healing sanctuary. So much healing takes place in your home. I then made an appointment with the plastic surgeon at the Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City to talk to him about, “If this is the way she’s going to be, I need to make her physically restored so it’s not so brutal to look at my disfigured daughter who has this sunken head. It was so difficult to look at.”
Also, she had to wear a helmet the whole time, which was a fake skull for her because her brain was right underneath her scalp, which was very fragile. He was like, “I don’t know why we’re doing this,” because he could look at her condition and see that she didn’t seem to be there. I said, “Because you don’t know who Jessie Boone is.” I began to tell him who Jessie Boone was and how I wanted my daughter stored. He scheduled to put the left side of her skull on first. He said, “But I have to find her skull. I have to see if it’s viable.”
We did all that. He got all of that skull sent from Grand Junction, and he put the first side of her skull back on in this intense surgery at OU. I’ll be darned. She has been mute, spastic, and quadriplegic. They let us in the recovery room after they put one side on and I heard her voice for the first time. I heard her and it was the most beautiful voice I had ever heard. I saw this side of her face and skull and I was like, “There is my beautiful daughter,” even though this side wasn’t.
That was the beginning of her beginning to move and do these tiny little things. The doctors were so amazed at how when you put something back in alignment, he says it’s like furniture that’s on the carpet. It’s all pressed down. When he lifted half of that skull up, the brain could get back to where it was and things began working in her brain again.
We didn’t know what kind of restoration we were going to get so when he saw after three months how much she began to move, he said, “Let’s put the other side on. Maybe we’ll get more back.” She had to go through another surgery. She had all kinds of complications. It was brutal. It was hard but she’s fully restored. She’s my daughter again. She’s got blonde hair again. She’s got little tracks of scars all through her head but she’s beautiful and I’m thankful.
That just goes to show you that nothing is impossible.
Who are these physicians who sacrifice their lives that go in and separate the dura from the brain and can go in and put plates and recreate this skull? I call Dr. El Amm, the bone mender because her skull is totally healed and beautiful. It’s amazing.
It’s because the thing is that God uses us to do the work that needs to be done. That’s what we have to understand. We are his instruments and when we give it over to him and let him move through us, that’s when we can see the impossible become possible. What I want to ask though. What was going through your daughter’s mind? She was totally unconscious at the time, but when she did come around and became conscious again, what were some of the things that she said to you?
She was mute for a long time, even after this. Through years and years of therapy, she speaks now. I know that she was with God during that time. She does not recall that time. She does not remember all of the brutality and all of the suffering that she went through. She knows she had a major skiing accident. She knows she had a brain injury but what she knows now is how much God loves people and how much God cares for his people.
She walks around quoting scripture and she’s living with Jesus every day. She’s full of love and kindness. She’s simple, very happy, and has no pain. She makes my husband and I reorient to what is right, worthy, trustworthy, and honorable. The scripture you were talking about, she is that, and I know that’s because she is in the presence. We had this one incident when she was in the ICU where she went into liver failure because of a common bile duct when she had to have her gallbladder out from the accident. She went into full sepsis.
She was in critical condition. This was 2 or 3 years after her accident. All of her organs shut down, her heart, lungs, and kidneys. They did not expect her to live and we were at her bedside. They did all kinds of resuscitation protocols on her and finally, she began to wake up and she opened her eyes. This was after she was talking and she looked up. She waved in the corner of the room. I’m a hospice nurse. I know what looking up in the corner of the room and waving at the spirits is all about. The ICU nurse does too.
I’m like, “Jessie, what are you doing?” She goes, “I’m looking at those angels in the corner of the room.” I looked in the corner of the room and then I looked at the monitors to see what her vitals were doing, and they were beautiful. She goes, “And there’s Jesus. Mama, he’s got wings. Jesus has wings.” It took me to this place of great humility and on my knees to know that heaven was so close to her and us at that moment. There was that veil that was taken to the side for a moment and she saw Jesus. I know that’s where she was the whole time she was hidden in all of this devastation that she was with Jesus in spirit.
That’s powerful because one of the things that came to me is that when she was waving, she wasn’t waving to say goodbye. Thank you for taking care of me during this duration that I have been with you. That’s the way I see that. “It is time for me now to go back to my mom and dad because you have restored me,” you said. “There’s still more to come but you brought me all the way through this part of the journey and it’s time for me now to stay here.” That’s the way I read that. One of the things that I wanted to go back to is that you say she’s happy. This is not to challenge you. I say she’s joyful.
Yes, ma’am. Pure joy.
It’s because happiness is totally different from joy. I see that her joy is in him, and that is unshakable.
