Published: September 12, 2008 11:10 pm            

Miracle couple: Prayer brings future husband to accident victim

SEWARD — James and Tracey Kensinger of Seward are living life one miracle at a time.

Tracey, 40, sadly made headlines 20 years ago when she became a quadriplegic after a horrific auto accident.

The first miracle was that she survived.

Then Tracey Colson, she was on her way home to Leesburg, Va., from work in suburban Washington, D.C., when she and a passenger were thrown from her vehicle in a collision with merging traffic.

“She was pronounced dead at the scene,” said her husband, James, who has known Tracey only in a wheelchair. “We believe that God brought her spirit back into her body when the paramedics used a trach tube.”

The second miracle is James himself and how he came into Tracey’s life.

The couple met in 1993 at the home of Tracey’s mother in Seward.

James, 55, was a volunteer for New Day Inc., and the family had requested someone to visit and pray with Tracey.

James came, along with another volunteer, Frank Young.

They not only prayed for Tracey and her medical condition, they also prayed for her sister, Tina Brendlinger, who had suffered a brain stem injury in an auto accident near Dilltown 18 months earlier.

“A couple weeks later, Tracey was in Lee Hospital, and her aunt asked me to talk with her and comfort her,” James said.

“I asked Tracey if I could visit and pray, and a relationship materialized. I hadn’t thought about getting involved. After the first visit, I thought that was all it would be.”

James was going through a tough time himself and found Tracey was more of a help to him than he was to her.

“What drew me was her compassion,” James said. “I needed something. I knew the Lord was my savior, but I was on the fence. The Lord helped me through her.”

The Kensingers want to tell the story of how God has been with them in their situation from the beginning through a book to be written by local author Betty Rosian and edited by the Rev. Noah Martin, founder of New Day.

They received the help they needed through an announcement they placed in the bulletin at Tire Hill Church of the Brethren, where they are members.

The idea for the book came about when Tracey asked her husband “What is my purpose?”

Tracey said it will be a testimony rather than a book. They will give it out to minister to others at no profit.

Before coming to New Day, James was addicted to drugs and alcohol and serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution-Ashland in Kentucky.

Four months before his release, he spent 90 days “in the hole” for trying to kill another inmate.

In spite of facing possible attempted murder charges and because of his grandmother’s faithful prayers, James had a salvation experience in prison and is now a licensed minister in the Church of the Brethren.

“Going to jail saved me,” James said. “I had to get away to look at myself.”

After being released from prison in 1997, James returned to the area and received emotional support from Martin and Daryl “Doc” Dawson, also from New Day.

“There was a cause for why I was in and out of jail, something that led me to do the things I did,” James said. “Doc and Noah brought me healing. I never would have met Tracey without them. The Lord brought us together.”

James now has a jail ministry at Somerset County Prison and is studying to become an ordained minister.

This summer, he has been preaching in Purchase Line at Montgomery Church of the Brethren.

Several weeks before James’ first visit, Tracey had prayed and asked God to send her some happiness. James was the answer.

As they got to know each other, James and Tracey went out to dinner and the movies like any other dating couple.

James also learned about Tracey’s condition and the exercises and physical therapy he would have to perform every day if the relationship were to go on to the commitment of marriage.

“I’ll be honest,” James said. “I knew when I proposed, it would be an experience to marry Tracey. I knew my patience and understanding would be tried, but we both stepped out in faith.”

They were married Oct. 15, 1994, at Seward United Methodist Church, where Tracey was a member.

“It started out as a friendship and he grew on me,” Tracey said through the help of two diaphragmatic pacemakers that allow her to speak and breathe without a ventilator.

James said he had to learn to calm down and pace himself as he cares for Tracey and their home and goes to work.

“We can laugh at ourselves,” said Tracey, an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

“Life is too short to take seriously,” James added. “We fight over the M&Ms.”

Tracey had her second near-death experience and her third miracle before she met James, when she was still on a ventilator.

Tracey had diaphragmatic pacemakers surgically implanted at a Cleveland hospital in 1990.

“It was in Cleveland,” Tracey said. “Sometimes the ventilator popped off, and I couldn’t breathe.”

The pacemakers, which run on 9-volt batteries, are only successful with two out of 100 patients, James said.

Another part of the third miracle: Tracey’s spinal cord injury involves the C1 and C2 vertebrae at the top of her neck, which weren’t severed in the accident, but stretched about a centimeter.

“I’m lucky I can hold my head up,” Tracey said. “And I’m thankful every day that my kidneys work.”

The Kensingers have much to be thankful for:

• Attendants and nurses who come to care for Tracey so James can go to work at Eat’n Park in Indiana.

• A home that has been remodeled to allow room for Tracey’s wheelchair, with a 15-second delay on the front door so Tracey can get out if James isn’t there.

• A handicapped van to transport Tracey.

• And Cosmo, a 17-pound long-haired Chihuahua, whom Tracey calls “supersized.”

They’ve had Cosmo for five years, and he is so protective of Tracey that ominous “Beware of Dog” signs had to be posted in the Kensinger’s yard.

It’s amazing Tracey has survived this long as a quadriplegic.

“I’ve only been in the hospital three times in the last 15 years,” Tracey said. “I thank God I didn’t have to go to a home. I wouldn’t have met Jimmy, and I’d be gone.

“My doctors gave me six months to a year to live,” she said.

In a world that laments when going through much less, the Kensingers praise God through their seemingly insurmountable storms.

“We’re thankful for the storms,” James said, “but we have to weather them. We can be in the storm and have peace. We can’t allow the storm to control us. We are the clay, and Christ molds us.”

        

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