Whole Again

CBN.com -

700 Club co-host Kristi Watts spoke to a woman who thought her life was too legalistic. Her amazing story will inspire you.

Delia Knox: I went from a cane to a walker, into a wheelchair. Lost the use of my legs slowly then immediately regained them again. Then lost them again. I thought God was playing games with my mind. I grew up in the church, but never felt like I knew God at all.

Kristi: Growing up a preacher's kid, Delia saw her childhood as strict and legalistic. She viewed God as a taskmaster and the church as a prison to which she was confined.

Delia: I grew up knowing a God that was sitting on a throne with a belt. Telling us, don't do this, don't do that or you're going to get struck down.

Kristi: Delia hated it all. She rebelled against everything and everyone. She ran away from home, got into drugs and hooked up with the wrong crowd. At first, it was fun. But soon, her season of fun, turned into years of heartache and despair.

Delia: Everybody expected something of me, from me as the pastor's kid, and I failed at it. But I failed at living out in the world, also, because I was out in the world, involved in drugs, running away from home and I attempted suicide, but I failed at it.

Kristi: But it was God who helped Delia see past her failure and see His unfailing love.

Delia: I came to know the Lord as my friend, as my lover, as somebody who is there to embrace me. But it took my parents not being around me, nobody influencing me, but me realizing that this is a choice that I have to make for myself.

Kristi: And for once, she found refuge in the very place she spent her life running away from -- the church.

Delia: If you had told me that my destiny would have been in ministry I would have said, "No!"

Kristi: Delia became a youth minister. And soon thereafter found herself visiting prisons, ministering to kids who were just like her.

Delia: There I was Christmas day. Going to the prison in the morning. Ministering to the inmates.

Kristi: Then when she was driving home to visit her parents, a drunken driver smashed into Delia's car.

Delia: What intended to be a weekend, ended up being eight months that changed my life forever. Where was God? Did I do something wrong? Have I failed you in some way? You start to question everything. Here I am leading the youth, preaching, singing. I had it all together now I'm found with the loss of the use of my legs. I would try to walk, and the feeling of broken glass would be shattering inside my legs, until it would feel like cold fluid running down and then there would be no feeling at all.

Kristi: She felt helpless, hopeless and confused. The only words that kept playing over and over in her mind were those she spoke to her kids in prison.

Delia: Don't let the four walls that surround you control your being with God. You can soar beyond this. That's when I realized that faith goes far beyond what my eyes are seeing. Faith goes far beyond what you're feeling, far beyond what you can imagine.

Kristi: But it was her faith that would be put to the test. During her nine-month hospital stay, Delia started to experience headaches so severe she wanted to die.

Delia: I went to the doctor, the neurologist, and he told me I had a tumor in the back of my head. I was sitting there saying, "What? This can't be happening, I just survived a car accident." I came to the point, I said, "Lord, if you're going to take my life, please take it."

Kristi: But then, God did a miracle.

Delia: The doctor said, "You have good news and you have bad news. Which do you want first?" I said, "Give me the good news." The good news was that I would no longer need the surgery that may leave me in a coma. Then he gave me the bad news. He showed me two MRIs, two extensive x-rays and said to me, "See where the tumor was? It's no longer there." I said, "Praise God."

Kristi: It's been 14 years since her accident on Christmas day. And while she may never walk again, God has replaced her legs with wings to fly. Today, Delia travels all over the world ministering to people through song and worship. The same song God used to lift her up out of despair, she now sings to others, to help them discover the glory of the Lord.

Delia: We can choose life or we can choose death. We can sit there and say, "I don't want to celebrate Christmas, what do we need to celebrate Christ for?" Christ didn't just come to show us the way to get saved. He came to be our friend. He walked on the earth to be our friend. He wants you to talk with him.

Kristi: Recently married, Delia spends her life sharing the goodness and mercy of the Lord through music. She has just released her second album, appropriately titled, "Whole Again."

Delia: I will say this, I found His presence through it all and that had meant more to me than walking. I have learned to walk with Him in a way that I may not have learned with both my legs. I have learned to depend on him.