Nothing changes that.
It means that whatever goes on in her life, she’s going to be okay because when you focus on happiness, it’s based on a circumstance or a situation. I love the fact that you have shared with me how she has found that place of joy that is unshakable.
Yes. Even when she’s undergoing things, she’s joyful. It doesn’t matter what she’s having to face, she’s joyful and to be able to witness God say no. He said no thousands of times to what the world intended for Jessie Boone to death, non-functioning, mute, spastic, paraplegic, and all of that. He kept going, “No, no, no, no.”
He kept speaking life into her even though it was hard to see. He resurrected her in such a way and it was a long resurrection. There were many obstacles, storms, and hardships but we kept taking that right next step, staying in the moment, and keeping our eyes focused on God and saying, “She’s yours. This is yours. We’re just here and we are working hard alongside you to bring forth whatever you are trying to bring forth.”
A couple of things came to mind when you were talking about that. One, I go back to as Jessie is that she epitomizes what true wellness is. We think wellness is about being physically agile, being mentally fit as well but we think that it’s the spiritual realm that you need to strive to achieve, and all the other realms of your life, the financial, the mental, the social come, and follows that path because you’re grounded first in spirit. I love that and that’s where she is.
One thing I want to ask you, and this ran through my mind because a lot of times I think about Joe and what he went through. His wife says, “Why don’t you just curse God and be done with it?” Did it ever occur to you not to curse God, but were you ever angry where you ranted to God and said, “How could you let this happen to my daughter?” It’s because we get into that space.
That song says the rain is falling and we are looking for all those seeds that are going to now sprout up into plants. We were saying before this came on when Denzel Washington said an Equalizer, “When you pray for rain, you had to always be ready for mud as well.” Now, you had the mud that came upon you and you caused your attraction to be like, “What happened to all the beautiful plants and flowers that were supposed to sprout up? Instead, I have all this murky dark mud.” How do I get through this? What did you do in your mind?
I lived that way of staying in the moment but there was one moment. I never got angry at God. I never said, “Why us?” Being a hospice nurse, I recognize that devastation happens to everybody. Why not us? It was an accident but after we had done this great rehabilitation, and then she had this seizure that wouldn’t stop and ended back up in the PICU and the doctor. This was probably 7 or 8 months after her accident.
We went back to the death and it looked like she was going to die. The doctor was saying, “We need to let her go. She doesn’t have the quality of life. Do you know what you’re doing? You shouldn’t ask her to go through this.” I can remember calling the family in because we thought she was going to go and God’s will be done if that’s it but we still had that belief that he was going to restore her.
I remember that morning I woke up and I always would say, “Today is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” That morning was the first morning I went, “I am not.” There was a piece of light coming through the ICU window and it hit my face. I went, “No. I’m done with you, God. I’m done with all of this.” I turned my back to God and I said, “I’m not doing this anymore. This is cruel. This is awful. My poor baby. I’m sick and tired of this. I’m not doing it.”
I probably laid in a fetal position for a few hours before I began to read scripture and to read care pages of prayers that people were speaking. I then found this prayer and it was a scripture that spoke about how much longer, Lord, how much longer. All of a sudden, my spirit began rising and I began to find that hope. Somebody knocked on the door and there was this little lady that came in and brought this one little balloon with a little puppy dog on it, and it said, “With God, all things are possible.” God brought that to me. I rose up and I said, “Let’s do it.” That was the only time I turned my back and said, “I’m done. I quit.”
You’re human. It goes back to Jesus on the cross. When he went to the garden to pray, he wasn’t praying, “Well, God.” He wasn’t smiling. Take this cuff from me. He was saying, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He was crying so hard that it was blood of tears. I want to let you know that it’s not easy and you are human just like he understands that you’re human because he went through that same process with us. I love the fact that you were vulnerable and honest enough to just say, “I did and it’s okay,” but God talked to you and said, “Here’s this balloon that lets you know that it’s possible and I just need you to keep going and trusting me.”
God’s Constant Presence
God speaks to us in so many different tiny little ways. Do we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear? He spoke to me through people, creation, nature, balloons, and flowers. He was speaking the whole time. Life, love, support, and help. He is on this big rescue mission and he sends people to help you when you’re in this crisis. Do you have the eyes to see it?
There’s this song by Lauren Daigle called The Rescue Song. It says, “I will send out an army in the middle of the night. I will rescue you,” and he does. He rescues his people. He has all this great rescue mission but it’s so hard to see it in the darkness. It’s so hard to find it but if you stay in that present moment, and take the next right step, you can see it, you can feel it, and you can receive it to help you be carried through all of that awfulness.
