December 2004 Ensign - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...

RIGHT: PHOTOGRAPH BY BUSATH PHOTOGRAPHY; ALL OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF JENSEN FAMILY, EXCEPT AS NOTED
“WasI Always
ThisHappy?” BY AIMEE H. HANSEN
Despite predictions that Emily
Jensen wouldn’t survive her
terrible car accident, today
this young woman lives a full
life and blesses others with her
faith and optimism.
Until her sophomore year of high school, Emily
Anne Jensen was what she terms a “typical
teenager.” But her family and friends say she was
never that. She played basketball and took ballet. She
served in the Church. She worked hard in school and
earned A grades in hopes of someday becoming a doctor.
Emily also devoted much of her time to visiting the
elderly, reaching out to those who were lonely at school,
and volunteering at a camp for children with disabilities.
But everything changed at seven
in the morning on 17 April 1999,
when 16-year-old Emily was driving
to a state high school drama competition
and was broadsided by a
15-passenger van. Rescue workers
arrived on the scene and began to
cut away the top of the mangled car. They expected to extract
only a body, but instead they found Emily, barely alive,
with severe brain trauma and numerous other injuries.
She was in a deep coma, hovering between life and death.
They rushed her to the hospital, expecting the worst.
A few days after the accident, as the reality of Emily’s
condition sank in, Emily’s mother, Terri, dropped to her
knees and begged Heavenly Father to let her daughter live.
Emily’s father, Larry, and sisters also pleaded with the Lord
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