Having a broken ankle wasn’t on her to-do list. So she refused to believe
it had happened. Landon had carried her from the field out behind
their church to a table by the back doors. There they propped up her foot and
took off her boot as she winced with pain. Quickly they noticed how bad it was.

“Your ankle’s the size of an orange!” Landon said.

Heather gave him an angry look.

“I didn’t know an ankle could get that big!” He obviously didn’t see her
first angry look.

She decided to ignore his comments. “I’m fine,” she insisted. She would
toughen up and deal with it on her own like she always did.

Heather looked up to see that slowly there was a small group of people
gathering around her to see what was going on.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she tried telling people.

Having people worry was the last thing she needed.

“Hey, Landon, can you get me that wheelchair the church has?” she asked. In
her mind this would make people worry about her less since she wouldn’t
just be sitting in one place. Instead, it brought more attention to her.

Finally, Sara, a leader from her church came over and asked her what had
happened. “Heather, what did you do?”

“I’m fine,” Heather once again insisted.

“That ankle doesn’t look fine,” Sara replied.

After multiple attempts to make Sara, believe she was fine—and failing—
Heather gave in and told the story.

She finished with, “I already know what you’re going to say. ‘Go to the
hospital.’” But Heather knew her family didn’t have the money for a hospital visit. Going to the hospital would just make things worse. And it was her fault.

“Heather, you need to go to the hospital, this is serious. I can’t allow
you to stay here. Either you call your mom or I am going to have to call
her.” Sara’s words were firm yet caring at the same time.

That’s when the tears started to come. Not because of the physical pain but
because she knew the financial pain it would cause her family.

“I’m not crying because of the pain, it really doesn’t hurt that much. I
just know that my family doesn’t have money for this, and because I was
careless, I’m going to be a burden on them,” Heather said as she tried to hold in the sobs.

Without a second thought, her friend, Jean, reached into her pockets and
pulled out all the money that was in them. “Heather, take this.”

As Jean placed the money in her hands, Heather was left speechless, she wanted
to turn it away but she knew that she wasn’t in a position to do so. Instead the
tears started to well up again, this time out of happiness.

But it wasn’t only Jean that handed Heather money. Her other friends joined
in. They started pulling out all the money in their pockets and handing it
to her. Teenagers. Teenagers that had no jobs. This was all that they had,
and they were giving it to her. Slowly Heather built up the courage to call
her mom.

To her surprise, and relief, her mom was much more concerned with her
wellbeing.

“Don’t worry about the money, Heather. We just need to make sure that
you’re OK and that nothing is broken.”

In that moment, Heather realized how God will provide, God will never
abandon her. Ever.