Let’s fast forward a little bit more because I want to let our readers know how is Jessie now. I’m sure they all want to know. They’re all dying to hear. We’ve drawn them on for this time and they want to know how is our Jessie.
She is seventeen years out, which means she’s 31 years old. She works part-time at a home health agency on a computer. She does Excel spreadsheets where she goes in and reviews insurance claims. She shreds documents. She’s been at this job for a few years now. She doesn’t drive because she’s almost blind, but she lives with us. She’s 95% independent in all of her activities of daily living. She’s a beautiful little creature. She’s different than our daughter and that was something else.
When I was searching a few weeks after her accident was there anybody in the world that had both sides of their skull taken off, their right frontal lobe debrided, and had any kind of quality of life, I couldn’t find it, Haseena. I told God that night. I said, “If you restore her, I will write her story for that one person who’s looking in the middle of the night and I did. I finished her book this year. It’s called Severed Sacredness: The Miraculous Journey of Jessie Boone.
This is stories and stories and stories of how God shows up in the darkness so that people can respond to the one that’s devastated and help to be God’s hands and feet in this world. It’s a beautiful book of hope but I kept my promise to God and I wrote his story. I wrote it for that one person who says, “There’s no hope. I don’t have any hope.” It’s not just about a brain injury. It’s about anybody who has any kind of devastation or struggle in their lives. How to find God in your darkness.
How can a person get a copy of that book?
Supporting Others In Devastation
It’s on Amazon.com. You can google ‘severed sacredness.’ I have a website, www.SeveredSacredness.com that you can go on and order it. You can read the first chapter for free. There’s a resource guide in there for the community and how to show up for somebody who’s been devastated in such a way and they don’t know what they need. It’s in a timeline that says 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, and 3 months. A person who says, “How can I help,” can go in and look at that timeline and go, “I can show up with groceries. I can mow their yard. I wonder if they have a pet.” There are all these things that people showed up and provided for us and helped us survive this devastation that we had to endure.
You have summarized exactly how we can help because instead of asking the question, just do it.
Just do it. It doesn’t matter. Just show up and do it.
It’s because there’s so many things going through that person’s mind. You ask them what they need, they don’t know. If you bought them dinner for the night, and as you said, “We are created to be social beings.” You went through that 40 days because you needed a support system. They shared in your pain and they provided you with the things that you needed to keep going as you would.
They fed us for 40 nights.
That’s what it’s all about. We have to learn how to do those things, to serve, and to be socially connected. I thank you for sharing this story because it is a powerful story. I do hope that someone will take hope out of this story and apply it to their lives because you have shown there can be a tragedy but out of that tragedy can still be beautiful, and you can find purpose.
Also, hope. There is always hope. God is always up to something.
God is always up to something. Share on X
Yes, he is and there’s more in store for our Jessie. I know this is not the end, and this is not the end for you either, Lisa. I am so humbled and grateful to be able to have the opportunity to share this story because when I first heard it through a mutual friend of ours, Amanda, she said, “You must talk to Lisa.” I thank her for this referral because you touched my heart in such a way that my sister says to me all the time that what’s amazing is not that I was able to get up. What’s amazing is what happened with Lisa. That’s what’s amazing is that she went through that whole entire trauma.
She’s a new Jessie. She’s not the Jessie that you used to have, but she is the Jessie that God knew and I want to applaud that. You had to get to know that Jessie that God knew because you said she’s not the Jessie that I used to know, but that wasn’t the Jessie that God had planned for us to be able to enjoy and know in this world.
Yes. Thank you so much for letting me share my story with you. I feel so blessed to be able to talk about Jessie and how God is so present to his people. He’s omnipresent and I hope and pray that the one person that I wrote this book for gets it.
What’s the name of the title one more time?
It’s Severed Sacredness.
You can go to the website, SeveredSacredness.com.
Also, on Amazon.com, get the book. Anybody that needs a book, I would be honored to give it to them because usually people who need this book aren’t going to be looking to buy a book. I would love to connect with them as a part of my ministry to support them, share a book with them, and be of help in any way that I can.
Thank you so much, Lisa, for your time.
Thank you, Haseena.
Bye-Bye.
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About Lisa Boone
Lisa Boone is a Certified Hospice and Palliative Registered Nurse, advocate, spiritual director, writer and speaker who brings the light of hope into dark places. Lisa found herself on the other side of the hospital bed, when her fifteen-year-old daughter suffered a devastating traumatic brain injury. She navigated the acute crisis, not as a nurse, spiritual leader or light-bringer but as a grief stricken mother in the darkest of places praying desperately for God’s healing hand to prevail.
