COWBOY TESTIMONIES
ELY GANZER
I was raised in a Christian home and on July 29, 1990 at the young age of 8½, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. This solid foundation has kept me standing as I have gone through the hills and valleys of life.
The day after my 17th birthday, two friends and I were going to a bull riding in Odessa, Texas. Eight hours later, we found ourselves upside down in a ditch, the result of a bad automobile accident! I soon found out that I had life threatening injuries... I had crushed my C1 vertebrae. I was left strapped to a backboard with my head securely braced for approximately 18 hours due to two life-care flights, x-rays and all kinds of testing, and the fear that just moving me or transferring me could kill me.
Once I survived all that, the test results came back and the diagnosis was grim. Due to the severity of the break, no surgery could be done. The Doctor's planned treatment was for me to be a minimum of six to eight months in a halo-vest attachment with some physical therapy... and maybe then they could do surgery.
But by the grace of God, after a couple of weeks in traction, (with the halo attached to 35 lb weights) the doctors told me the vertebrae had been pulled back to God's original design, and surgery was now an option! Instead of six to eight months later, I was headed home on day twenty-five!
The next several months I learned to be still, and how to listen and wait on the Lord. And when He let me know it was time, (about four months after my accident) I was crawling on the back of my first bull!
During my senior year of high school, Odessa College offered me a scholarship. Going off to a college away from home, and finding myself in a world all on my own, it didn't take long before worldly temptations got to me. After about two years, I found myself asking God to get me out of the mess I had put myself in. It wasn't long after that, a good friend got me back into church. The first time I went, I met the most beautiful girl God ever created, and three years later she married me!
Experiences have taught me that through all of life's ups and downs, God is always there. Everyday, instead of making my life all about me, I now wake up and say, "What do You have planned for me today God? Here I am, use me!"
