Stef Reid was 15 years old the day that everything changed. What began as a delightful tubing ride ended in a life-threatening accident. Unaware that Stef had fallen off of the tube, the boat driver ran into her as she floated in the water. Stef survived, but her right foot had to be amputated.

This news was shattering for Reid, an athlete who had caught the eye of national rugby coaches.

“I had big dreams and plans, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way,” Reid wrote at CT. “Including God.”

In “Was It Really God’s Perfect Plan to Amputate My Foot?” Reid describes her faith journey in the years since. She became a Paralympian, winning multiple medals across four Games. But she resists the idea that the loss of her foot was “all part of God’s perfect plan.”

“Maybe ‘Is this God’s perfect plan?’ is the wrong question. The accident, the letting go and picking back up of dreams, the big wins and the heavy losses, all of it has taught me that God’s perfect plan is less about the what and more about the who.”